A main research focus in many Social Dilemma Games is the suitability of external institutional treatments in inducing socially optimal outcomes. It is likely that participating subjects exhibit unobserved heterogeneity in their reaction to these treatments. This type of “institutional...

We examine individual harvesters’ preferences for government enforcement of a quota imposed on the exploitation of a common pool resource. We develop a model of Nash behavior by identical risk neutral harvesters to explain individual equilibrium preferences for enforcement of an efficient...

Two important design elements for emission trading programs are whether and to what extent firms are able to bank emissions permits, and how these programs are to be enforced. In this paper we present results from laboratory emissions markets designed to investigate enforcement and compliance...

This paper presents the results from a series of framed field experiments conducted in fishing communities off the Caribbean coast of Colombia. The goal is to investigate the relative effectiveness of exogenous regulatory pressure and pro-social emotions in promoting cooperative behavior in a...

This study examines the performance of stable cooperative coalitions that form to provide a public good when coalition members have the opportunity to violate their commitments. A stable coalition is one in which no member wishes to leave and no non-member wishes to join. To counteract the...

This article uses experimental data to test for a complementary relationship between formal regulations imposed on a community to conserve a local natural resource and non-binding verbal agreements to do the same. Our experiments were conducted in the field in three regions of Colombia. Our...

This paper uses laboratory experiments to investigate the performance of emission permit markets when compliance is imperfectly enforced. In particular we examine deviations in observed aggregate payoffs and expected penalties from those derived from a model of risk-neutral payoff-maximizing...

We present results from laboratory emissions markets designed to investigate the effects of price controls and permit banking on limiting permit price risk. While both instruments reduce between-period price volatility and within-period price dispersion, combining price controls and permit...

In rural economies with missing or incomplete markets, idiosyncratic risk is frequently pooled through informal networks. Idiosyncratic shocks, however, are not limited to private goods but can also restrict an individual from partaking in or benefitting from a collective activity. In these...