Heterogeneity and Voting in Intergenerational Common Pool Problems

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2017-08-31
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en
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In order to gain sustainable resources over generations, cooperation amongst present decision makers is a necessity. In this study, we investigate the effect of heterogeneity and voting mechanisms on the cooperation in an intergenerational common pool resource (CPR) dilemma. The central research question is: to what extent affect a voting mechanism and heterogeneous wealth the total group extraction in an intergenerational common pool resource dilemma? Two hypotheses are tested: 1) generations with a publicly known heterogeneous wealth structure extract more from the resource than generations with a publicly known homogeneous wealth structure, and 2) generations whose total extraction is decided by median vote extract less from the resource than generations with an unregulated decision mechanism. The Intergenerational Goods Game has been adopted from Hauser et al. (2014) as experimental template, and 84 students and ex-students from the Radboud University participated in this experiment. Data was collected using a mixed model design, with heterogeneity as within-subject variable and median voting as between-subject variable. To analyze the data, a repeated-measures ANOVA has been conducted. The results show that both heterogeneous wealth and median voting had no significant effect on the total group extractions, implying that these conditions do not influence cooperation and thus the sustainability of resources in intergenerational dilemmas.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen