دینامیک اقدام جمعی تحت پاداش ها خارجی: بینش های تجربی از جوامع کشاورزی رشته کوه های آند

This paper explores the potential effects of external reward systems on conservation behavior by accounting for their interactions with patterns of collective action. In order to simulate such dynamics, we conducted framed field experiments in farming communities from the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. These game-based simulation exercises were framed around agrobiodiversity conservation decisions the participating farmers were very familiar with. We find that collective rewards could be ineffective and crowd-out social norms. Promisingly though, individual rewards appear to increase conservation levels through a crowding-in effect that stabilizes collective action.

External reward mechanisms, such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), may provide resource users with an incentive to conserve that which benefits wider society, and thus have been praised as a more flexible and effective instrument to facilitate protection of public ecosystem services as compared to those based on regulation (Ferraro and Kiss, 2002, Kinzig et al., 2011, Landell-Mills and Porras, 2002 and Wunder, 2006). Yet it has widely been neglected that formal institutions, like PES, are embedded in social systems and thus interact with informal institutions such as social norms within a community (Muradian, Corbera, Pascual, Kosoy, & May, 2010). Globally, it has been found that resource users have created self-governing mechanisms for the sustainable management of their ecosystems (Cardenas and Carpenter, 2008, Henrich et al., 2001 and Ostrom, 1990). In many rural communities collective action1 toward conservation is based on social norms (Rustagi, Engel, & Kosfeld, 2010). In such contexts, it has been found that can PES as an economic instrument may provide little additional incentive for conservation but could instead affect deontological or moral incentives for conservation (Sommerville, Milner-Gulland, Rahajaharison, & Jones, 2010). Similarly, Reason and Tisdell point out that “… under some circumstances, introducing market-based institutions to provide incentives for the provision of public goods may have unintended consequences“ (2010, 452). In line with these concerns, it has also been argued that interventions introducing formal institutions may crowd-out existing pro-social norms (Cardenas et al., 2000, Reeson and Tisdell, 2008, Reeson and Tisdell, 2010 and Vollan, 2008). Similarly, there is anecdotal evidence that can PES replace intrinsic motivations for environmental protection and thus hamper existing conservation efforts (Clements et al., 2010, Pattanayak et al., 2010 and van Hecken and Bastiaensen, 2010). Nonetheless, different reward systems, such as individual rewards, whereby resource users are paid for their private conservation efforts and collective rewards in the form payments for a group’s aggregated conservation levels, may affect existing social norms differently and they may erode (i.e., crowd-out) such norms or complement (i.e., crowd-in) them as found in experimental studies by Travers, Clements, Keane, and Milner-Gulland (2011). The responses to such formal institutions, however, can be expected to be context specific, as their are shaped by existing social norms (Cardenas and Carpenter, 2008, Velez et al., 2010 and Vollan, 2008), as the social preferences underlying such norms evolve given daily social and economic interactions (Bowles, 1998, Ostrom, 2000 and Carpenter and Seki, 2010). Empirical evidence thus far indicates that “interventions sometimes do more harm than good, are sometimes completely ineffective, and at other times complement existing community efforts” (Velez et al., 2010, 264). Therefore, it is important to account for the social preferences relevant to the implementation of policy interventions (Bowles, 2008, Reeson and Tisdell, 2008 and Reeson and Tisdell, 2010). These ought to be studied in different market and group contexts, in order to provide guidance on how to design such reward mechanisms, so that they build upon rather than undermine existing informal institutions so as to strengthen collective action. The application of framed field experiments can shed light on collective action dynamics when resource users face different pay-off situations subject to their group contexts (Cardenas & Ostrom, 2004). In order to simulate potential interactions between formal and informal institutions we conducted field experiments in farming communities from the Andean Altiplano (high plains). This game-based simulation exercise was framed around decisions these farmers are used to take in daily life; that is choosing between different crop varieties to grow on their lands subject to existing patterns of collective action. This design links to a rich literature on Andean farming behavior related to collective action in agrobiodiversity management (e.g., Brush, 1992, Zimmerer, 1991 and Zimmerer, 2002). An impure public goods game was designed so as to reflect a situation where the conservation and utilization of traditional crop varieties, while often bringing lower private market returns as opposed to commercial varieties, also generates public good benefits for the local community. The latter include such benefits as pest and disease regulation, nutrient transfer, gene flow, as well as the maintenance of socio-cultural traditions and seed systems (as per Coomes, 2010, Heisey et al., 1997, Zimmerer, 1998 and Zimmerer, 2010). Furthermore, the impure public good game incorporates different endowment statuses and the introduction of individual or collective reward treatments. Two study sites were selected, one in Bolivia with more commercial-oriented farming systems, and one in Peru where production is more subsistence-oriented. By doing so, this paper seeks to simulate collective action dynamics under external rewards controlling for varying contextual factors.2 The paper directly adds to recent work studying the interactions of social systems and agrobiodiversity conservation in farming communities such as those of the Andes (e.g., Lewis et al., 2008 and Zimmerer, 2010) and the Amazon (Coomes, 2010 and Stromberg et al., 2010) and field experiments on the role of PES-like payments on cooperation (Kerr et al., 2012, Travers et al., 2011 and Vollan, 2008). The paper does not only bridge these two strands of literature, but also goes further providing more explicit insights into the collective action dynamics that can take place when PES-like rewards are introduced in traditional farming communities. The next section provides a brief overview of recent experimental studies on the interaction between formal and informal institutions, and possible crowding-out and crowding-in effects. In Section 3 the field context in which the framed experiments are conducted is described, before detailing the design and setting of the game in Section 4. Section 5 presents the empirical results on the effectiveness of the different reward systems at a group-level before analyzing the determinants of individual-level conservation behavior, with particular attention being paid to the interaction of the reward systems with social preferences. As the econometric pooled estimates assume the same structure of social preferences for each individual, this section seeks to further refine the analyses by looking in more detail into the effect of rewards on different behavioral types. Section 6, then, concludes with the main findings and policy implications.

This paper attempts to shed light on the potential of external rewards, such as PES, to increase conservation levels with special attention being paid to the degree to which alternative reward systems, such as individual versus collective payments, interact with social norms that underlie existent resource management practices. Data from field experiments in two sites from the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes indicate that it cannot be generally assumed that external rewards will provide resource users with the incentives to unequivocally increase their conservation efforts. Reward systems do not only increase the economic incentives for conservation, but also influence moral incentives for conservation in complex ways through their interaction with social preferences. As Bowles argues (2008, 1605), “Good policies and constitutions are those that support socially valued ends not only by harnessing selfish preferences to public ends but also by evoking, cultivating, and empowering public-spirited motives.” In the game-based simulation exercises undertaken, individual rewards seem to be better suited to fulfil this role. Individual-level payments appear to increase conservation levels above critical thresholds through a crowding-in effect that stabilizes collective action by triggering reciprocity. By contrast, collective-level payments appear to be less cost-effective than individual-level payments in enhancing conservation in the study sites. It is found that collective rewards, although potentially increasing the direct economic incentives for collective action, may at the same time undermine pro-social norms. This crowding-out effect would imply the existence of a disguised social cost by undermining the pro-social behavior of community members, so that policy makers need to assess ex-ante whether collective PES may do more harm than good within certain social contexts. Yet PES schemes with collective reward systems may also bring indirect social and economic benefits that cannot be captured in this field experiment. Firstly, as cash or in-kind rewards would be made at a group-level, they require individual farmers to self-organize themselves in order to deal with PES intermediaries. This in itself may foster collective action through enhancing bonding and linking social capital. Secondly, PES operated at a group level may result in reduced transaction costs associated with running the scheme. These cost-saving may then be directed toward higher collective reward levels, which may possibly result in different social dynamics. The findings highlight the importance of a careful assessment of existing social norms that are of relevance for the success of formal institutions brought in from outside the community. Besides widening the understanding of the ways PES affect existing patterns of collective action given various market and group contexts, follow-up research should seek to identify the reasons behind crowding-out and crowding-in effects and its conditioning factors. Further field experimental studies may focus on the role of defining thresholds in facilitating collective action and on the impact of varying payment levels within different reward systems, so as to further compare the effectiveness of individual and collective-level payments. Such understanding is crucial in order to enable policymakers to design PES in a way they can draw upon, support, and complement existing social norms. We conclude that PES is much more than just an instrument to provide economic incentives for conservation, and it should rather be understood as an institutional support mechanism in contexts where informal institutions are prone to failure in protecting ecosystems.