Allocating a voluntarily provided common-property resource: An experimental examination

This paper examines a voluntarily provided common-property resource (CPR) in settings that vary the rules used for allocating the resource to providers. Three allocation mechanisms are investigated: “allocator,” “tremble,” and “egalitarian.” The allocator mechanism, based on institutions observed in the field, is the primary mechanism of interest. In this treatment condition, one person in a group is exogenously chosen to allocate shares of the CPR to other group members. After observing group members' provision decisions, the allocator chooses shares of the CPR to allocate to each group member. The other two mechanisms serve as controls for examining the extent to which the allocator mechanism affects provision of the CPR. The tremble mechanism randomly divides the CPR between group members using the same division rules as the allocator mechanism. The egalitarian mechanism divides the CPR equally between group members. Provision of the CPR does not decay over time and is significantly closer to the group's socially optimal level under the allocator mechanism than under the tremble and egalitarian mechanisms. From a policy perspective, these results suggest that utilizing institutions such as the allocator mechanism in the field can facilitate greater levels of cooperation in promoting the provision of shared resources.