An intergenerational common pool resource experiment [An article from: Journal of Environmental Economics and Management]

This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, published by Elsevier in 2004. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Many renewable resources are in intergenerational common pools, exploited by one generation after another. In our experiment, the stock available to each generation depends on the extent of exploitation by previous generations and on resource's growth rate, which is either ''slow'' or ''fast.'' Subjects show altruistic restraint in exploitation, but not enough to achieve the social optimum. The presence of an intergenerational link induces subjects-both in ''slow'' and in ''fast''-to expect less resource exploitation from each other than subjects expect in a single generation control. On average, expectations are too optimistic, especially in ''slow,'' where intended free-riding behavior is predominant.