Cooperation and policy interventions: Field experiments with small-scale fishing communities in Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the vast literature on environmental policy instruments and resource use dilemmas via an experimental approach. Based on framed field experiments conducted with members of small-scale fishing communities in Turkey, the study focused on the effects of different policy interventions on cooperation, and demonstrated that analyzing the behavioral impact of environmental policy instruments is crucial to ensure effectiveness. The framed field experiments were used to evaluate the effects of an external fine, a market-like incentive, and a communication condition in a resource use dilemma. The experiments involved twelve sessions for each treatment (baseline, fine, market and communication treatments), with five participants per session. Both communication and a symbolic (low) fine were found to be effective in reducing extraction. The findings further imply that there is a framing effect between the fine and market conditions. When the economic incentive was framed as a fine as opposed to a market-like mechanism, it reduced extraction more. This implies that institutional context matters to individual behavior, and that the same level of economic incentive may perform differently if the institutional context is changed. This finding also supports the hypothesis that market reasoning may lead to unintended outcomes in resource use dilemmas. If this is not taken into account, environmental policies may backfire.