Browsing by Author "Blanco, Esther"

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11

Costly Communication and Cooperation in a Changing Water Common Pool
(2011) Villamayor Tomás, Sergio; López, Maria Claudia; Blanco, Esther
"It is well known among researchers that communication between users in CPRs facilitates cooperation and self-regulation of the resource use. It is less well known under which circumstances such communication can emerge and effectively contribute to cooperation. This paper studies (1) whether the size of a CPR has an effect on the provision of voluntary costly communication, and (2) whether different ways to provide costly communication affect the relationship between communication and cooperation. For this purpose, the paper presents the results of a series of field experiments in rural Colombia comparing two costly communication treatments against a non-communication baseline in scenarios of different sizes of the CPR. The costly communication treatments differ in the way communication is provided. In the "public communication" treatment, communication is provided to all users if a threshold of indvidual and flexible contributions is reached. In the 'private communication' treatment, communication is allowed only to users who pay a fix communication fee. There is not a clear relationship between changes in the size of the CPR and individual contributions to the provision of communication in any of the communication treatments. Most impontantly, however, the 'public communication' treatment can result in a significant increase of cooperative behavior with regard to a non-communication situation, regardless of changes in the size of the CPR, which is not the case of the 'private communication treatment'."
Does Water Scarcity Lead to Overuse? Evidence from Field Experiments
(2011) Blanco, Esther; Lopez, Maria Claudia; Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio
"This paper presents the results from economic field experiments that aim to explore the behavioral responses of socio-economic agents to exogenous changes in resource availability. Subjects in the experiment are rural water users in Colombia that participated in a common pool resource (CPR) experiment in which the levels of the resource vary along the different stages of the game. In the first stage of the experiment all subjects played a baseline experiment with a high level of resource availability. In the second and third stages, the experimentalists exogenously changed the resource size. The results suggest that users take some time to reduce their extractions at stages where the size of the decreases moderately, but immediately extract more when the resource decreases to a size in which they can fully deplete it. Also, we show that experiencing a decrease in the size of the resource can accentuate rent-seeking behavior once the size of the resource rebounds. Lastly, we observe that the behavior of subjects at the specific rounds where the size of the CPR changes is mostly conditioned by whether the subjects have experienced a similar shock previously in the game."
Does Water Scarcity Lead to Overuse? Evidence from Field Experiments
(2011) Blanco, Esther; López, Maria Claudia; Villamayor Tomás, Sergio
"The increased variability in rainfall patterns due to external shocks such as climate change can lead to different adaptive actions by socio-economic agents. This paper presents the results from an economic field experiment aiming to explore the responses of rural water users in Colombia to exogenous changes in the availability of water resources. Subjects participated in a within-subjects common pool resources experiment with different levels of the resource along the game. In the first stage of the experiment all subjects played in a baseline with a high level of the resource. In the second and third stage the experimentalists exogenously changed the resource available from the baseline treatment. Our results suggest that users extract more when the level of the resource is low enough for them to fully deplete it."
Dynamic Approach to Voluntary Environmental Contributions in Tourism
(2009) Lozano, Javier; Blanco, Esther; Rey-Maquieira, Javier
"In an evolutionary game-theoretical model of tourism firms that use an endogenous natural Common Pool Resource (CPR) we show that stable equilibria with voluntary environmental initiatives may coexist with other equilibria where voluntary abatement is absent. The basins of attraction of the equilibria are identified and a bifurcation analysis is carried out producing two results with policy implications. First, there is a highly non-linear relationship between the cost of abatement required to be green and the share of green firms. Second, increases in the number of the CPR's users will ultimately dissipate the incentives to make abatement beyond regulation."
Dynamic Approach to Voluntary Environmental Contributions: Unilateral Commitments and Ecolabels in Tourism
(2008) Lozano, Javier; Blanco, Esther; Rey-Maquieira, Javier
From p. 2: "In this paper, we build on some of the theoretical foundations of the latter to develop a model of voluntary environmental initiatives by tourism users of a natural common-pool resource (CPR), which are an increasingly relevant reality, according to empirical studies. Our primary interest is to model the changes in incentives to undertake environmental contributions by CPR-using tourism firms when an ecolabel is introduced, that is, when an institutional change based on the voluntary adherence of firms is implemented."
An Economic and Institutional Approach to the Use of Natural Common-Pool Resources by the Tourism Industry
(2008) Blanco, Esther
"The analysis of the management of natural resources has traditionally been based on the assumption that agents are free-riders. Under this assumption there is no scope for voluntary environmental initiatives, and public intervention or privatization is considered necessary to prevent overexploitation of resources. This approach contrasts with a body of literature on management of natural resources showing that voluntary environmental action is a theoretical possibility and empirical reality. This thesis analyzes the incentives to undertake voluntary environmental initiatives by the users of common-pool resources in tourism, and how changes in the institutional setting affect these incentives. The conceptual framework is based on the 'Institutional Analysis and Development Framework', which guides the development of a family of tightly related analytical game theory models. First, a baseline model is developed in which firms make use of a natural resource under open access, and where they can mitigate their environmental impacts through voluntary unilateral commitments. Voluntary initiatives are costly, but given the market conditions they enable firms to charge price premiums. Building on this baseline model we analyze the effect on firms environmental behavior of institutional change in form of non-binding norms of behavior, the introduction of an environmental standard through regulation, the existence of corruption, the existence of non-regulated firms, and the creation of an ecolabel of voluntary adhesion. We also consider the effect on the incentives of firms behavior of potential heterogeneity of firms as well as the natural resource dynamics." "El analisis de la gestion de recursos naturales se ha basado tradicionalmente en el supuesto de que los agentes son 'free-riders.' Bajo este supuesto no hay cabida paralas iniciativas ambientales voluntarias y la intervension publica se considera imprescindible paraevitar la sobreexpotacion de los recursos. Este planteamiento choca con un cuerpo de literatura sobre destion de recursos naturales que muestra la accion ambiental voluntaria como una posibilidad teorica y una realidad empirica. Esta tesis analiza los incentivos de las empresas turisticas que usan recursos de libre acceso a desarrollar iniciativas ambientales voluntarias y como estos incentivos se ven afectados por cambios institucionales. El marco conceptual se fundamenta en el 'Institutional Analysis and Development Framework' (IAD), que orienta el desarrollo analitico de una familia de modelos de teoria de juegos estrechamente ligados. En primer lugar se desarrolla un modelo base en el que las empresas usan un recurso natural de libre acceso y pueden mitigar sus impactos mediante decisiones unilaterales voluntarias. Las iniciativas voluntarias son costosas, pero dadas las condiciones de mercado permiten a las empresas cargar primas de precio. Sobre este modelo de partida planteamos cambios institutionales en forma de introduccion de normas de comportamiento no vinculantes, implantacion de un estandar ambiental mediante regulacion, existencia de corrupcion, empresas no reguladas y la creacion de una etiqueta verde de voluntaria adhesion. Consideramos tambien el efecto sobre los incentivos de conportamiento derivados de la potencial heterogeneidad de las empresas asi como de la dinamica del recurso natural."
An Evolutionary Approach to Wildlife Damage of Economic Activity
(2011) Blanco, Esther; Lozano, Javier
"This paper models the effects of wildlife conservation on a community of farmers living in the surroundings of a national park. Community members undertake not only traditional farming activities, but also defensive hunting. In later versions of the manuscript some farmers will complement their earnings with eco-tourism activities. The park authority obtains some revenues from eco-tourism activities and can share part of these earnings with community members. Traditional conflict on carnivores’ predation on livestock is still present, but will be modified in those cases where farmers extract additional rents from tourism activities or where the park agency shares part of its income. Traditional farmers hunt carnivores to reduce their loss of livestock. Using and evolutionary economics approach, we explore existence and stability conditions of equilibria in the system, showing that new stable equilibria where wildlife is more highly valued emerge when benefit-sharing policies take place. It is to be seen if this effect is maintained for eco-tourism activities. In addition, benefit-sharing policies entail higher levels of wildlife conservation."
An Experimental Study for Environmental Fundraising in Majorca, Spain
(2010) López, Maria Claudia; Blanco, Esther; Coleman, Eric A.
"This paper tests the effectiveness of different institutions to fundraise for environmental projects at tourist destinations. We conduct a series of experiments with tourists visiting the Island of Majorca, Spain, and test the fundraising capacity of a voluntary donation scheme, two tax levels, and a matching instrument. Majorca is a major international tourism destination, but tourism activities continue to stress the natural environment making the destination less attractive. This is a common phenomenon in mature tourism destinations. In response, many destinations invest in projects to prevent environmental degradation or for environmental remediation. These projects are traditionally financed by means of public investment, with a consequent tax burden to residents. The most common alternative to fund environmental projects is shifting the tax burden to tourists through tourist-targeted taxation schemes. More recently, programs to gather voluntary donations from tourists have been implemented. In one treatment of our experiment, tourists are given the opportunity to make a voluntary donation to the local environmental organization involved in such projects. In high tax and low tax treatment, tourists are taxed some proportion of their initial endowment and then decide on their level of voluntary contributions from their remaining endowment. In a final treatment, the experimenters match, one-for-one, any voluntary donations. We test the crowding-out hypothesis of taxes over voluntary environmental donations and find imperfect crowding-out (from 60 to 65 percent for different tax levels). Finally, we explore potential crowding-in of matching instruments (widely used in non-tourism settings for fundraising campaigns), but do not find any support for the capacity of matching contributions to increase the level of donations. Because of imperfect crowding-out it may be reasonable to use voluntary donation programs and tourism taxes complementarily (instead of independently, as has been done in Majorca), to increase fundraising for environmental purposes."
Open Access and External Regulation of Recreational Common Pool Resources
(2008) Blanco, Esther; Lozano, Javier; Maquieira, Javier Rey
"This paper presents a game theoretic model of a tourism destination producing nature-based tourism services. Natural resources are used by the tourism industry both as input factors for production and amenities being part of the tourism product. The model captures this complexity and demonstrates that for the open access situation nontragedy equilibria are achievable for certain value of parameters. Public intervention is shown to be capable of improving resulting environmental quality when sufficiently enforced. However, public intervention can also result in lower environmental quality in the equilibrium due to crowding-out of motivation for voluntary initiatives, imperfect monitoring, corruption or the existence of unregulated firms. Thus, the model is a first contribution to analyze implications of different institutional designs on the economic incentives to undertake environmental initiatives by tourism firms."
Reducing Strategic Uncertainty Increases Group Protection in Collective Risk Social Dilemmas
(2024) Steimanis, Ivo; Struwe, Natalie; Benda, Julian; Blanco, Esther
"Interrelated global crises - climate change, pandemics, loss of ecosystem services and biodiversity - pose risks that demand collective solutions. The dependence on some to take collective efforts to reduce risks for all (e.g., rural landholders flooding their land to reduce vulnerability to flooding in densely populated, urban areas downstream; or conservation of natural habitats by those living at wildlife boarders to reduce risk of zoonoses) coupled with the uncertainty about others' behavior complicates collective action. We extend the experimental collective risk social dilemma to consider that some individuals ('beneficiaries') cannot protect themselves and must rely on others ('providers') for collective protection. Our approach allows to disentangle the relevance of self-interest and uncertainty over the actions of others in explaining self-reliance (that is, only protecting oneself) by providers. In a pre-registered laboratory experiment (https://aspredicted.org/SXY_YVF) with 400 participants, we consider a repeated decision-environment with four treatment conditions, systematically varying the degree of strategic uncertainty: i) a baseline scenario with passive beneficiaries, ii) proportional arrangements where beneficiaries can send donations to compensate providers for collective solution efforts, thereby changing the Nash Equilibrium, iii) pledges allowing for non-binding commitments among both subgroups, and iv) reducing the problem to a single provider and single beneficiary. We hypothesize that all treatments with transfers will increase the likelihood of avoiding collective damages compared to the baseline scenario, with the single insider-outsider treatment resulting in the highest efficiency to avoid collective damages. Our findings show that reducing strategic uncertainty leads to more collective solutions, with more beneficiaries protected, less resources wasted, and lower inequality. Moreover, we show that institutions allowing beneficiaries to make transfers to providers of protection are highly effective in increasing reliance on collective solutions. Indeed, these transfer institutions are as effective as fully removing strategic uncertainty. Thus, we show that understanding the motivations for self-reliance in collective risk social dilemmas can help develop better institutions to enhance the use of collective, welfare-enhancing, solutions."
Voting for Environmental Donations: Experimental Evidence from Majorca, Spain
(2011) Blanco, Esther; López, Maria Claudia; Coleman, Eric A.
"We analyze group-voting on binding minimum contributions to environmental projects and assess how such institutions affect subsequent voluntary donations. Mature tourism destinations such as the island of Majorca (Spain) suffer environmental pressures caused by decades of intense tourism development, reducing the environmental quality and tourism appeal of the island. Financed from the local tax base, public administrations have developed costly projects to mitigate this degradation. Alternative fundraising policies applied in recent years include a tax to the tourism industry and more recently voluntary donations by tourists. In this paper we explore the fundraising possibilities of applying taxes and voluntary donations complementarily by using an economic field experiment with international tourists. Participants were allowed to vote to apply a minimum compulsory donation in addition to which they could make a voluntary donation. Our results show that participants only self-impose mandatory contributions when they must choose between a high or low tax, passing in some cases the high tax. In addition, we find that neither the act of voting nor the fact that a vote is actually passed changes voluntary contributions. Therefore, consistent with previous experimental literature addressing international tourists behavior, our data does not support a crowding-out of voluntary donations by the application of tourism taxes ear-marked for environmental purposes. From a policy perspective, this result supports the potential for a complementary use of taxes and voluntary donations for fundraising environmental projects in tourism destinations."