Resumo

In this paper, I present novel evidence related to opportunism in a common-pool resource. Specifically, I study the behavior of users in a university library during a three-year period, with an emphasis on borrowing patterns.

Which factors drive opportunistic behavior in real-world settings? Does opportunism vary through time? I want to answer the following questions: (i) Does opportunism rise in specific times of the academic year? (ii) How do different types of punishment affect opportunism?

This paper dialogues with several literatures. First, the results described in this paper also add to the growing evidence related to behaviors observed in a field setting. Second, while most of the previous contributions in the literature related to common-pool resources emphasized examples related to themes such as forests, fisheries, and wildlife in general, I present an example of application related to an information commons (libraries).

I have access to confidential daily data related to library users of a private university in São Paulo, Brazil, during the 2004-2006 period. The dataset corresponds to an unbalanced panel of 3,303 individual users, covering 12,918 observations. I base my analysis on panel data count methods.

I uncover two main results. First, the frequency of opportunistic behaviors increases during recover exams’ weeks, which suggests that users take advantage of the library’s rivalry property. Second, the instauration of a monetary fee in a specific moment of time – an “institutional change”, in this context – exerts a negative effect on opportunistic behaviors, a result consistent with theories based on monetary incentives.

The results reported in this paper are important not only for providing a better understanding of the determinants of opportunism and the impacts of institutional change over common-pool resources’ management, but also for shedding light on issues such as economic incentives, social norms, and corruption in real-world settings.

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