Institutional design for a complex commons: variations in the design of credible commitments and the provision of public goods

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edella C. Schlager ◽  
Laura A. Bakkensen ◽  
Jeffrey Hanlon ◽  
Tomás Olivier
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Credible Commitments

Book Reviews

2009 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 190-192
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Burden Sharing ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
International Policy ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
Johns Hopkins University ◽  
Effective Delivery

William R. Cline of Peterson Institute for International Economics reviews “Why Cooperate? The Incentive to Supply Global Public Goods” by Scott Barrett,. The EconLit Abstract of the reviewed work begins “Provides an introduction to the issues surrounding the provision of global public goods, focusing on how international cooperation, institutional design, and the clever use of incentives can ensure effective delivery. Discusses the incentives to supply global public goods; single best efforts--global public goods that can be supplied unilaterally or minilaterally; weakest links--global public goods that depend on the states that contribute the least; aggregate efforts--global public goods that depend on the combined efforts of all states; financing and burden sharing--paying for global public goods; mutual restraint--agreeing what states ought not to do; coordination and global standards--agreeing what states ought to do; development--whether global public goods help poor states; and institutions for the supply of global public goods. Barrett is Professor and Director of International Policy in the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Index.”

The Source and Significance of Confusion in Public Goods Experiments

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J Ferraro ◽  
Christian A Vossler
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Game Form ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Goods Experiments ◽  
Experimental Parameters ◽  
Other Regarding ◽  
Other Regarding Preferences ◽  
Design Experiments

Abstract Economists use public goods experiments to develop and test theories of individual preferences and institutional design. Previous work demonstrates many participants in public goods experiments contribute to the public good out of confusion. We design experiments to provide insights on the consequences and causes of confusion. We establish that confusion amounts to more than statistical noise and does not dissipate with repetition (i.e. learning). Confused subjects use experimental parameters and the behavior of other players as cues, which confounds treatment effects and traditional strategies to identify other-regarding preferences through exogenous parameter changes and the modeling of reactions to other subjects’ decisions. We argue that confusion stems from an inaccurate understanding of game incentives (“failure of game form recognition”), which is a consequence of the framing and inadequate payoff information in standard instructions. Modified instructions can substantially reduce confusion, and, in turn, change the distribution of contributions to the public good.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc-Alain Giraldeau ◽  
Michael Kosfeld
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Joint Production ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
Interdisciplinary Exchange ◽  
Joint Examination

Why do some individuals invest in making a resource available, while others simply wait and exploit the fruits of this effort? Why do some people cooperate in joint production and public goods provision while others free ride and abstain from contributing to aggregate welfare? The phenomenon of exploitation or free riding is studied in many disciplines along separate research traditions. Certainly understanding this phenomenon could be deepened through interdisciplinary exchange. This chapter sets forth the rationale for the joint examination conducted by evolutionary ecologists, economists, anthropologists, and public health scientists. It initiates the collective examination into whether some generality exists across a broad range of species and systems, and posits how new insights might be used to tackle problems related to renewable resource management, public health, and institutional design.

Behavioral Aspects of the International Law of Global Public Goods and Common Pool Resources

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne van Aaken
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
International Law ◽  
Laboratory Experiments ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Common Pool Resources ◽  
Global Public Goods ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Public Goods Games ◽  
Collective Action Problems

AbstractCollective action problems with public good characteristics such as climate change have important implications for international law. This note argues that behavioral insights from laboratory experiments, in which individuals engage in public goods games, can contribute to our understanding of how best to optimize the design of international legal regimes dealing with global public goods and common pool resources. Behavioral economics, to the extent it supplements or displaces rational-choice models in institutional design, may enable deeper and more sustained forms of international cooperation.

scholarly journals Ordinary Patterns in an Extraordinary Crisis: How International Relations Makes Sense of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Tana Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Time Inconsistency ◽  
Epistemic Communities ◽  
Intergovernmental Organizations ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Specialized Knowledge ◽  
Credible Commitments ◽  
The World

Abstract The customary prescription for handling “problems without passports” is to work through international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), act collectively for humanity's future, and build up specialized knowledge. But around the world, patterns from the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic defied the prescription. IGOs were blamed, narrow or short-term interests were prioritized, and divided reactions to experts were on display. International Relations (IR) scholarship helps explain why: (1) research on bureaucracy and institutional design examines the challenge of making IGOs accountable to member-states but also insulated from them; (2) research on delegation and socialization explores commonplace problems involving time-inconsistency and credible commitments; and (3) research on epistemic communities and anti-elitism describes the rationale and fears of permitting public policy to be guided by unelected experts. The initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic reflect how the world can look when it lacks resolute leadership to overcome commonplace aversions to IGOs, to broader or longer-term interests, and to experts. Yet while IR scholarship makes sense of these patterns, it does not say enough about why resolute leadership wanes, or what to do about IGO performance when it does. Answers to such questions are crucial not only for recovering from the COVID-19 crisis, but for dealing with whatever global crises lie ahead.

scholarly journals Regulatory contract usage in case of antitrust mergers and acquisitions control

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Andrey Shastitko ◽  
◽  
Olga Markova ◽  
Anna Meleshkina ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mergers And Acquisitions ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Competition Authority ◽  
Credible Commitments ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages

The article provides an analysis of counterparties’ benefits and costs within the framework of regulatory contracts the object of which is structural prescriptions issued by the antimonopoly authority controlling mergers and acquisitions. The purpose of the study is to identify discrete institutional alternatives for creating credible commitments in regulatory contracts with the participation of the monitoring trustee (taking into account the risk of distorted incentives).The object of the study is the regulatory contract between the regulator, the trustee, and the company (merger participant) in the case of divestiture, since this situation is the most sensitive in terms of setting incentives and risks of opportunism. The subject of the study is credible commitments in such regulatory contracts. The analysis is based on methods of new institutional economics and of law and economics, and it employs mathematical modeling. The comparative analysis of discrete institutional alternatives is used as the main methodological approach, and it is based on an analysis of action coordination forms and harmonization of economic agents’ expectations — in this case, the antimonopoly agency, a trustee, and companies involved in mergers and acquisitions transactions. Advantages and disadvantages of the following contracting options were identified: independent monitoring by the regulator;monitoring with the involvement of a trustee whose activities are financed by the competition authority or the company; a hybrid approach financing trustee activities; distribution of income from penalties as a way for financing trustee activities; and a system of pledges in a tripartite contract. The article also defines the conditions for credible commitments within the framework of regulatory contracts. The results of this research can be used as a guideline for institutional design in the Russian antitrust enforcement system.

9. The European Central Bank: New powers and new institutional theories

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Central Bank ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
European Central Bank ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Financial Supervision ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Euro Crisis ◽  
Credible Commitments ◽  
European Central

This chapter examines how the European Central Bank (ECB) has taken on new and controversial roles in relation to crisis management and financial supervision in the wake of the eurozone crisis. It also considers how the ECB’s transformation has encouraged a new wave of institutional theorizing about the Bank, placing emphasis, among other things, on the importance of credible commitments, path-dependence, strategic discourse, and the changing politics of European integration. The chapter first provides an overview of the ECB’s mandate and tasks before discussing its decision-making bodies. It then describes the ECB’s institutional design as well as its response to the euro crisis, along with various theories that explain the crisis, including historical institutionalism and the rational choice institutionalist perspective. The chapter concludes by assessing concerns about the ECB’s legitimacy.

scholarly journals The Kalobeyei Settlement: A Self-reliance Model for Refugees?

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Betts ◽  
Naohiko Omata ◽  
Olivier Sterck
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Enabling Factors ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Cash Assistance ◽  
Host Interaction ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Refugee Policies ◽  
Nutritional Outcomes

Abstract In 2016, the Kalobeyei refugee settlement was created, just 3.5 kilometres from the Kakuma camps in Kenya. In a departure from Kenya’s policy of not allowing refugees to work, its aim was to provide self-reliance to refugees and greater refugee–host interaction. But are refugee policies and programmes in Kalobeyei really different from those in Kakuma? If so, what are the differences? And do these differences actually translate into different self-reliance outcomes for refugees? Drawing upon a mixed-methods approach, we compare aid models, self-reliance enabling factors and self-reliance outcomes between Kalobeyei and Kakuma. After just 15 months, we find that self-reliance-enabling factors—such the environment, assets, networks, markets and public goods—remain similar across both sites and, in some cases, are better in Kakuma. The major differences between the sites are in the aid model: Kalobeyei’s cash-assistance and agricultural programmes. We find improved nutritional outcomes and a greater perception of autonomy in Kalobeyei, both of which may be attributable to differences in the aid models. These findings have implications for how we conceptualize the institutional design of self-reliance in Kalobeyei and elsewhere.

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