Binding the Future: Long-sighted altruism boosts intergenerational sustainability

Abstract

Intergenerational cooperation, essential for addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today, is particularly challenging to achieve. The risk of asteroid impact, biodiversity, and AI safety are archetypal examples of such intergenerational social dilemmas, but the most formidable and pressing one is climate change. A unique challenge of intergenerational social dilemmas is that key mechanisms that facilitate cooperation in single-period social dilemmas (reciprocity and third-party punishment) or compensate for its absence (formal compliance mechanisms) are lacking in the intergenerational context. An effective solution for fostering multigenerational collaboration could involve the implementation of a commitment mechanism imposed by the current generation on future generations, compelling them to continue and collaborate with subsequent generations. In the current work, we experimentally examine the behavioral aspects of implementing a commitment mechanism to enhance intergenerational collaboration. We find a widespread endorsement for using commitment mechanisms, despite their associated costs. This seems to reflect ‘long-sighted altruism’: the inclination of some individuals to forego personal gain to improve not just the welfare of the next generation but also that of a more distant one (the third). We also find that commitment mechanisms yield long-term benefits, by increasing the sustainability rate (that is, the proportion of chains that managed to sustain the common pool across all generations). Finally, our results imply that once set in motion, commitment mechanisms are highly persistent, as subsequent generations tend to continue utilizing them. These results have important implications for policymakers who explore ways to make climate policies more credible.

 

Keywords: intergenerational cooperation, climate policies, commitment mechanisms, public goods, ; sustainability

JEL Classification: K32