Real wealth and experimental cooperation: experiments in the field lab

This paper explores how wealth and inequality can affect self-governed solutions to commons dilemmas by constraining group cooperation. It reports a series of experiments in the field where subjects are actual commons users. Household data about the participants' context explain statistically t...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Journal of development economics 2003-04, Vol.70 (2), p.263-289
1. Verfasser: Cardenas, Juan-Camilo
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:This paper explores how wealth and inequality can affect self-governed solutions to commons dilemmas by constraining group cooperation. It reports a series of experiments in the field where subjects are actual commons users. Household data about the participants' context explain statistically the usually observed wide variation found within and across groups in similar experiments. Participants' wealth and inequality reduced cooperation when groups were allowed to have face-to-face communication between rounds. There are implications for a greater awareness of nonpayoff asymmetries affecting cooperation in heterogeneous groups, apart from heterogeneity in the payoffs structure of the game.
ISSN:0304-3878
1872-6089
DOI:10.1016/S0304-3878(02)00098-6