CiteULike: hardins no-tag

Human Motivation and Social Cooperation: Experimental and Analytical Foundations

Ernst Fehr — 2008-03-24T21:17:20-00:00

Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 33, No. 1. (2007), pp. 43-64.

Abstract Since Durkheim, sociological explanations of social cooperation have emphasized the internalization of values that induce norm compliance. Since Adam Smith, economic explanations of social cooperation have emphasized incentives that induce selfish individuals to cooperate. Here, we develop a general approach--the Beliefs, Preferences, and Constraints approach--showing that each of the above models is a special case. Our approach is based on evidence indicating that pure Homo Sociologicus and pure Homo Economicus views are wrong. We show that self-regarding and norm-regarding actors coexist and that the available action opportunities determine which of these actor types dominates the aggregate level of social cooperation. Our approach contributes to the solution of long-standing problems, including the problems of social order and collective action, the determinants and consequences of social exchanges, the microfoundations of emergent aggregate patterns of social interactions, and the measurement of the impact of cultural and economic practices on individuals' social goals.

Coping with Asymmetries in the Commons: Self-Governing Irrigation Systems Can Work

Elinor Ostrom — 2008-03-24T21:15:20-00:00

The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 7, No. 4. (1993), pp. 93-112.

Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms

Elinor Ostrom — 2007-05-19T08:27:59-00:00

The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 14, No. 3. (2000), pp. 137-158.

Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity

Ernst Fehr — 2006-09-19T14:25:07-00:00

The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 14, No. 3. (2000), pp. 159-181.

BEHAVIOR: Punishment and Cooperation

Herbert Gintis — 2008-03-10T22:22:22-00:00

Science, Vol. 319, No. 5868. (7 March 2008), pp. 1345-1346.

10.1126/science.1155333

The Role of Rivalry: Public Goods Versus Common-Pool Resources

Jose Apesteguia — 2006-09-07T10:59:09-00:00

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 50, No. 5. (1 October 2006), pp. 646-663.

Despite a large theoretical and empirical literature on public goods and common-pool resources, a systematic comparison of these two types of social dilemmas is lacking. In fact, there is some confusion about these two types of dilemma situations. As a result, they are often treated alike. In line with the theoretical literature, the authors argue that the degree of rivalry is the fundamental difference between the two games. Furthermore, they experimentally study behavior in a quadratic public good and a quadratic common-pool resource game with identical Pareto-optimum but divergent interior Nash equilibria. The results show that participants clearly perceive the differences in rivalry. Aggregate behavior in both games starts relatively close to Pareto efficiency and converges quickly to the respective Nash equilibrium. 10.1177/0022002706290433

Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods. I. Resources, Interest, Group Size, and the Free-Rider Problem

Gerald Marwell — 2008-03-11T01:37:09-00:00

The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 84, No. 6. (1979), pp. 1335-1360.

For an experiment on the problem of collective action, randomly selected high school students were randomly assigned to groups which were confronted with an investment opportunity. Each subject could invest resources provided by the experimenter in either a private good, which returned a fixed amount of money to the individual per token invested, or a public good. The public good returned money to the group and, beyond a given provision point, returned much more money per token invested than did the private good. All money from the public good was divided according to a present formula. Thus, subjects could "free ride" on the public good, if other group members invested in it, by taking their share of it and keeping their own resources for themselves. Groups were randomly designated as either large or small, and unequal or equal in the distribution of interest and of resources within the group. Results indicate that the effects of free riding were much weaker than would be predicted from most economic theory. As predicted from the theory, however, small groups containing an individual whose interest in the public good exceeded the cost of its provision (i.e., small, unequal-interest groups) invested more in the public good than any other type of group. No additional significant effects of group size or interest or resource distribution were found.

Experiments on the Provision of Public Goods. II. Provision Points, Stakes, Experience, and the Free-Rider Problem

Gerald Marwell — 2008-03-11T01:30:34-00:00

The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 85, No. 4. (1980), pp. 926-937.

Our recent experimental research called into question the predictive utility of the free-rider hypothesis regarding the provision of public goods by groups. However, several critical questions regarding the generality of the findings may be raised. This paper reports three systematic replications of the previous research which deal with the most pressing of these questions. Study I shows that the presence of a "provision point" in the payoff structure does not substantially affect the results. Study II indicates that a fivefold increase in the amount of money at stake in the relevant decision does affect behavior but not sufficiently to salvage a strong version of the free-rider hypothesis. Study III shows that experienced subjects do not behave very differently from inexperienced ones in this situation.