Game theoretic modeling of joint forest management in India

The project involves conducting of field experiments to derive social preferences and discount rates of the individuals in Indian villages. Government of India had launched the joint forest management (JFM) program in 1990, whereby local community is involved in the forest management. The program has not been uniformly successful across the country. The idea of the research is that people in villagers have different social preference and discount rates, and the variation in the success of JFM can be explained by the variation in the social preferences and discount rates among the individuals. The research proposes to develop a game theoretic model of JFM, incorporating the social preferences and discount rates of the individuals, and characterize the equilibrium outcome of JFM program in the villages. The research also proposes to develop agent-based model for capturing the emergent properties of the interactions among the individuals and predicting the JFM outcomes.

Faculty Supervisor:

Shashi Kant

Student:

Partner:

Forest Research Institute University

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: