The Effects of Property Rights on Collective Action Under Conditions of Missing Information and Path Dependence
Abstract: The theory of collective action is a central subject in the social sciences with significant implications in the design of institutions. Collective action problems are situations where individually rational decisions do not lead to collectively rational outcomes. They can result from conflicting interests, inadequate information, the characteristics of a good as well as those of the players. Empirically, collective action problems have been studied in terms of political parties, coalitions, voting and elections, international cooperation, mass movements, evolution of institutions for long distance trade, decentralization, common pool goods, self-governance and foreign aid. Theoretically, they have been modeled as public goods game, common-pool resource games, chicken and assurance games, dictator games as well as prisoner’s dilemma game. I examine the effects of formal property rights on collective action among a large and heterogeneous group of users of a common pool resource. Using econometric analyses on a data set of 1,958 irrigation associations in the Philippines, I find that land tenure security has a negative and statistically significant effects on collective action. I attribute this effect to the problem of missing information and institutional path dependence.
