The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus), while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts.
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TI - The mixed impacts of peer punishments on common-pool resources: Multi-country experimental evidence
AU - Angelsen, A.
AU - Naime, J.
AB - The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus), while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts.
PY - 2024
UR - https://www.cifor-icraf.org/knowledge/publication/9207/
DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106686
KW - climate change, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem services, mitigation
ER -Endnote (.ciw)
%T The mixed impacts of peer punishments on common-pool resources: Multi-country experimental evidence
%A Angelsen, A.
%A Naime, J.
%D 2024
%U https://www.cifor-icraf.org/knowledge/publication/9207/
%R https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106686
%X The conservation of common-pool resources (CPRs), such as tropical forests, is a key challenge of development and environmental policies. Peer sanctioning of excessive resource use increases the cost of free riding and may be an effective way to ensure sustainable management of CPRs, but it entails individual costs to punishers. This paper examines peer punishment patterns and impacts in a cross-country framed field experiment (FFE) with homogeneous and heterogenous agents. The FFE is conducted with 720 forest users in Brazil, Indonesia, and Peru. We first examine the relationship between the appropriation of the common-pool resource (first order cooperation) and peer punishment choices (second order cooperation), distinguishing between prosocial and antisocial punishment. A small share (18.2%) of the participants behaves as self-interested payoff maximisers (homo economicus), while the largest group (26.1%) cooperates in both the appropriation and punishment decisions (homo reciprocans). Across countries, receiving prosocial punishment, defined as punishment of free riders, increases cooperation, while receiving antisocial punishment reduces cooperation. There are, however, important inter-country variations. In Indonesia, the marginal costs of non-cooperation are higher than in the Brazilian and Peruvian sites, and agent heterogeneity significantly increases peer punishment frequency. We conjecture that the higher punishment frequency in Indonesia is linked to stronger equality norms and a willingness to enforce them. Although peer punishment boosts cooperation across all our study sites, the research highlights how peer punishment patterns and impacts are linked to the institutional and cultural contexts.
%K climate change
%K conservation
%K deforestation
%K ecosystem services
%K mitigation
Publication year
2024
ISSN
0305-750X
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
climate change, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem services, mitigation
Source
World Development. 181: 106686
