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"In southern Namibia ineffective enforcement contributes to natural resource degradation. We analyse the root causes of ineffective enforcement applying diverse methods. In the first step we develop a conceptual framework distinguishing between moral, social, and material enforcement. In the second step we analyse water and rangeland management regulations through the filter of our conceptual framework. In the third step we conduct economic experiments in order to gain additional insights into the characteristics of selected elements of the framework. We observe that social enforcement has the strongest impact on encouraging cooperative behaviour. Water governance in our cases makes more direct use of social enforcement, which is one factor contributing to its relative success compared to rangeland governance. We draw the general conclusion that existing moral and social norms should be considered as starting points for the establishment of formal rules because norms are more costly to establish but cheaper to apply."

This paper analyses people's decision to snatch flowers which are marketed via the honour system. If people were to make a narrow rational choice that they would snatch the unattended flowers, the market would collapse. We find that actual payment rates vary substantially between individuals. The decision to snatch relies on internalised values and norms ('internal deltas'). The econometric analysis of the impact of socio-demographic variables on payment rates provides a first indication that differences in socialisation processes lead to different internal deltas. Oxford University Press and Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics 2010; all rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com, Oxford University Press.