Beschreibung:
The present study investigates how local communities cope with the restless abandonment of agricultural lands in harsh environments, providing a theoretical interpretation grounded on the European reality. Specifically, the study provides an interpretative model based on game theory and inspired by different strands of literature, consistent with the reality under study. The model is capable to broaden the decision-making field of the individual actor from the choice of what to do (abandon/keep the land) to the choice of how to intervene (cooperating, non-cooperating) and the decision-making field of the regulator in addressing cooperation initiatives. A key point of the developed model is in endogenizing the factors that contribute triggering collective commitments and the conditions that enable/hinder the achievement of desired objective when collective initiatives are in place. Results highlights that collective initiative are favoured against individual actions when the level of land fragmentation is high, but collective initiatives might need to be supported by external aids to get established and to effectively counter land abandonment. Most importantly, collective initiatives cannot be taken for granted and some evidence is provided to testify that land abandonment is particularly severe in the absence of collective initiatives. The paper conclude with some policy suggestions