Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/74810 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
Nota di Lavoro No. 36.2013
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
Real world observations suggest that social norms of cooperation can be effective in overcoming social dilemmas such as the joint management of a common pool resource - but also that they can be subject to slow erosion and sudden collapse. We show that these patterns of erosion and collapse emerge endogenously in a model of a closed community harvesting a renewable natural resource in which individual agents face the temptation to overexploit the resource, while a cooperative harvesting norm spreads through the community via interpersonal relations. We analyze under what circumstances small changes in key parameters (including the size of the community, and the rate of technological progress) trigger catastrophic transitions from relatively high levels of cooperation to widespread norm violation - causing the social-ecological system to collapse.
Subjects: 
Social Norms
Common Pool Resource
Co-Evolution
Resilience
Alternative Stable States
JEL: 
C73
D62
D64
Q20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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