Theme 1: The nature of the coordination problem
Large-scale coordination problems can differ in many ways. One has to do with the nature of the good, who will be affected when cooperation does not occur, and awareness of the problem.
A theory of successful large-scale collective action, LSCA, needs to take these considerations into account, but this is rarely done in current research. Examples of relevant factors are the degree of excludability and rivalry, resource dependence, the number and types of actors, the magnitude of the coordination problem, the potential impact on society, and prospects for substitutability.
Project within Theme 1:
Individual cooperation under different regimes
There exist quite significant amount of research and knowledge about which factors that have a positive effect on cooperation and hence collective action. For example, trust, sanctions (punishment) and strong leaders all have been shown to have a positive impact on contributing to a public good (referred to as cooperation) in experimental settings. However, it is less clear how such factors would affect cooperation under different public good regimes. This project aims to contribute to the literature on large scale collective action by developing a conceptual model and theoretical framework to understand the effects of traditional public good technology with a weakest link technology.
Participants: Fredrik Carlsson (Department of Economics, UoG), Claes Ek (Department of Economics, UoG), Andreas Lange (Hamburg University), The affiliated researchers are well-known economists working on social dilemmas, in particular voluntary actions related to climate change.
Theme: 1 and 2