Abstract
The optimal management of renewable common pool resources (groundwater, forests, fisheries, etc.) is a major concern for political and economic debates, and is a major issue for current and future decades. To take into account the perpetual evolution of renewable common pool resources, economists are increasingly relying on dynamic models. These models offer not only the possibility to analyze the behaviors of resource users, but also to propose suitable methods to efficiently manage renewable common pool resources. These models make it possible to define different trajectories according to the exploitation behavior of users. Thus, they offer a realistic and adequate framework for proposing suitable economic instruments, which aims at the efficient management of common pool renewable resources. Moreover, behavioral and experimental economics have shown that compliance to social norms and ethical considerations are an integral part of the individual's decision-making process, creating a trade-off between costs and benefits when their decisions are related to the environment.The purpose of this thesis is first to analyze and test in a dynamic laboratory setting in continuous time, the exploitation decisions of common pool renewable resources users. Secondly, it aims to propose policy instruments to encourage the adoption of behavior more respectful of the resources used. Chapter 1 reviews the dynamic resource extraction models that have been tested in the laboratory. This review of the literature shows that the use of discrete time is predominant. Chapter 2 presents a continuous time experiment in which the resource is first exploited by a single agent, then by two agents simultaneously. This allows us to first identify the individual profiles of subjects when they are alone to exploit the resource, and then to see how these profiles evolve in the presence of strategic interaction. Chapter 3 compares the laboratory results of the continuous time model and its discrete approximation. It appears that continuous time induce more cooperation than discrete time when several users simultaneously exploit the same resource. Finally, Chapter 4 studies in continuous time the impact of a non-monetary policy of the "nudge" type, which aims to help resource users adopt socially optimal behavior. To do this, we compared a descriptive social norm to an injunctive social norm and found greater efficiency in the injunctive nudge. However, the results remain quite mixed between the two types of nudges.