Insiders, Outsiders, and the Adaptability of Informal Rules to Ecological Shocks
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2013
Abstract
The history of the world is strewn with the remains of societies whose institutions failed to adapt to ecological change, but the determinants of institutional fragility are difficult to identify in the historical record. We report a laboratory experiment exploring the impact of an exogenous ecological shock on the informal rules of property and exchange. We find that geographically-induced tribal sentiments, which are unobservable in the historical record, impede adaptation post shock and that inequality declines as wealth and sociableness increase. Quantitative measures of individual and group sociality account for some of the differences in successful or failed adaptation.
Recommended Citation
Kimbrough, E. and Wilson, B. “Insiders, Outsiders, and the Adaptability of Informal Rules to Ecological Shocks,” Ecological Economics, 90, June, 2013.
DOI:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2013.02.008
Peer Reviewed
1
Copyright
Elsevier
Comments
This article was originally published in Ecological Economics, volume 90, in 2013.
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