Brandt, Gunnar, Merico, Agostino ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8095-8056, Vollan, Björn and Schlüter, Achim ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0046-7263 (2012) Human Adaptive Behavior in Common Pool Resource Systems. PLoS ONE, 7 (12). e52763. DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052763.

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Abstract

Overexploitation of common-pool resources, resulting from uncooperative harvest behavior, is a major problem in many social-ecological systems. Feedbacks between user behavior and resource productivity induce non-linear dynamics in the harvest and the resource stock that complicate the understanding and the prediction of the co-evolutionary system. With an adaptive model constrained by data from a behavioral economic experiment, we show that users’ expectations of future pay-offs vary as a result of the previous harvest experience, the time-horizon, and the ability to communicate. In our model, harvest behavior is a trait that adjusts to continuously changing potential returns according to a trade-off between the users’ current harvest and the discounted future productivity of the resource. Given a maximum discount factor, which quantifies the users’ perception of future pay-offs, the temporal dynamics of harvest behavior and ecological resource can be predicted. Our results reveal a non-linear relation between the previous harvest and current discount rates, which is most sensitive around a reference harvest level. While higher than expected returns resulting from cooperative harvesting in the past increase the importance of future resource productivity and foster sustainability, harvests below the reference level lead to a downward spiral of increasing overexploitation and disappointing returns.

Document Type:	Article
Programme Area:	PA Not Applicable
Research affiliation:	Integrated Modelling > Systems Ecology Social Sciences > Institutional and Behavioural Economics
Refereed:	Yes
Open Access Journal?:	Yes
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0052763
ISSN:	1932-6203
Date Deposited:	03 Nov 2025 14:56
Last Modified:	03 Nov 2025 14:56
URI:	https://cris.leibniz-zmt.de/id/eprint/5933

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