How Do Game Design, Gender, and Players’ Backgrounds Affect Behavior in Framed Field Experiments? Evidence from Community Forestry in India

Abstract

Framed field experiments (experimental games) are widely used to assess factors affecting cooperation in management of the commons. However, there is relatively little attention to how details of the games affect experimental results. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative results from a framed field experiment in which participants make decisions about extraction of a common-pool resource, a community forest. The experiment was conducted in 2017-2018 with 120 groups of resource users (split by gender) from 60 habitations in two Indian states, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. We test whether within-subject treatments (non-communication, communication, and optional election of institutional arrangements (rules)), remuneration methods, and design of the game board affect harvest behavior and groups' tendency to cooperate. We also examine how characteristics of the community and players affect players' choices in the game, with special attention to gender differences. Results reveal participants harvested substantially less than the Nash prediction even in the absence of communication, with men extracting less than women in both states. For male groups in both states, both communication and optional rule election were associated with lower group harvest per round, as compared to the reference non-communication game. For female groups in both states communication itself did not significantly slow resource depletion; but introduction of optional rule election did reduce harvest amounts. For both men and women in Andhra Pradesh and men in Rajasthan, incentivized payments to individual participants significantly lowered group harvest, relative to community flat payment, suggesting such payments stimulated deliberation among game players. Findings have methodological and practical implications for designing behavioral intervention programs to improve common-pool resource governance.

Essential Ecosystem Area Policies as a Means to Promote Participatory and Inclusive Conservation in Forest Landscape Governance: Centering Perspectives of Marginalized Women in Taman Kili-Kili, Indonesia

“…It consists of a major turtle breeding site, so this park is also referred to as the Turtle Conservation Park, providing the site pretense for establishing an EEA. The field data shows that women and men access forests differently because of their interests and roles, individually and socially, which is also described by Zhang et al (2022). That difference is seen in the record of the visualization of the existence of men and women in Taman Kili-Kili.…”

Getting Ahead of the Game: Experiential Learning for Groundwater Governance in Ethiopia

“…The importance and effectiveness of self-governance and community-level institutions and collective action for the sustainability of natural resources is well known (Ostrom, 1990;2000). Yet limited awareness of resource dynamics and lack of user cooperation contribute to resource overuse and degradation (Zhang et al, 2022). Understanding the biophysical and systems' characteristics of natural resources, the social dilemmas in common-pool resource (CPR) management, and the need for shared solutions are important steps that allow communities to embark on forming institutions for regulating resource use and effectively addressing governance challenges.…”