Regulation and Evolution of Harvesting Rules and Compliance in Common Pool Resources

The present paper models jointly the evolution of compliance to regulation and the evolution of the CPR stock in the context of an evolutionary process emerging from combining replicator dynamics, which describe the adoption of harvesting rules, with resource stock dynamics. This evolutionary approach characterizes the emergence of steady-state equilibrium harvesting rules or compliance levels under regulation, and the corresponding behavior of the steady-state equilibrium resource stock. This evolutionary approach suggests that coexistence of both cooperative and non-cooperative rules under regulation is possible. It is shown that stock effects on profits and a certain structure of auditing probabilities, could imply the emergence of a limit cycle in areas of low stock levels, as an equilibrium outcome for the level of compliance and the biomass stock. It is also shown that it is possible to modify regulation, by modifying penalties for regulatory violations, in order to attain full compliance equilibria and take the system out of low stock traps. It shown it might be easier for the regulator to obtain the full compliance if there is precommitment to fixed auditing probabilities.