Development of “Emission Trading Game”: A Tool for Observing the Process of Shared Social Reality in a Social Dilemma Situation

Abstract

In a social dilemma situation, a social reality shared by players leads to cooperation/non-cooperation, eventually it leads to prosperity or destruction of the entire society. Emission Trading Game is developed to observe these processes. There are two types of players with different gain structures in this game and they must maximize self-interest by scale expansion, emission trading and so on. Players have to effectively reduce CO₂, otherwise they must pay for a large environmental restoration at the end of game. If they can’t pay, the game ends in destruction. The eight games have been divided into destroyed and non destroyed. Compared to the non destroyed game, the amount of scale expansion and reduction was higher in the destroyed game. Furthermore, in destroyed game, players felt that to disclose their own information would create ad is advantage. Also, they could not make an effective use of Emission Trading. On the whole, in destroyed game, the players did not feel the need for information sharing, mutual cooperation and coordination with each other. This suggests the possibility that the situation was regarded as a pursuit of self-interest.