The tragedy of the commons in public resource governance is essentially the result of repeated interaction and adaptive learning among heterogeneous agents under dynamic resource constraints. Existing studies have generated rich insights into common-pool resource governance, institutional constraints, and cooperation, but they still rely mainly on theoretical deduction, static games, or econometric identification, making it difficult to jointly characterize resource dynamics, agent heterogeneity, behavioral learning, and policy scenarios. From the perspective of computational economics, this paper develops a multi-agent reinforcement learning simulation model for the governance of the tragedy of the commons. Specifically, the fish-pond resource system is formulated as a Markov decision process in discrete states, and adaptive decision-making under pure economic incentives, sustainability penalties, behavioral heterogeneity, and cooperation is characterized through the resource dynamics equation, harvesting equation, and differentiated reward functions. The model is further examined through sensitivity analysis, parameter calibration, and theoretical validation, and then used for policy simulation. The results show that pure economic incentives quickly induce resource collapse, sustainability penalties significantly reduce harvesting intensity and maintain a low but sustainable steady state, heterogeneous behavior parameters generate clear strategic divergence, and cooperation internalizes group harvesting constraints into individual payoffs and yields the strongest resource recovery and behavioral convergence.

This project is an interactive agent-based model simulating consumption of a shared, renewable resource using a game-theoretic framework with environmental feedback. The primary function of this model was to test how resource-use among AI and human agents degrades the environment, and to explore the socio-environmental feedback loops that lead to complex emergent system dynamics. We implemented a classic game theoretic matrix which decides agents´ strategies, and added a feedback loop which switches between strategies in pristine vs degraded environments. This leads to cooperation in bad environments, and defection in good ones.

Despite this use, it can be applicable for a variety of other scenarios including simulating climate disasters, environmental sensitivity to resource consumption, or influence of environmental degradation to agent behaviour.
The ABM was inspired by the Weitz et. al. (2016, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27830651/) use of environmental feedback in their paper, as well as the Demographic Prisoner’s Dilemma on a Grid model (https://mesa.readthedocs.io/stable/examples/advanced/pd_grid.html#demographic-prisoner-s-dilemma-on-a-grid). The main innovation is the added environmental feedback with local resource replenishment.

Beyond its theoretical insights into coevolutionary dynamics, it serves as a versatile tool with several practical applications. For urban planners and policymakers, the model can function as a ”digital sandbox” for testing the impacts of locating high-consumption industrial agents, such as data centers, in proximity to residential communities. It allows for the exploration of different urban densities, and the evaluation of policy interventions—such as taxes on defection or subsidies for cooperation—by directly modifying the agents’ resource consumptions to observe effects on resource health. Furthermore, the model provides a framework for assessing the resilience of such socio-environmental systems to external shocks.
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Model on the use of shared renewable resources including impact of imitation via success-bias and altruistic punishment.
The model is discussed in Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling by Marco Janssen. For more information see https://intro2abm.com/

REHAB has been designed as an ice-breaker in courses dealing with ecosystem management and participatory modelling. It helps introducing the two main tools used by the Companion Modelling approach, namely role-playing games and agent-based models.

This is a simple model replicating Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons using reactive agents that have psychological behavioral and social preferences.

MASTOC is a replication of the Tragedy of the Commons by G. Hardin, programmed in NetLogo 4.0.4, based on behavioral game theory and Nash solution.