Browsing by Author "Ghate, Suresh"

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Conservative Attitude of Forest Dwelling Communities: Hope for JFM to Succeed Evidence from Repeated Field Experiments in Central India
(2011) Ghate, Rucha; Ghate, Suresh
"Decentralization in natural resource management is becoming a norm in majority of developing countries for ensuring economic efficiency, sustainability of the resource, and socio-economic equity. In the Indian forestry sector, decentralization got ushered in through programs like JFM, and successive legislations since the Forest Policy, 1988. Although several studies have documented suitability of the participatory approach, often questions are raised whether the relationship between forest and forest dwelling communities continues to be symbiotic, or if it has changed under the influence of globalization and commercialization. Based on four repeated field experiments in a community located in central India, this paper indicates that in case of indigenous communities, their relationship with forest continues to be non-exploitative and non- commercial. By increasing complexity in subsequent games, an attempt has been made to create real-life like situation in the context of forest use - open access and with JFM, where individuals in a community harvest forest products – timber, fodder, fuel wood, either independently or after consulting the community. The findings of the paper support participatory management strategy that provides opportunities for communities to make collective decisions through enhanced communication. The paper confirms the argument that decentralization would not only encourage sustainable resource use due to increased sense of ownership, but could potentially lay foundation for equitable distribution too."
Cultural Norms, Cooperation, and Communication: Taking Experiments to the Field in Indigenous Communities
(2013) Ghate, Rucha; Ghate, Suresh; Ostrom, Elinor
"Extensive experimental research has been devoted to the study of behaviour in laboratory settings related to public goods, common-pool resources, and other social dilemmas. When subjects are anonymous and not allowed to communicate, they tend not to cooperate. To the surprise of game theorists, however, simply allowing subjects to communicate in a laboratory setting enables them to achieve far more cooperative outcomes. This finding has now been replicated in many laboratory experiments in multiple countries and in some initial field experiments. Carefully conducted laboratory experiments do have strong internal validity. External validity, however, requires further research beyond the initial field experiments that have already been conducted. In this paper, we report on a series of common-pool resource field experiments conducted in eight indigenous communities in India that have very long traditions of shared norms and mutual trust. Two experimental designs were used in all eight villages: a 'no-communication' game that was repeated in ten rounds where no one was allowed verbal or written communication and a 'communication game' in which the same five participants were allowed to communicate with each other at the beginning of each round before making their decisions. The findings from these field experiments are substantially different from the findings of similar experiments conducted in experimental laboratories. Subjects tended to cooperate in the first design even in the absence of communication. The shared norms in these indigenous communities are so deeply embedded that communication is not needed to adopt cooperative decisions. Communication does, however, tend to homogenize group and individual outcomes so that communities that are overly cooperative tend to reduce cooperation slightly and those with small deviations in the other direction tend to move toward the optimal solution."
Indigenous Communities, Cooperation, and Communication: Taking Experiments to the Field
(2011) Ghate, Rucha; Ghate, Suresh; Ostrom, Elinor
"Much experimental research has been conducted in laboratory settings on human behavior related to public goods, common-pool resources, and other social dilemmas. These studies have shown that when subjects are anonymous and not allowed to communicate, they tend not to cooperate. However, to the surprise of game theorists, simply allowing subjects to communicate in a laboratory setting enables them to achieve far more cooperative outcomes. The replication of the experiment in laboratory settings in multiple countries as well as in some initial field experiments has only confirmed this important finding. However, while carefully conducted laboratory experiments do have strong internal validity, external validity requires further research beyond the initial field experiments that researchers have begun to conduct. In this paper, we report on a series of common-pool-resource field experiments conducted in eight indigenous communities in India that have very long traditions of shared norms and mutual trust. We used two experimental designs in all eight villages: a 'no-communication' game where no one was allowed verbal or written communication and a 'communication game' in which the same five participants were allowed to communicate with each other at the beginning of each round before making their decisions. The findings from these field experiments are substantially different from the findings of similar experiments conducted in experimental laboratories. Subjects tended to cooperate in the first design even in the absence of communication. Our findings suggest that the shared norms in these indigenous communities are so deeply embedded that communication is not essential to arrive at cooperative decisions. However, communication does homogenize group and individual outcomes so that communities that are overly cooperative tend to reduce cooperation slightly while those showing small deviations in the other direction move toward the optimal solution."