A Simple Agent-Based Model Of The Tragedy Of The Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons by G. Hardin is a famous metaphor for social dilemmas in common-pool resource use. In his famous article from 1968 he argued for an abstract common-pool pasture that the pasture must become depleted as herdsmen have higher incentives to add cattle than to remove, due to the shared nature of the common. However, Hardin built his argument on the assumption of purely selfish and profit-oriented behavior of humans. For this article, we therefore hypothesized that the integration of other human values can lead to sustained use of the common. We test both of these questions via an implementation of Hardin’s pasture as an agent-based model, which allowed us to simulate Hardin’s pasture system over time. Simulation results verify both Hardin’s argument and our hypothesis.