The emergence of institutions for the management of the commons

In this paper we present an abstract replication of institutional emergence patterns observed in common pool resource (CPR) problems. We used the ADICO grammar of institutions as the basic structure to model both agents' strategies and institutions. Through an evolutionary process, agents modify their behaviours and eventually establish a management institution for their CPR system, leading to significant benefits both for them and for the commons as a whole. We showed that, even if our model has a high level of abstraction, by taking an evolutionary perspective and using the ADICO structure we are able to observe common institutional patterns. We confirm that institutions do indeed contribute to the sustainable management of common pool resource systems

Ressources communes

Les ressources communes sont des ressources naturelles ou artificielles partagées par différents utilisateurs ; l’exploitation de ces ressources crée une rivalité, souvent (mais pas nécessairement) à l’origine de leur dégradation, voire de leur destruction. Cet article présente brièvement la théorie des ressources communes développée ces vingt dernières années par Elinor Ostrom et ses collègues, et l’illustre par plusieurs études de cas de systèmes d’irrigation du nord de l’Italie (Lombardie et Vallée d’Aoste). Il démontre que différents mécanismes sociaux, tels que les valeurs partagées et le réseau social existant au sein de la communauté d’utilisateurs, influent sensiblement sur l’efficacité des systèmes institutionnels de gestion des ressources communes.Common-pool resources are natural or man-made resources shared among different users, a condition that produces a competition for their utilization leading often (although not necessarily) to their degradation or even to their destruction. This paper shortly discusses the "theory of the commons", as developed in the last 20 years by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, and illustrates it by mean of case studies regarding a number of irrigation systems in Northern Italy (Lombardy and Vallée d’Aoste). We show that that different social mechanisms, like the shared values e the social network existing inside the community of users, play a significant role in influencing the outcomes of the institutional schemes for the commons management

Pillars of Trust: An Experimental Study on Reputation and Its Effects

This paper presents the results of laboratory experiments on the relevance of reputation for trust and cooperation in social interaction. We have extended a repeated investment game by adding new treatments where reputation is taken more explicitly into account than before. We then compared treatments where the investor and the trustee rate each other and treatments where the investor and the trustee were rated by a third party. The results showed that: (i) third party reputation positively affects cooperation by encapsulating trust; (ii) certain differences in the reputation mechanism can generate different cooperation outcomes. These results have interesting implications for the recent sociological debate on the normative pillars of markets

Peer Review of Reviewers: The Author's Perspective

The aim of this study was to investigate the opinion of authors on the overall quality and effectiveness of reviewers' contributions to reviewed papers. We employed an on-line survey of thirteen journals which publish articles in the field of life, social or technological sciences. Responses received from 193 authors were analysed using a mixed-effects model in order to determine factors deemed the most important in the authors' evaluation of the reviewers. Qualitative content analysis of the responses to open questions was performed as well. The mixed-effects model revealed that the authors' assessment of the competence of referees strongly depended on the final editorial decision and that the speed of the review process was influential as well. In Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) analysis on seven questions detailing authors' opinions, perception of review speed remained a significant predictor of the assessment. In addition, both the perceived competence and helpfulness of the reviewers significantly and positively affected the authors' evaluation. New models were used to re-check the value of these two factors and it was confirmed that the assessment of the competence of reviewers strongly depended on the final editorial decision

Referrals and information flow in networks increase discrimination: A laboratory experiment

Referrals and information flow distort market mechanisms of hiring in the labor market, but they might assist employers under asymmetric information in finding better alternatives. This paper investigates whether an impartial information flow between employers in a cyclic network structure could generate more discrimination than when no information is exchanged between employers. We set up an artificial labor market in which there was no average quality difference between two categories of workers. We asked participants to play the role of employers and examined the partiality of their hiring choices. Results showed that discrimination was prevalent in all conditions. Higher standards by the employers for the quality of workers increased discrimination as did the presence of referrals from workers. Unexpectedly, impartial information flow in a cyclic network of employers did not help to decrease discrimination. We also showed that these mechanisms interact with and subdue each other in complex ways