Cooperative behavior and common pool resources: experimental evidence from community forest user groups in Nepal

Randall Bluffstone, Astrid Dannenberg, Peter Martinsson, Prakash Jha and Rjesh Bista

No 7323, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper examines whether cooperative behavior by respondents measured as contributions in a one-shot public goods game correlates with reported pro-forest collective action behaviors. All the outcomes analyzed are costly in terms of time, land, or money. The study finds significant evidence that more cooperative individuals (or those who believe their group members will cooperate) engage in collective action behaviors that support common forests, once the analysis is adjusted for demographic factors, wealth, and location. Those who contribute more in the public goods experiment are found to be more likely to have planted trees in community forests during the previous month and to have invested in biogas. They also have planted more trees on their own farms and spent more time monitoring community forests. As cooperation appears to be highly conditional on beliefs about others? cooperation, these results suggest that policies to support cooperation and strengthen local governance could be important for collective action and economic outcomes associated with forest resources. As forest management and quality in developing countries is particularly important for climate change policy, these results suggest that international efforts such as the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation should pay particular attention to supporting governance and cooperation at the local level.

Keywords: Common Property Resource Development; Forestry Management; Wildlife Resources; Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases; Environmental Economics&Policies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-cbe, nep-cdm, nep-env, nep-exp and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSC ... 0groups0in0Nepal.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Cooperative behavior and common pool resources: Experimental evidence from community forest user groups in Nepal (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7323

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().