ABSTRACT
Ever since Hardin's classic ‘The tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin, 1968), there has been vital research on the commons and their regulation. Hardin presented a pessimistic view on the human ability to manage the commons, and advocated coercion. However, later experimental (for an early review, see Dawes, 1980) as well as empirical studies of local common-pool resource dilemmas (e.g. Ostrom, 1990; Ostrom et al, 2002) present a more positive view. People have been shown to voluntarily cooperate to manage the commons.
