The Tragedy of the Commons is an issue of supply and demand, though it’s definition does shift slightly depending on the lens in which it is viewed. A economist may have a very different interpretation of the Tragedy of the Commons than would and environmentalist, philosopher, or even a game theorist. But in it’s most basic form the Tragedy of the Commons can be defined as, a problem in which individuals attempt to gain the greatest benefit from a given resource. Eventually, the demand for the resource increase to a point that the supply can on longer support it, as a result every individual who continues to consume the supply negative effect anyone else who no longer can access the benefits of the resource.
In reality, this issue has been see in a range of place including farming, pollution, and for the example we will be focusing on, international fishing. In the case of the Pacific sardines, which can be caught off the coast of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, a lack of communication between the nations resulted in a failure to manage the rate at which sardines were being caught. This lead to the population to fall due to over fishing as the countries had, thanks to assuming what percentage of the population they had to right to, gone over the amount of fish they were suppose to be catching. If this activity had been left undiscovered the population of sardines would have continued to decrease resulting in negative effects for all three countries. Now, the nations have a tri-national manage agreement to make sure they stay within target levels of fishing.
In terms of Game Theory, the Tragedy of the Commons must be taken into account as in certain scenarios overusing a resource can result loss to payoff. For example, in the cause of farmers sharing a field for their cattle. If each of the six farmers keeps one cow there, they cow will bring in a value of $1000. However, as the number of cattle in the field increase, there are less resources to go around. This results in the value of each cow in the field decreasing by $100, for each addition cow in the field. The farmers must find a way to deal with this issue as to prevent a loss in payoff. In this specific case, a solution can be found in the creation of a coalition, between at least five of the farmers. This sees the farmers working together and agreeing the limit their cattle in the field to only one, as this allows all of them to benefit without activity hurting each others payoffs.
Game Portfolio 