Browsing by Author "Perez, Irene"

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Lab Experiments on Irrigation Games Under Uncertainty
(2014) Rollins, Nathan D.; Baggio, Jacopo A.; Perez, Irene; Janssen, Marco A.
"Research on collective action and common pool resources is extensive. However, little work has concentrated on the effect of uncertainty in resource availability and collective action, especially in the context of asymmetric access to resources. Earlier works have demonstrated that uncertainty often leads to a reduction of collective action in the governance of shared resources. Here we assess how uncertainty in the resource availability may impact collective action. We perform a behavioral experiment of an irrigation dilemma. In this dilemma participants invest first into a public fund that generates water resources for the group, which is subsequently appropriated one participant at the time from head-end to tail-end. The amount of resource generated for the given investment level is determined by a payo table and a stochastic event representing rainfall. Results show that access asymmetry and resulting inequalities dominate any effects from uncertainty about the resource condition. The strategic uncertainty about the decisions of other players dominates potential effects from the environmental uncertainty."
Transformation of Resource Management Institutions Under Globalization: The Case of Songgye Community Forests in South Korea
(2014) Yu, David J.; Anderies, John M.; Lee, Dowon; Perez, Irene
"The context in which many self-governed commons systems operate will likely be significantly altered as globalization processes play out over the next few decades. Such dramatic changes will induce some systems to fail and subsequently to be transformed, rather than merely adapt. Despite this possibility, research on globalization-induced transformations of social-ecological systems (SESs) is still underdeveloped. We seek to help fill this gap by exploring some patterns of transformation in SESs and the question of what factors help explain the persistence of cooperation in the use of common-pool resources through transformative change. Through the analysis of 89 forest commons in South Korea that experienced such transformations, we found that there are two broad types of transformation, cooperative and noncooperative. We also found that two system-level properties, transaction costs associated group size and network diversity, may affect the direction of transformation. SESs with smaller group sizes and higher network diversity may better organize cooperative transformations when the existing system becomes untenable."