Voluntary Versus Involuntary Adhesion to a Self-Governing Irrigation System: A Field Experiment

Abstract

"Many countries concerned by water scarcity are reforming their nationalized management of irrigation systems to set up self-governing ones. This evolution raises an implementation issue, about the way to provide these collective goods. In this investigation, we conduct a field experiment to compare the provision of a collective good when farmers are forced to adhere to the case where they are free to adhere. In the former case, subjects are providing a pure public good whereas in the latter they are providing a club good. We show that voluntary adhesion improves the cooperative behavior with subjects from low performing irrigation system and with independent farmers. However, voluntary adhesion does not improve the cooperative behaviour with subjects from highly performing irrigation system."