Institutions and the Free Rider: The Assurance Problem in Collective Action

“7 In a series of papers, Runge (1981, 1984a, 1984b) stressed that most users of a common-pool resource—at least in developing countries—live in the same villages where their families had lived for generations and intend to live in the same villages for generations to come.”

“I The basic result awe derive is seemingly consistent with an analysis of candidate-group interaction as an assurance problem (cf. Runge, 1984).”

“A number of writings have undertaken important theoretical development to focus on the commons dilemmas that confront communities of users (Cheung 1970, Dasgupta & Heal 1979, Oakerson 1992, Ostrom 1990, Runge 1984).”

“Free riding, in this view, remains a possibility, but not, as in the Prisoners' Dilemma, an imperative (Runge, 1984; Kimber, 1981; Sugden, 1984; Snidal, 1985).”

“With adequate institutions, therefore cooperation becomes a rational strategy (Runge, 1984).”

“In these socioeconomic contexts individual decisions are influenced not only by the actual cumulative actions of other group members, but also by expectations about those actions (Runge, 1992).”

“In fact, a host of game forms can apply including Prisoner’s Dilemma, assurance and co-ordination games (Runge, 1984; Sandler and Sargent, 1995).”

“To generate critical mass dynamics, we must model collective action not as an Nperson prisoner’s dilemma, but as an N-person assurance game (Chong, 1991; Runge, 1984).”

“Among these are Sen's (1967) assurance game (see also Runge, 1981, 1984), Becker's (1974) theory of social interactions, and Basu's (1986) people's tyranny, when the latter is seen to relate to the enforcement of a ‘good’ rather than a ‘bad’.”

“Two Nash equilibriums exist for this assurance game, namely no one or everyone contributes (Runge 1984; Sandler 1992).”

“Another dimension of rules that receives somewhat less attention is their ability to generate information about the behavior of others who are also subject to the rules (Runge 1984) and about the effects of people’s actions on a water system.”

“This has been called the `problem of assurance' (Lane and Moorehead, 1995; Runge, 1984, 1986).”

“The ability to craft mutual interdependencies and expectations creates assurance and minimizes conflict (Schelling, 1960; Runge, 1984).”

“…1982, p. 342) and it refers to a person’s choice with regard, in this context, to participating first in a club (i.e. an EC) and second in the activities of that club (i.e. collective contracts); any individual decisions will be influenced by how many and who else joins (Runge 1984, p. 161).”

“This analysis concludes with a discussion and some preliminary advice on how various conflicts related to the sustainable use of natural resources could be managed.”

“Instead, some institutional arrangement that coordinates the actions of the agents is required (Runge 1984).”

“Building trust among users of a common resource is a complex process that needs time until a real dialogue can emerge [4, 5].”

“Implementation costs may also be greater in such situations because the lack of full information creates an incentive to increase rates of resource use and discount the future (Runge 1984).”

“The absence of such reassurance has been found to be a significant barrier to individual weed control elsewhere (e.g., Epanchin-Niell et al. 2010; Marshall et al. 2016; Yung et al. 2015) and public good problems more generally (Runge 1984; Kollock 1998).”

“Unlike a Prisoners’ Dilemma, this assurance game does not have free riding as a dominant strategy, thereby offering hope of action (Runge, 1984).”

“"Government-enterprise collusion" at the local level has resulted in "free-rider" behavior and the "race to the bottom" in environmental management (Runge, 1984).”

“Furthermore, the so-called free-riders1 problem [58], which can result in the tragedy of the commons(2) [59–61] has always been a part of collective action problems.”

“Also, public goods, CPRs and other collective action problems have been analyzed as assurance games (e.g. Runge 1984) or, more generally, as coordination games (e.g. Sandler and Sargent 1995), as well as volunteer’s dilemmas (e.g. Rapoport 1988, Diekmann 1992).”

“It would not be difficult to claim, as some theorists already have, that the current function of these institutions is the production of mutually beneficial social cohesion (Runge 1984).”

“…made that PDGs do not reflect the reality of many socio-ecological contexts (Clements and Stephens 1995; Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995; Dugatkin 1997; Alvard 2001) nor do they capture the collective-action problems many animals face (Runge 1984; Ostrom 1990; Hirshleifer 1999; Bardhan 2000).”

“Problems of coordination have been distinguished from problems of co-operation (Runge 1984; Ochs 1995; Rieck 1993: chapter 3; Braun 1999: chapter 3.3).”

“Development of mutual assurance, reciprocity in "give and take," and trust that other disputants will not use their influence to undermine implementation of the agreement all contribute to stability (Easter, 1993; Runge, 1984 ).”

“Individuals in situations of interdependence of outcomes are concerned with both their outcomes and the outcomes of others (Gallucci and Perugini, 2000; Runge, 1984), and reciprocity may reflect an array of conjointly contingent interchange of gratifications (Gouldner, 1960).”

“Property theory (Ciriacy-Wantrup and Bishop 1975; Demsetz 1974; Hallowell 1943; Netting 1982) and collective REVISED PROOFaction theory (Ostrom 1990; Runge 1984, 1986) have acted asan interactive and complementary approach that while it has been applied mostly to socio-ecological systems has worked…”

“Free-riding, also labeled as a social trap (Platt, 1973), commons problem (Edney, 1980), commons dilemma (Dawes, McTavish, & Shaklee, 1977), assurance problem (Runge, 1984), social loafing (Karau & Williams, 1993; Orbell & Dawes, 1981), and moral hazard in teams (Anesi, 2009), refers to an undesired behavior in which…”

“However, while many international environmental public good problems are indeed prisoners’ dilemmas, many more are not (e.g., Runge, 1984; Taylor and Ward, 1982; Cornes and Sandler, 1996; Aggarwal and Dupont, 1999; Holzinger, 2003; McAdams, 2009).”

“Runge (1981, 1984, 1986), for instance, pleads that forest management is akin to the assurance game, where one prefers to do what the other does, while mutual participation has the highest preference.”