Vote and trade: An efficient mechanism for common-pool resource management with stock externalities
中文摘要
在基于权利的公共池资源管理制度中，存量外部性可能损害资源跨期配置的效率。当一名使用者的开采耗减资源存量，进而提高所有使用者未来的采收成本时，就会出现这种情况。本文提出一种投票与交易（VAT）机制，作为对标准总量控制与交易（CAT）机制的改进，以纠正这一低效率。VAT分两个阶段运行：首先，资源使用者通过投票设定一个具有约束力且针对特定时期的开采上限；其次，他们在期内市场上交易由此产生的权利。我们的理论模型表明，尽管标准CAT在动态上是无效率的，但VAT可以利用投票汇总各参与者的私人信息，并集体选择最优的跨期开采路径，从而在温和条件下实现社会最优。实验室实验验证了这一预测，表明VAT在总体经济效率方面显著优于CAT。
Abstract
The efficiency of inter-temporal resource allocation in a rights-based common-pool resource management system can be compromised by a stock externality. This occurs when one user’s extraction depletes the resource stock and then raises future harvesting costs for all users. This paper introduces a vote-and-trade (VAT) mechanism, an enhancement to standard cap-and-trade (CAT), to correct this inefficiency. VAT operates in two stages: first, resource users vote to set a binding, period-specific extraction cap; second, they trade the resulting rights in a within-period market. Our theoretical model demonstrates that while standard CAT is dynamically inefficient, VAT can achieve the social optimum under mild conditions by using voting to aggregate agents’ private information and collectively choose the optimal inter-temporal extraction path. Laboratory experiments confirm this prediction, showing that VAT substantially outperforms CAT in aggregate economic efficiency.