Socio-ecological systems and the distributional effect of collective conditionality constraints in rural policies: A case study in Emilia-Romagna

Abstract

Agricultural policymakers are increasingly interested in the role of collective action to improve the effectiveness of natural resource management in rural areas. Analyses of socio-ecological systems highlight how distribution of benefits/cost is crucial for the success of cooperation among actors and hence it seems an element to take into account for the design of policies that focus on collective action. In this paper we use the Shapley value to ex-ante assess the distributional effect of collective conditionality constraints embedded in the policy, and their interaction with asymmetry in the access to the resource and with the social environment. We parameterise a model to a collective reservoir located in Emilia-Romagna (Italy), modelling the reservoir and the infrastructure connecting the farms by using a network. The results show that distributional effect of the asymmetry in the access to the resource can be counteracted by properly setting minimum participation rules. However, the results highlight the potential difficulties in designing agricultural policies dealing with collective action.