title: The survival of the conformist: social pressure and renewable resource management.
abstract: This paper examines the role of other-regarding behavior as a mechanism for the establishment and maintenance of cooperation in resource use under variable social and environmental conditions. By coupling resource stock dynamics with social dynamics concerning compliance to a social norm prescribing non-excessive resource extraction in a common pool resource, we show that when reputational considerations matter and a sufficient level of social stigma affects the violators of a norm, sustainable outcomes are achieved. We find large parameter regions where norm-observing and norm-violating types coexist, and analyze to what extent such coexistence depends on the environment.
authors.affiliation: Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics, London WC2A2AZ, England. a.tavoni@lse.ac.uk
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tavoni
authors.forename: Maja
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schlüter
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Levin
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D017753:Ecosystem; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D008957:Models, Genetic; D008960:Models, Psychological; D012925:Social Conformity; D012941:Social Responsibility; D012945:Social Values