Browsing by Author "Ruttan, Lore M."

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Are East African Pastoralists Truly Conservationists?
(1999) Ruttan, Lore M.; Borgerhoff Mulder, M.
"Controversy exists among anthropologists,conservation biolo-gists,and development workers as to whether the concept of the 'ecologically noble savage' is a myth. Central to this debate are the problem of how to identify conservationist behavior and the issue of whether sound management of common property is likely to evolve. While social scientists have documented in-stances of restraint in the use of resources, those who adopt an evolutionary perspective are challenged to identify the selective mechanisms whereby such altruistic conservation acts might be maintained in a population. Here a game theoretical approach is used to analyze the case of pastoralist grazing reserves. We demonstrate that under some conditions conservation can be the result of narrow self-interest and there is no collective-action problem. However, the range of these conditions is much broader for wealthy individuals, and thus the wealthy may also find it advantageous to coerce others into conserving. In conclusion, we propose an extension of the definition of conservation that is of greater generality for use in non foraging populations and incorporates the essential political element of how conflicts over resource use are resolved."
Asymmetric Payoffs in Simultaneous and Sequential Prisoner's Dilemma Games
(2006) Ahn, Toh-Kyeong; Lee, Myungsuk; Ruttan, Lore M.; Walker, James M.
"We investigate the role of payoff asymmetry in laboratory prisoner's dilemma games. Symmetric and Asymmetric games are examined in simultaneous and sequential settings. In the asymmetric/sequential games, we study the impact of having payoff advantaged players moving either first or second. Asymmetry reduces the rates of cooperation in simultaneous games. In sequential games, asymmetry interacts with order of play such that the rate of cooperation is highest when payoff disadvantaged players move first. The presence of an exit option increases cooperation by the players who choose to play the game when payoffs are symmetric, or when payoffs are asymmetric and the payoff disadvantaged player moves first."
Conservation and Wealth Asymmetries among East African Pastoralists
(2000) Ruttan, Lore M.
"Controversy exists among anthropologists, conservation biologists and development workers as to whether the concept of the 'ecologically noble savage' is a myth. Central to this debate are the problems of how to identify conservationist behavior and the issue of whether sound management practices of common property are likely to evolve. While social scientists have documented instances where restraint over the use of resources occurs, those who adopt an evolutionary perspective are challenged to identify the selective mechanisms whereby such altruistic conservation acts might be maintained in a population. Here a game theoretical approach is used to analyze the case of pastoralist grazing reserves. It is demonstrated that under some conditions, conservation can be the result of narrow self-interest and there is no collective action problem. However, the range of these conditions is much broader for wealthy individuals and thus, the wealthy may also find it advantageous to coerce others into conserving. "
The Effect of Heterogeneity on Institutional Success and Conservation Outcomes
(2004) Ruttan, Lore M.
"The gains to society from collective action can be very high. For this reason, understanding what factors facilitate or hinder trust and cooperation is a critical endeavor, and one that has engaged a great many researchers drawn from multiple fields in the natural and social sciences. In the research reported here, the specific aim is to understand how heterogeneities among individuals affect the success of community based resource management. The method for doing so is a meta-analysis of data from case studies that have been encoded in the 'Common-pool Resource Database', compiled by researchers at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. The database contains records from approximately 150 different case studies across a variety of resource types, e.g. fisheries, forests, irrigation systems, pastures, etc. A central focus of the analysis is an investigation into the multiple ways field researchers have incorporated heterogeneity (material and cultural) into their findings and linked those concepts to collective action outcomes. Because researchers have tended to interpret 'success' in a variety of ways and to conflate multiple stages of collective action, it has thus far been difficult to come to firm conclusions about the impact of heterogeneity."
Small versus Large-Scale Fisheries: A Multi-Species, Multi-Fleet Model for Evaluating their Interactions and Potential Benefits
(2001) Ruttan, Lore M.; Gayanilo, F. C.; Sumaila, Ussif Rashid; Pauly, Daniel
"In this paper, we present a method for evaluating the economic losses and biological impacts of a lack of co-ordination of effort on the part of small versus large-scale fisheries. We illustrate our method using fisheries of the Gulf of Maine and the George's Bank (USA). There are several novel methodological components of this work. First, we use an approach for defining which fisheries are small and which are large on a scale that is specific to political units since gear that is large-scale in one country may be categorized as small-scale in another. Second, we present a multi-species, multi-fleet, yield-per-recruit model that incorporates gear selection curves for each gear type. This permits an evaluation of the economic benefits of trade-offs in effort between the two small and large-scale fleets. Optimal combinations of effort by the two fleets are identified by subtracting costs of fishing effort from the gross value calculated by the model. Third, we estimate the value of foregone profits by comparing the rents produced at such an optimum with those produced by the current fishery. Finally, we identify a Nash bargaining solution that would be obtained if both sectors chose to cooperate by coordinating their levels of effort."