Abstract
		File: [pdf] Title: Cooperation, Games, and Ecological Feedback: Some Insights from Bali Authors: J. Stephen Lansing and John H. Miller Key Words: Bali ecosystem, rice farming, cooperation, externality, game theory Abstract: For centuries Balinese rice farmers have been engaged in cooperative agricultural practices. Without centralized control, farmers have created a carefully coordinated system that allows productive farming in an ecosystem that is rife with water scarcity and the threat of disease and pests. We develop a simple game-theoretic model, inspired by a generation of careful anthropological field work, to provide a compact explanation for many of the most salient features observed in the system. We find that while externalities caused by either water scarcity or pests would, in isolation, be expected to cause a serious failure in the system, the ecology of the rice farming system links these two externalities in such a way that cooperation, rather than chaos, results. We test key features of the model through both natural and computational experiments and a field survey focused on the strategic motivations of the farmers.