Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Endogenous Institutions in Virtual Worlds

在一个群体内缺乏管理共享资源使用的强有力的制度规则的情况下，个人参与资源开采的决定可能会给整个群体造成次优结果-这种结果一旦发生，通常被称为“公地悲剧”。“森林、渔业和水是一些最著名的资源例子，其管理易受这种动态的影响，其中，个人可以选择开采一定数量的资源，而不考虑这一决定对资源自我补充能力的负面影响，以促进未来的可持续开采。资源是一种可以避免公地悲剧的经典机制。财产权保证私人资源所有者从未来的资源开采中获得租金，因此这些所有者不会因为担心其他人会立即开采资源而面临强烈的激励。然而，在许多情况下，“公地私有化”可能是不可行的，因为难以界定或执行正式的财产权。尽管如此，即使在资源没有正式私有化的情况下，群体也往往能够有效地界定管理公地的规则。在过去的半个世纪里，对不同制度规则和组织形式在不同公地环境中的有效性的探索产生了一个非常重要的文献，世纪，它产生了宝贵的建议，有关政策制定者应如何确定和应对公地悲剧，在其各种表现。这些见解已被应用于处理资源的管理，如在南加州的水，螃蟹种群从切萨皮克湾阿留申群岛，和大多数种类的野生动物的游戏。在这个建议中的设计将阐明如何不同程度的生存压力可能会影响一个群体的能力，建立规则的公地管理。将实施受控实验室实验，其中受试者将在自然的在线环境中控制化身。受试者通过在这个环境中移动他们的化身和收集资源来获得收入;但是，如果资源被过度收获，那么他们将补充得更慢，并且群体的整体收入将减少。在以前的一个类似环境中实施的实验中，建立非正式财产权和领土等制度被证明是有效的公地管理的关键。然而，这种设计引入了一个额外的概念，即糟糕的资源管理可能会导致化身内部稳态平衡的破坏-本质上，未能收集资源可能会导致化身变得虚弱或死亡。这个过程也可以通过化身能够直接攻击对方来加速。生存压力将采取要求化身必须以不同的速度收集资源以在实验的每个阶段生存的形式。通过检查多个级别的压力-从非常低（化身需要做很少的收集才能生存）到非常高（即使在最佳管理下，也不会产生足够的资源供所有化身生存）-将收集有关化身死亡的威胁如何直接影响团体实施的机构的数据，以管理公共资源。据推测，压力的增加将使非正式机构更加脆弱，因为战术上的失败可能导致化身的死亡。反过来，这将导致更糟糕的公地管理和这种环境中暴力的增加。毫无疑问，对于许多个人来说，无效的公地管理不仅可能导致收入的边际减少，而且可能导致严重的贫困和死亡。在真实的世界中，巨大的生存压力可能导致非正式机构的崩溃和暴力的爆发。本研究的目的是利用对照实验的优势，探讨生存压力对公地管理的直接影响。与以前研究类似问题的设计相比，所使用的自然环境允许收集更丰富的机构数据。在这样做的过程中，这个设计的目的是收集新的见解的条件下，群体可以有效地自我管理。

In the absence of strong institutional rules within a group governing the usage of shared resources, the decisions of individuals to engage in resource extraction may create suboptimal outcomes for the entire group -- this outcome, when it occurs, is commonly called the "tragedy of the commons." Forests, fisheries and water represent some of the best-known examples of resources whose management is vulnerable to this dynamic, wherein an individual's choice to extract a given amount of resource may be made without internalizing the negative impacts that this decision will have on the resource's ability to replenish itself in order to facilitate sustainable extraction in the future.The establishment of private property rights over the common resource is a classic mechanism by which the tragedy of the commons may be avoided. Property rights guarantee private resource owners the rents accrued from future extraction of the resource, and thus these owners do not face strong incentives to immediately exploit the resource out of fear that someone else will if they do not. However, in many cases "privatizing the commons" may be infeasible because of difficulties in defining or enforcing formal property rights. Nonetheless, even when resources are not formally privatized groups are often able to effectively define rules governing a commons.The exploration of the effectiveness of different institutional rules and organization forms in different commons environments has generated a very important literature in the past half-century which has generated valuable advice pertaining to how policymakers should both identify and respond to the tragedy of the commons in its various manifestations. These insights have been applied to deal with the management of resources such water in southern California, crab populations from the Chesapeake Bay to the Aleutian Islands, and most sorts of game wildlife.The design in this proposal will shed light on how different levels of survival pressure may affect a group's ability to establish rules for commons management. A controlled laboratory experiment will be implemented wherein subjects will be given control of avatars in a naturalistic online environment. Subjects will acquire income by moving their avatars around within this environment and gathering resources; however, if resources are overharvested then they will replenish more-slowly and the group's overall income will be reduced.In a previous experiment implemented in a similar environment, the establishment of institutions such as informal property rights and territoriality proved essential to effective commons management. However, this design introduces the additional notion that poor resource management may lead to the disruption of homeostatic equilibrium within avatars -- in essence, a failure to gather resources may lead to avatars becoming weak or dying. This process may also be hastened via avatars being able to directly attack one another.Survival pressures will take the form of a requirement that avatars must gather resources at different rates in order to survive each period of the experiment. By examining multiple levels of pressure -- ranging from very low (avatars need to do very little gathering to survive) to very high (even under optimal management, not enough resources will be produced for all avatars to survive) -- data will be gathered concerning how this threat of avatar mortality directly impacts the institutions that groups implement in order to govern the common resource. It is hypothesized that increased pressure will make informal institutions much more fragile since tactical failures may lead to the deaths of avatars. In turn, this will lead to worse commons management and increased violence in this environment.It is undoubtedly the case that for many individuals, ineffective commons management may lead not simply to marginally-diminished incomes but also to severe impoverishment and death. In the real world, high survival pressures may result in the collapse of informal institutions and outbreaks of violence. This design brings to bear the advantages of the controlled experiments by examining the direct impacts of survival pressure on commons management. The naturalistic environment being used allows for the collection of much-richer institutional data compared to previous designs that have examined similar issues. In doing so, this design aims to glean new insights into the conditions under which groups can effectively self-govern.