Studying economics reduces overexploitation in a common resource experiment

Georgantzis, N., Arroyo-Mina, J. S. and Guerrero, D. (2013) Studying economics reduces overexploitation in a common resource experiment. Theoretical Economics Letters, 03 (5B). pp. 31-39. ISSN 2162-2078 doi: 10.4236/tel.2013.35A2006

Abstract/Summary

This paper studies the economic behavior of agents, who make decisions regarding the sustainability of Common-Pool Resources (CPR). For this purpose, economic experiments are applied to simulate the yield of a CPR, taking into account the influence of economics training on the learning process of individuals, regarding their decisions for sustainability. Based on a non-cooperative game with simultaneous choices, the results of experiments show that after several rounds the existence of economics knowledge reflects a better learning process for making decisions regarding sustainability of CPR.