BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars: Social learning through economic experiments: an intervention in three rural water systems

BC3-UPV/EHU Seminars
“Social learning through economic experiments: an intervention in three rural water systems “

Prof. Juan Camilo Cárdenas
Professor, School of Economics, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá (Colombia).

Abstract

Economic experiments have traditionally been used as a tool for measuring human behavior in different contexts of social interaction. However, little has been discussed so far on the role of experiments as tools for learning and social change. Over the last year we conducted a series of educational interventions and measures of attitudes and behaviors on the use and conservation of water in three municipal aqueducts in Guasca (Colombia). In two of the three aqueducts we used economic experiments as a pedagogical tool for
understanding the effects of this activity on the behaviors and attitudes of rural households in the sample. We repeated the application of the games a few months later with most of the same sample of 200 participants. In one of these aqueducts we held workshops with the community to provide feedback on the results of the games. Our aim is to evaluate how attitudes and behavior of the households are affected by the participation in the experiments.

Lecturer

Professor at the Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) since 2004, having been a professor at Javeriana University (Colombia) until then. He holds a Ph.D. in Resource Economics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and did his post-doctorate at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis (Indiana University) under the mentorship of Elinor Ostrom. His research is supported by economic experiments, surveys and workshops, to understand human processes that allow build just, sustainable and efficient to  handle the collective institutions, in particular the natural environments of society. He has been visiting professor at the Universities of Massachusetts Amherst, Harvard, and  International Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. In 2013 he received the Elsevier-Scopus Award Colombia in the humanities for the highest number of citations of their work. His 2009 book “Dilemas de lo Colectivo” won the top national science Alejandro Angel Escobar prize. He had also won the Biennial Researcher Award at Javeriana University in 2003, a Medal in Research at the Global Development Network in Tokyo (2000), a MacArthur Fellowship in research (2000-2001) and the Joseph L. Fisher 1999-2000 award for his doctoral dissertation. He was a Fulbright scholar (1991-1993). His research has been published in various journals such as Science, J.Development Economics, World Development, Ecological Economics, Land Economics, Agricultural Systems, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, J. of Economic Behavior and Organization, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Economic Theory J.Public, Annual Review of Resource Economics, Ecology and Society, as well as in several chapters of books published.