Conference Agenda

In their in-situ habitat, renewable resource populations are subject to stochastic growth caused by environmental variability like fluctuations in upwelling conditions or temperature. In this paper, we examine the effects of this type of uncertainty on the non-cooperative harvest decisions made by harvesters exploiting a common pool renewable resource. To do this, we extend the related literature on dynamic resource extraction games based on Markov strategies to allow for asymmetric extraction costs and general economic, biological, and environmental conditions. We find equilibrium behaviors that can reverse conventional wisdom. For example, in response to increasing risk caused by anticipated higher variability in biological growth, a harvester may choose to enhance conservation efforts whereas another harvester diminishes his escapement. Increasing risk can lead to conflicts as it may increase a harvester's payoff while causing a loss to another harvester. In response to an increase in the discount rate, we find that strategic interactions can give rise to greater conservation efforts. Overall, this paper highlights the importance of adequately accounting for uncertainty and strategic behaviors in renewable resource management.

The sustainability of capture fisheries faces threats from tipping points, regime shifts, and multiple stable steady states. Instances like the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) collapse highlight abrupt declines with poor recovery post-removal of stressors. The mechanisms triggering tipping points, especially the role of adaptive fishers and anglers' behaviour, lack comprehensive understanding. We conduct a systematic literature review on tipping points in commercial and recreational fisheries, revealing a limited, biased base toward conceptual, theoretical, and empirical studies explaining regime shifts via harvest-induced ecological mechanisms. While multi-species fisheries receive attention, the explicit role of fishers' behaviour remains unaddressed, despite contributing implicitly to depensation and stock collapse (e.g., through hyperstable catch rates). To address this gap, we extend single-species biomass models with density-dependent growth linked to varied utility functions, reflecting realistic behavioural responses across commercial, subsistence, and recreational fisheries. Notably, we find that adaptive human behaviour alone triggers tipping points, even in fully compensatory single-species fish dynamics. Specifically, non-linear utility functions integrating stock sizes into fishery attractiveness drive behavioural feedbacks leading to tipping points. The fishing skill-to-cost ratio critically dictates tipping point occurrence among commercial, subsistence, or recreational fishers. High catch efficiency at low stock sizes fosters tipping points, signifying how technological advancements, catchability improvements, and reduced costs contribute to capture fishery destabilization. In recreational fisheries, aversion to harvest impacts tipping points, potentially shifting stock to collapse or stabilizing it at higher abundances. Our synthesis highlights fisher behaviour's relevance, presenting novel bioeconomic theories applicable to regulated or open-access fisheries across diverse ecosystems.

This paper examines a dynamic game of exploitation of a productive asset by

agents who subsequently sell the outcomes of their endeavors in an oligopolistic

market where a subset of the oligopolists owns a share in each other’s profits.

A Markov Perfect Nash Equilibrium of the game is constructed and used

to analyze the impact of cross-ownership on the equilibrium production strategies,

on the steady states, and on the profitability of cross-ownership. We show

that there exists an interval of the renewable resource stock for which a symmetric

cross-ownership can be profitable, even though such rival cross-shareholdings

are unprofitable in the corresponding static equilibrium framework. Moreover,

we demonstrate that cross-ownership may not only lead to higher market output,

consumer surplus, and resource stock in the stationary equilibrium, but also a

greater discounted sum of social welfare. Thus, antitrust authorities should be

careful in ruling in the renewable resource industries.

Social dilemmas are typically studied in experimental games with several individuals taking decisions that affect their payoff. In reality, most decision makers are part of a larger entity -- a firm or a team -- engaging in a social dilemma interacting with other firms or teams. How does the power to influence decisions within those entities affect between-team cooperation? Here, we present evidence from an economic experiment where two-player teams interact with other two-player teams in a one-shot social dilemma. In one set of treatments, one player decide for the team, while the other can only observe the outcome. In a second set of treatments, both players decide the team's action, but move sequentially. In addition to the power structure, we vary the first player's information about the second player's preferences and whether defection is explicitly framed as rule-breaking. Surprisingly, we find no effect of the power structure on cooperation. However, players who are informed about the co-player's likely preference to cooperate, do cooperate more in the sequential move treatment as compared to the treatment where they alone decide for the team.