THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN RESOLVING COMMON DILEMMAS - EXPERIMENTAL-EVIDENCE WITH HETEROGENEOUS APPROPRIATORS

Communication has been shown to be an effective mechanism for promotin g efficient resource use in homogeneous common-pool resource settings. Communication allows appropriators the opportunity to agree on an agg regate appropriation target and coordinate over the selection of input allocation rules. When appropriators are identical, these rules resul t in identical input allocations, which facilitates cooperation. We ex amine the robustness of communication as an efficiency-enhancing mecha nism in settings where appropriators differ in input endowments. This heterogeneity creates a distributional conflict over access to common- pool resources. This conflict can cause self-governance to fail. We pr esent findings from a series of experiments where heterogeneous endowm ents are assigned: (1) randomly, and appropriators have complete infor mation, (2) through an auction, and appropriators have complete inform ation, and (3) randomly, and appropriators have incomplete and asymmet ric information. These findings are contrasted with rules from CPR fie ld settings. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.