Studies have shown differences in cooperative behavior across countries and in the use of (and reaction to) a norm enforcement mechanism in cross-cultural studies.

The authors present data that prove that stark differences in both dimensions can exist even within the same town. They created a unique data set, based on one-shot public goods experiments in South Africa. Most of the group differences can be explained by variables for social capital and social environment, such as trust or household violence.

The authors studied the potential tradeoff between countries’ investments in mitigation versus adaptation to climate change. Mitigating greenhouse gases may be a public good, but adaptation to climate change is a private good, benefiting only the country or individual.

We estimate the risk attitudes of a large sample of individuals from various fishing communities along the west coast of South Africa.

Fuel Taxes and the Poor challenges the conventional wisdom that gasoline taxation, an important and much-debated instrument of climate policy, has a disproportionately detrimental effect on poor people.

Fuel Taxes and the Poor, The Distributional Effects of Gasoline Taxation and Their Implications for Climate Policy. Edited By Thomas Sterner. Published by RFF Press with Environment for Development initiative.

Since the 1960s both large- and small-scale Zimbabwean maize farmers have been replacing open pollinated varieties (OPVs) with locally developed hybrids. By the 1990s, most were buying hybrid seed, though the adoption rates of new seed types were slowing. With the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy many small farmers returned to planting OPVs and saving seed, not only because hybrid seed was unavailable but also as a rational response to economic risks.