Punishment and inspection for governing the commons in a feedback-evolving game

TL;DR

This paper models how punishment and inspection influence the management of renewable common resources, highlighting the importance of cooperation and resource capacity awareness to prevent resource collapse.

Contribution

It introduces a coevolutionary feedback model showing the combined effects of punishment and resource capacity on sustaining commons.

Findings

Punishment alone may be insufficient without resource capacity management.

Cooperators need to consider resource growth to avoid collapse.

Proper feedback mechanisms can prevent tragedy of the commons.

Abstract

Utilizing common resources is always a dilemma for community members. While cooperator players restrain themselves and consider the proper state of resources, defectors demand more than their supposed share for a higher payoff. To avoid the tragedy of the common state, punishing the latter group seems to be an adequate reaction. This conclusion, however, is less straightforward when we acknowledge the fact that resources are finite and even a renewable resource has limited growing capacity. To clarify the possible consequences, we consider a coevolutionary model where beside the payoff-driven competition of cooperator and defector players the level of a renewable resource depends sensitively on the fraction of cooperators and the total consumption of all players. The applied feedback-evolving game reveals that beside a delicately adjusted punishment it is also fundamental that cooperators should pay special attention to the growing capacity of renewable resources. Otherwise, even the usage of tough punishment cannot save the community from an undesired end.