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The tragedy of the commons in a violent world
Author(s) -
Sekeris Petros G.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the rand journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.687
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1756-2171
pISSN - 0741-6261
DOI - 10.1111/1756-2171.12060
Subject(s) - tragedy of the commons , exploit , natural resource , commons , tragedy (event) , subgame perfect equilibrium , resource (disambiguation) , outcome (game theory) , economics , global commons , microeconomics , folk theorem , resource scarcity , natural resource economics , sequential game , game theory , computer science , ecology , political science , sociology , computer security , law , computer network , biology , normal form game , social science
Earlier research has shown that the tragedy of the commons may be resolved by Folk theorems for dynamic games. In this article, we graft on a standard natural‐resource exploitation game the possibility to appropriate the resource through violent means. Because conflict emerges endogenously as resources get depleted, the threat supporting the cooperative outcome is no longer subgame perfect, and thus credible. The unique equilibrium is such that players exploit noncooperatively the resource when it is abundant, and they revert to conflict when it becomes scarce. The players' utility is shown to be lower even if conflict wastes no resources.