Suchergebnisse

El efecto potencial de la densidad de la población sobre los recursos naturales escasos ha estado presente desde el principio de los debates ambientales y de los recursos naturales. El papel de la desigualdad en esta relación se ha estudiado menos. Este artículo propone que mejores distribuciones de la tierra pueden disminuir el efecto de la presión de población sobre la degradación de la tierra, principalmente cambiando el uso del trabajo y proporcionando los incentivos para prácticas agrícolas y uso de la tierra más sostenibles. Usando tecnologías GIS y datos para más de 100 veredas en la región de Boyacá (Colombia), los resultados econométricos apoyan la proposición de que bajo mejor distribución de la tierra, el efecto de la densidad de la población sobre la degradación de la tierra es más pequeño. Palabras clave: población, agricultura sostenible, uso de la tierra, degradación de la tierra, desigualdad.

The study of collective action requires an understanding of the individual incentives and of the institutional constraints that guide people in making choices about cooperating or defecting on the group facing the dilemma. The use of local ecosystems by groups of individuals is just one example where individual extraction increases well-being, but aggregate extraction decreases it. The use of economic experiments has enhanced the already diverse knowledge from theoretical and field sources of when and how groups can solve the problem through self-governing mechanisms. These studies have identified several factors that promote and limit collective action, associated with the nature of the production system that allows groups to benefit from a joint-access local ecosystem, and associated with the institutional incentives and constraints from both self-governed and externally imposed rules. In general, there is widespread agreement that cooperation can happen and be chosen by individuals as a rational strategy, beyond the "tragedy of the commons" prediction. A first step in this paper is to propose a set of layers of information that the individuals might be using to decide over their level of cooperation. The layers range from the material incentives that the specific production function imposes, to the dynamics of the game, to the composition of the group and the individual characteristics of the player. We next expand the experimental literature by analyzing data from a set of experiments conducted in the field with actual ecosystem users in three rural villages of Colombia using this framework. We find that repetition brings reciprocity motives into the decision making. Further, prior experience of the participants, their perception of external regulation, or the composition of the group in terms of their wealth and social position in the village, influence decisions to cooperate or defect in the experiment. The results suggest that understanding the multiple levels of the game, in terms of the incentives, the group and individual characteristics or the context, can help understand and therefore explore the potentials for solving the collective-action dilemma. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; Environment and Natural Resource Management; CAPRi ; EPTD

Regulations that are designed to improve social welfare typically begin with the premise that individuals are purely self-interested. Experimental evidence shows, however, that individuals do not typically behave this way; instead, they tend to strike a balance between self and group interests. From experiments performed in rural Colombia, the authors found that a regulatory solution for an environmental dilemma that standard theory predicts would improve social welfare clearly did not. (DSE/DÜI)