The Tragedy of the Commons: a Theoretical-Experimental Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37467/gka-revsocial.v1.1221Keywords:
Tragedy of the Commons, Cooperation, Altruism, Game Theory, Renewable ResourcesAbstract
The exhaustion of natural resources is partly due to natural causes but is also a result of human activity. The effects of human activity depend on the type of natural resource, especially the management of biological populations. If there is free access to the resource, rivalry can to rise. For renewable resources, the rate of use or harvest must not exceed the regeneration rate, but individual rationality leads to over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, each of which is motivated to maximize his own use of the resource, while the costs of overexploitation are distributed between all those to whom the resource is available: it's the "Tragedy of the Commons". Prisoner's Dilemma does not to capture all the characteristics of the "Tragedy of the Commons" of renewable resources, especially the progressive scarcity of the resource, and the interaction among several people. We study in the frame of game theory laboratory experiments the "Tragedy of the Commons", to explain people behaviour in this context.
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