Paudel, Susan

Groundwater extraction remains a critical issue worldwide, with overexploitation threatening agricultural sustainability and water security. As policymakers seek ways to encourage more sustainable use of common-pool resources, the role of information has garnered significant attention in nudging individual behaviors toward cooperative outcomes. However, much of this scholarship has narrowly focused on stable state outcomes—particularly cooperative and non-cooperative behaviors—without fully recognizing that decision-making is a dynamic process where behavior exists on a continuum. It is equally important to understand how different information-based interventions can generate significant behavioral shifts toward normatively positive or optimal outcomes. Additionally, previous scholarship in behavioral economics and CPR studies has typically treated information as a homogeneous variable, focusing on whether its presence or absence influences behavior. However, not all forms of information are equal, and they do not influence behavior in the same way. This highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of different information types and their differential effects on behavior.

Our study seeks to address both these gaps through a controlled groundwater extraction experiment to investigate the relative effectiveness of distinct information treatments on individual extraction behavior. Specifically, we employ different types of information regarding the natural state (groundwater availability), the social state (extraction behaviors of other players), with varying levels of certainty and uncertainty. Our results will uncover which types of information prompt the most substantial shifts toward optimal groundwater extraction. These insights have significant implications for policy design and behavioral interventions in addressing the global challenge of groundwater over-extraction.