Collective forest land rights facilitate cooperative behavior

The introduction of formal collective property rights to forest lands appears to have improved both environmental and economic outcomes, but there is limited evidence on how these reforms affect cooperative behavior among local resource users. We propose that when national governments issue collective land rights, they strengthen the collective psychological ownership among coowners and produce increased levels of cooperative behavior. Analyzing data from 213 forest user groups in 10 countries, and a framed field experiment in a subset of sites, we find that collective land titling is associated with significantly higher levels of cooperative behavior including increased levels of trust, more frequent interpersonal interactions related to both forestry and nonforestry activities, more self-governing institutions, and greater equality in resource extraction patterns.

Automated summary

The introduction of formal collective property rights to forest lands has shown improvements in both environmental and economic outcomes. However, there is limited evidence on the impact of these reforms on cooperative behavior among local resource users. This study finds that collective land titling is associated with higher levels of cooperative behavior, including increased levels of trust, more frequent interpersonal interactions, self-governing institutions, and greater equality in resource extraction patterns.