Cooperating with the Future
Oliver P. Hauser, David G. Rand, Alexander Peysakhovich, Martin A. Nowak
Nature · 2014
Abstract
Studies intergenerational cooperation directly: whether the current generation will restrain its own consumption to leave a renewable resource intact for people it will never meet, and which institutions make that restraint stable.
Methodology
A novel 'intergenerational goods game' in which each generation of players decides how much of a shared resource to extract, with the pool passing to a subsequent generation only if enough is left; the authors compare unilateral extraction with democratic (median-vote) enforcement.
Findings
Under unilateral choice the resource is typically depleted by a selfish minority, but binding the group to the median vote sustains it across generations. Sustainability fails not because most people are greedy but because a few defectors can destroy the commons—so institutions that enforce the cooperative majority's will are decisive.
Applied nudge
Protect long-horizon collective goods with median-enforcing institutions (binding group defaults, mandates) rather than voluntary restraint, since a small minority of defectors can undo everyone else's cooperation.
Citation
Hauser, O. P., Rand, D. G., Peysakhovich, A., & Nowak, M. A. (2014). Cooperating with the future. Nature, 511, 220-223.
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