Social Design Engineering Series

SDES-2018-16

Concerns for future generations in societies: A deliberative analysis on intergenerational sustainability dilemma

Raja R. Timilsina
Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology

Koji Kotani
School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology
Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology

Yoshinori Nakagawa
School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology
Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology

Tatsuyoshi Saijo
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature
School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology
Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology
Urban Institute, Kyusyu University

5th November, 2018
School of Economics and Management
Research Institute for Future Design
Kochi University of Technology

KUT-SDE working papers are preliminary research documents published by the School of Economics and Management jointly with the ResearchCenter for Social Design Engineering at Kochi University of Technology. To facilitate prompt distribution, they have not been formally reviewed
and edited. They are circulated in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment and may be revised. The views and interpretations expressedin these papers are those of the author(s). It is expected that most working papers will be published in some other form.

Concerns for future generations in societies: A
deliberative analysis on intergenerational sustainability
dilemmaRaja R. Timilsina* Koji Kotani*,†,‡,§,¶
Yoshinori Nakagawa† Tatsuyoshi Saijo*,†,‡,||
November 1, 2018

Abstract“Intergenerational sustainability dilemma (ISD)” is a serious problem in that the current
generation tends to choose actions to her benefit without considering future generations. However, little is known about how people deliberate and what kind of “concepts” people bringto decide on ISD in societies. We institute field experiments of an ISD game (ISDG) andconduct qualitative deliberative analysis in rural and urban societies of Nepal. A sequence ofsix generations, each of which consists of three people, is organized and each generation is
asked to choose whether to maintain intergenerational sustainability (sustainable option) or
maximize her payoff by irreversibly imposing costs on future generations (unsustainable option)in ISDG. Each generation makes a 10-minutes discussion for the decision, enabling deliberative
analysis in ISD. The qualitative deliberative analysis shows that the attitudes and concepts,
such as ideas, motivations and reasoning, that people discuss during deliberation vary between
urban and rural people. A considerable portion of urban people are identified to be “stable” as
an “influencer” that consistently argues her support for unsustainable option, while anotherconsiderable portion of urban people are “dependent” as a “conditional follower.” Together
with this fact, urban subjects bring concepts not to consider future generations more frequently
and widely during their deliberation than do rural people, leading urban generations to choose
unsustainable option. Overall, our deliberative analysis finds that urban subjects may be losing
concerns for future generations.

Key Words: Intergenerational sustainability; future generations; deliberative approach; economic
experiments* Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology (e-mail: timilsinaraja@gmail.com).
†School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology
Urban Institute, Kyusyu University§
College of Business, Rikkyo University¶
Corresponding author, E-mail: kojikotani757@gmail.com||
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature‡

1

Contents
1

Introduction

3

2

Methods and materials
5
2.1 Study areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Experimental setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Experimental procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4 Qualitative-deliberative analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4.1 Analysis 1: Determination of subjects’ types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.4.2 Analysis 2: Concepts — ideas, motivations and reasoning . . . . . . . . . 12

3

Results

13

4

Conclusion

18

5

Bibliography

20

List of Figures

24

List of Tables

28

2

1

1

Introduction

2

Capitalism and democracy are two dominant social regimes over several decades that are

3

considered to provide goods and services “efficiently” through competition and freedom (Piketty,

42014). This efficient property serves as a main engine of economic growth, due to which the current

5

generation has been utilizing resources more than ever with technological advancement and product6

innovation (Garri, 2010, Rogelj et al., 2017). However, the market competition and efficient property

7

do not appear to function in reality as economic theory predicts (Kolstad, 2010). For instance,

8

intra- and inter-generational allocations of environmental goods and natural resources are claimed

9

to be inefficient as illustrated by climate change and natural resource depletion (Frederick et al.,10

2002, Rockstrom et al., 2009, Thompson, 2010, Jacobs and Matthews, 2012). More concretely, the11current generation tends to take advantage of resources without fully considering future generations

12and leave more burdens on them, which we call “intergenerational sustainability dilemma (ISD).”13

In various contexts, many important decisions for ISD problems are made by groups, such as

14committees, juries, teams and associations that are typically followed by intra-group deliberation.

15

Therefore, this paper addresses how people in a group deliberate in ISD.

16

Past literature has examined intergenerational sustainability in various settings. Fischer et al.

17(2004) have shown that people do not exploit resources in the existence of “intergenerational link”

18

in a common pool experiment. Chaudhuri et al. (2009) have found that communication device such19

as leaving an advice to subsequent generations enhances intergenerational coordination. Hauser

20

et al. (2014) have demonstrated that a voting mechanism can play an important role in promoting

21

intergenerational sustainability. Kamijo et al. (2017) have designed and implemented a laboratory

22

experiment of ISD game (ISDG) by introducing a treatment of negotiators for future generations

23

and claimed that such a negotiator could improve intergenerational sustainability. Sherstyuk et al.

24(2016) have analyzed the level of difficulties in maintaining dynamic externalities by implementing

25

laboratory experiments and suggested that, due to the strategic uncertainty, it is difficult to improve

26

dynamic efficiency in an intergenerational setting. Shahrier et al. (2017) have conducted field

27

experiments of ISDG in the capital city of Bangladesh and rural areas, and confirmed that urban
3

28

people fail in maintaining intergenerational sustainability due to a high proportion of proself people29

in urban areas.

30

Many experimental studies have focused on communication to understand how individuals

31

and groups make decisions. Several works have identified that even non-informative cheap talk or

32chat can be an effective tool to facilitate coordination (Cooper et al., 1992, Charness, 2000, Duffy

33

and Feltovich, 2002, Charness and Grosskopf, 2004, Blume and Ortmann, 2007, Ambrus et al.,342015). On the other hand, there are some specific situations where communication does not enhance35

coordination such as in competitive coordination games, showing that group members engage in a36

costly communication to achieve intra-group coordination, yielding a coordination failure with other37

groups (Bornstein et al., 2002, Cason et al., 2012, 2017). Some literature has used content analysis

38

of a group chat to understand the roles of communication, suggesting that inter-group relationship39

is characterized by fear and greed (Cooper and Kagel, 2005, Keck et al., 2014, Bradfield and Kagel,40

2015, Kagel and McGee, 2016). Overall, these experimental results show that communication does41

not always bring a successful coordination or outcome in intra- or inter-group relationships, and the42content analysis of chats reveals various reasons behind the results.

43

In the fields of philosophy and political science, there are several studies that have tried to44

understand roles and functions of deliberation among people in collective decision-making situations

45(Cohen, 1986, Rawls, 1993, Chambers, 2003, Niemeyer and Dryzek, 2007). Some class of literature46

suggests that deliberation can be considered tools for understanding deeper aspects of sociode-47

mographic background, culture and ways of communication in societies (See, e.g., Steenbergen48

et al., 2003, Dryzek and List, 2003, Gronlund et al., 2009, Mercier and Landemore, 2012, List

49

et al., 2013, Klinger and Russmann, 2015, Pedrini, 2015), and is easily understood by ordinary

50

people and believed to promote fairness and unbiased decisions (Simon and Sulkin, 2002, Fishkin

51

and Luskin, 2005). Goeree and Yariv (2011) have suggested that deliberative voting rules provide

52

deeper insights in an agenda setting and collective decisions. Ban et al. (2012) have used field data

53

from a village parliament in South India and identified that deliberation can bring more consensus

54

for prioritizing public goods and safeguard policies from corruption.

4

55

Intergenerational sustainability has been discussed in relation to justice, ethics and equity (Rawls,

561971, Barry, 1997, Wolf, 2007, 2008). Past literature has provided a wide variety of theories and57

evidence on the effects of deliberation. However, none of the literature has analyzed deliberation to58

understand how people think facing ISD. Given this state of affairs, we seek to identify attitudes and59

concepts, i.e., ideas, motivations and reasoning people bring during deliberation by instituting ISDG

60

in rural and urban societies of Nepal. A sequence of six generations, each of which consists of three61

subjects, is organized and each generation is asked to choose whether to maintain intergenerational62

sustainability (sustainable option) or maximize her own generations’ payoff by irreversibly imposing

63

a cost on future generations (unsustainable option) in ISDG. Each generation makes 10-minutes

64

deliberation for the decision, enabling deliberative analysis in ISD. A novelty in this research is65

to employ qualitative deliberative analysis to reveal the “attitudes” and “concepts” that rural and66

urban people have in ISD, especially concerning whether or not to consider sustainability of future67

generations.

68

2

Methods and materials

69

2.1

Study areas

70

This experiment has been conducted in two types of Nepalese fields: (i) urban areas, such71

as Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Pokhara city, and (ii) rural areas of several traditional72

villages from Parbat and Chitwan districts. These areas are almost homogeneous in terms of culture,73

language and religion. The urban residents are usually high in human development index on the74

basis of UNDP (2014), and the population density is high. For instance, Kathmandu has a population75

density of people 4416 people per km2 (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2011) and is the most crowded

76

city, with 24.3 % of the total urban population in Nepal. Big cities such as Kathmandu and Pokhara77

are the centers for businesses and services. The rural areas consist of different villages of the78

Western Hills and Central Terai, such as the Parbat and Chitwan districts (figure 1). The population

79

densities of Chitwan and Parbat are 261 people per km2 and 297 people per km2 , respectively
580(Central Bureau of Statistics, 2011). These villages consist of mostly farmers who engage in small

81

scale farming, generation after generation, and a very limited number of businesses and services,82

typically small-scale ones, are available.
[Figure 1 about here.]

83

84

85

2.2

Experimental setup

We have conducted an intergenerational sustainability dilemma game (ISDG) with deliberation86

and collected questionnaire surveys to obtain sociodemographic data in rural and urban areas.

87

Intergenerational sustainability dilemma game with deliberation

88

The ISDG was implemented, basically following the laboratory and field experiments employed89

in Kamijo et al. (2017) and Shahrier et al. (2017). Three subjects in a group are called a generation,90

and each generation needs to choose between options A and B. The generation receives a payoff

91

of X by choosing option A and a payoff X − 300 by choosing option B. After making a choice92

between A and B, the generation is asked to split the payoff associated with the option they choose

93

among the generation members. Each of the subject’s payoffs in the ISDG is the sum of their94

generation share plus the initial experimental endowment of 300. For instance, by choosing A, the95

generation earns 1200 experimental points (X = 1200), whereas by choosing B, the generation

96

earns 900 points (= X − 300 = 1200 − 300). Consequently, if members of this generation split the97

payoff equally among them, each member earns 400 by choosing A and 300 by choosing B as a98

generation share. Therefore, the total payoff of each subject with generation choice A becomes 700

99(= 400 + 300), whereas it becomes 600 (= 300 + 300) with generation choice B.

100

Each generation is allowed to deliberate the decision between A and B as well as how to split

101

the generation payoff up to 10 minutes of discussion. However, when the decisions cannot be

102

made within 10 minutes, the following rules have been applied, (1) if the generation share the103

group receives is positive, each member receives an initial endowment of 300 points only, (2) if the

6

104

generation share the group receives is negative, say, −Z, each member equally splits −Z by three105

and receives the payment of − Z3 plus an initial endowment of 300 points, (see Appendix for the106

details).

107

Each session consists of 18 ∼ 24 subjects, organizing a sequence of 6 ∼ 8 generations. Each108

generation is randomly assigned to one of the 1st, 2nd, . . . and 6th generations. When the number

109

of subjects that participated in a session are 21 or 24, we organize 7th and even 8th generations.

110

However, they are assigned as 1st and 2nd in another sequence of generations as indicated in figure 2.

111

One generation’s decision affects the subsequent generations such that subsequent generations’112

payoffs decrease uniformly by 300 when the generation chooses option A, otherwise not. For

113

instance, suppose that X = 1200 and the 1st generation chooses A. Then, the 2nd generation will

114

face a game in which they can receive 900 and 600 by choosing A and B, respectively. However,115

if the 1st generation chooses B, the next generation can have the same decision environment as116

the 1st generation faced. When the 1st generation chooses B, the 2nd generation can have the117game in which they can receive 1200 and 900 by choosing A and B, respectively. Following the118same rule, the game continues for the rest of the subsequent two generations (i.e., between ith

119

and i + 1th generation). Hence, option B can be considered an intergenerational “sustainable120

option,” whereas option A is the choice that compromises intergenerational sustainability and can

121

be considered an “unsustainable option.” In each session, the 1st generation starts the ISDG game122

with X = 1200, implying that the 5th and 6th generations may face the game in which options A

123

and B are associated with payoffs of 0 and −300, respectively, when previous generations keep

124

choosing option A.1 In ISDG, subjects are paid 550 NPR (≈ 5.00 USD) at maximum and 350 NPR

125(≈ 3.50 USD) on average.
1
When the 5th and 6th generations face the game in which options A and B are associated with zero or a negative
payoff of −300, the generation members can refund themselves equally from their initial endowment of 300 to makethe individual payoff be at least zero.

7

126

2.3

Experimental procedure127

In the experiments, we hire local supporting staffs and research assistants (the first author is128

a chief administrator for the experiment). We apply the same experimental procedures between

129

urban and rural areas except for recruitment of subjects. In rural areas, subjects are informed in

130

advance (a week ago) and asked to show up at a village school and/or government agricultural

131

community hall at a given date and time. To collect subjects, we are supported by local government

132

offices known as village development committees and randomly select the household from the list133

of residents in rural areas (Central Bureau of Statistics, 2011). Based on the random selection, we

134

send an invitation letter to the selected households and one member in a household is invited to135

participate in our experiments. The participation rate is approximately 95 % which becomes high136

due to the pecuniary incentive written in the invitation letter.

137

In urban areas, we conducted occupation-based randomization by taking the desired number of138

subjects from each occupation such as banking, government, health, education, business, transporta-

139

tion and entertainment. The experiment is conducted at district health organization training halls

140

in the urban areas that are in the center of the cities consisting of many rooms. We send invitation

141

letters to different offices requesting people to participate in our experiments. One week prior to the142experiment, the letters are dispatched to the selected organization. We conduct experiments on the143

weekend and, due to proper incentives, the participation rate is high that is 80 %. On an average,

144

we paid 550 NPR (≈ 5.00 USD) to each subject including a fixed participation fee of 100 NPR (≈145

1 USD).

146[Figure 2 about here.]

147

Upon arriving at the location, subjects are gathered in one hall and they are given experimental

148

instructions in their native language (Nepali). Once everybody is present in a room, an experimenter

149(the first author) gives subject a verbal explanation about the experimental rules. To maintain150

anonymity across generations, first, we confirm that subjects have fully understood the rules, and151

second, they are asked to proceed toward a door and pick up a chip out of a bag that contains their8

152

generation ID and individual ID. According to the IDs, each subject goes to and sits in a specific153

room. In the end, we place the generations in separate rooms by their generation IDs. In this way,154

each subject can not observe and identify which person belong to a specific generation in a sequence

155(she knows only the members of her generation), however, they can realize that they are assigned to156

one generation within a sequence. However, they are not informed of which generation is the last157

within a sequence of generations.

158

The research assistants distribute questionnaires and explain the experimental procedures once

159

again to subjects. In ISDG, the 1st generation makes deliberation up to 10 minutes where it is160

recorded and their generation decision is confirmed. Once a generation finishes making her decision

161

after the deliberation, the members are asked to move to a different room and this process is necessary

162

to assure anonymity. After the 1st generation decision, we proceed to the 2nd generation with the163same procedures. A series of these routines are applied to the rest of the next generations from 3rd

164

to 6th ones. The previous generation decisions are written on a white-board and the subsequent165

generations can see them if they are other than the 1st generation. Each subject in a generation is

166

asked to confirm which generation they belong to in a sequence and the payoffs associated with

167

options A and B. Therefore, each generation is able to calculate how many times options A and B

168

have been chosen by the previous generations. With this information, each generation deliberates

169

and decides between intergenerational unsustainable option A and sustainable option B from the170

1st generation to 6th generation. After ISDG, we conduct questionnaire surveys to elicit subjects’

171

sociodemographic information.

172

2.4

Qualitative-deliberative analysis

173

We analyze the statements made by each subject in a generation during deliberation in ISDG

174

through a qualitative-deliberative analysis following Nakagawa et al. (2016). In this process, we

175

hire and ask external coders, who are neither related to our research project nor in the authorship of176

this paper, for qualitative coding of arguments. The external coders independently go through all

177

the statements made by 363 subjects and 121 generations during deliberation in ISDG and conduct9

178

qualitatively deliberative analysis. First, we record the deliberation in the Nepali language as it

179

occurs in the fields. Later, by hiring professionals, the deliberation contents are translated from180

the Nepali language to English. The first author confirms that the transcriptions and translation

181

outcomes are consistent. These coders are initially given a series of pilot tests to see whether they182

can analyze the statements coherently and independently.

183

Second, each coder independently conducts qualitative deliberative analysis by going through all

184of the transcribed discussions per generation and submit her coding results, following sections 2.4.1

185

and 2.4.2. These coders are unaware of the research questions in this research and asked to code186

the transcriptions in a conservative way such that the statement is “empty” whenever the intention

187

of a statement is not clear.2 After the three coders submit their results, an interrater reliability

188

analysis using the Kappa statistics has been performed to determine consistency among the three189

coders, following Cohen (1960), Krippendorff (2003) and Cason and Mui (2015). Finally, three190

coders gather together, discuss about their results and/or vote for deciding how they should finally191

interpret the arguments when there are significant disagreements in their coding. After resolving

192

such disagreements, they give us a final coding result, which we use for reporting our results in

193

what follows.

194

2.4.1

Analysis 1: Determination of subjects’ types

195

To identify patterns of the shifts in subjects’ attitudes for supporting sustainable or unsustainable

196

options, the arguments in deliberations are qualitatively analyzed following Corbin and Strauss197(2014). An important factor to identify subjects’ attitudes from an unstructured deliberation is to198

understand and classify subjects’ arguments that emerge during the deliberation (Kaplan, 1985,

199

Dillard, 2013). The qualitative deliberative analysis identifies each subject’s argument and its

200change for supporting sustainable or unsustainable options during deliberation. For example, a201

subject makes her initial argument as a preliminary remark to support sustainable option, but she

202

might change her support from the initial point in the middle of deliberation after listening to what2

The detailed procedures performed by the coders are provided in the appendices.

10

203

other members argue. Deliberative analysis is useful to track such a change in arguments made by

204

each subject and for identifying the attitudes of subjects at each moment of deliberation.

205

Based on Analysis 1, the attitudes of each subject’s toward the sustainable option and the shifts

206

are determined from the transcribed generation deliberation. In what follows, we describe the207

definitions of the subjects’ statuses and then define the typologies of subjects with respect to how

208

they change their statuses throughout the deliberation. The states of subjects in deliberation are

209

classified into the following four types.

210

211

212

213

214

215

216

217

• State ϕ: This state refers to the situation where a subject has not displayed her attitudes
regarding which option to support.
• State A or a: This state refers to the situation where a subject has expressed her support for
option A (i.e., the unsustainable option).
• State B or b: This state refers to the situation where a subject has expressed her support for
option B (i.e., the sustainable option).
• State Amb: This state refers to the situation where a subject has expressed her ambivalent
position regarding which option to support.

218

The distinction between A and a (B and b) is defined as follows: a subject is regarded as having

219

moved to state A (B) only if (i) she did not follow a specific subject in expressing her support of220

option A (B) or (ii) she expressed her own reason to support option A (B). In contrast, if a subject

221

follows other subjects and expresses that she supports A (B) without any reasons, her new state will222

be denoted as a (b). It should be noted that at the beginning of deliberation, all subjects are in state223

ϕ. In addition, they are in state a, b, A, B or Amb at the end of the deliberation. On the basis of the224

aforementioned subjects’ states, we classify subjects into three types according to how she changes

225

her own states throughout the deliberation.

226

Definition 2.1 (Dependent subjects) Subjects of this type start with ϕ and end with a or b. 

11

227

Subjects who are not classified into “dependent subjects” shall be classified into either of the228

following types.

229

Definition 2.2 (Stable subjects) Subjects of this type start with ϕ and end with A, and during the230

process, they do not take states b, B or Amb, or they start with ϕ and end with B, and during the231

process, they do not take states a, A or Amb. Examples of the status changes are ϕ → A, ϕ → B,232

and ϕ → a → A where “→” denotes the temporal order of changes. 

233Definition 2.3 (Unstable subjects) Subjects of this type start with ϕ and end with A, and during

234

the process, they take state b, B or Amb, or they start with ϕ and end with B, and during the process,235

they take state a, A or Amb. Examples of the status changes are ϕ → A → B, ϕ → B → A,

236

ϕ → Amb → A, ϕ → Amb → B and ϕ → a → B. 

237

Categorization of subjects by “dependent,” “stable” and “unstable” types with their final support

238

or attitude for sustainable or unsustainable options based on the above definitions enables us to239

clarify how deliberation is made to decide in ISD as well as to characterize how subjects consistently

240

support one option or not during deliberation in rural and urban areas.

241

2.4.2

Analysis 2: Concepts — ideas, motivations and reasoning242

To understand ideas, motivations and reasoning subjects bring during deliberation, we use

243“concepts” for considering (not considering) about future generations in ISDG. Following the244laboratory and field experiments employed in Nakagawa et al. (2016), Kamijo et al. (2017) and245

Shahrier et al. (2017), the 15 concepts for considering (not considering) future generations have been246

developed as a basis for coders to follow in qualitative deliberative analysis (table 5). With the 15

247

concepts in table 5 in mind, external coders read transcribed deliberations, statements and arguments

248

made by each subject. When coders identify that a subject makes some argument that is consistent249

with or based on one concept i in table 5, the argument is coded and counted as 1 for concept i. We

250

ask the coders to be very conservative with this process and they are advised to suggest any new251

category if they think something missing as a concept. After this analysis, we can find how many
12

252

times concept i emerges through arguments made by subjects in each generation’s deliberation.

253

Following Analyses 1 and 2, we summarize and compare the basic statistics of subjects’ types,

254

attitudes and concepts subjects argue during deliberation to support sustainable or unsustainable255

options.

256

3

Results

257

The sociodemographic information of urban and rural subjects is presented in table 1, demon-258

strating the differences between urban and rural areas in terms of gender, education, employment259

and income level. In urban areas, 66 % of subjects are male, while only 44 % are male in rural areas.

260

This result reflects that many males migrate from their home villages to urban areas or to foreign261

countries for employment. With respect to education, more than 50 % of the subjects in urban areas262

have a university degree (16 years of schooling), while subjects in the rural areas possess 10 years263

of schooling as the median. In urban areas, 63 % of subjects are engaged in the business and service

264

sectors, while 88 % of rural subjects are involved in farming and forestry as their main occupation.

265

Thus, income is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Overall, the summary statistics suggest

266that there are some differences between the two areas.

267[Table 1 about here.]

268

Table 2 summarizes the frequencies and percentages of generation choices for intergenerational269

unsustainable option A and sustainable option B in ISDG between rural and urban areas. It

270

shows that 10 (16.13 %) generations choose option A and 52 (83.87 %) generations choose option

271

B in rural areas, whereas in the urban 21 (35.59 %) generations choose option A and 38 (64.41 %)272

generations choose option B. Given the result shown in table 2, we run a chi-square test to

273

statistically confirm that the distributions in generation choices of A and B between rural and urban

274

areas are the same as a null hypothesis. We reject the null hypothesis at 5 % significance level275(χ2 = 6.01, p = 0.014), implying that the frequency distributions in generation choices of A and B

13

276

between rural and urban area are different. Overall, generations in rural areas choose sustainable277

option B more often than those in the urban areas.
[Table 2 about here.]

278

279

To understand concepts behind generation decisions, the arguments in deliberations are qualita-

280

tively analyzed. In particular, we look at shifts in subjects’ attitudes for supporting sustainable or281

unsustainable options by finding subject types defined in Analysis 2 of Section 2. Table 3 shows the282

distributions of subject types in generations, following the definitions of subject statuses in analysis

283

1, “dependent,” i.e., a subject who does not bring any ideas, motivations or reasons to show her

284

support, “stable,” i.e., a subject who consistently shows and brings ideas, motivations and reasons285

for her support and “unstable,” i.e., a subject who changes her support during a course of generation

286

deliberation. In coding deliberation per generation, an interrater reliability measure is used to see

287

consistency among three coders on the identification of subject types (or of an unordered categorical

288

variable). We confirm that the reliability measures are Kappa = 0.43 and 0.40 with p < 0.01 for289

rural and urban areas, respectively, suggesting that they are statistically significant and moderately

290

consistent (Landis and Koch, 1977). We run a chi-squared test with a null hypothesis that frequency

291

distributions in subject types between rural and urban areas are the same. The test does not reject292

the null hypothesis, demonstrating that the distributions of subject types do not differ between rural293

and urban areas.

294

Table 4 summarizes the frequencies and percentages of “subject types” who finally support

295

unsustainable option A or sustainable option B in both urban and rural areas. The “stable” type of296

subjects who support unsustainable option A in urban areas is 14 % and the “dependent” type is297

15 %, while the stable and dependent types occupy 6 % and 3 %, respectively, in rural areas. The

298

chi-squared test examines a null hypothesis that the distributions of subject types between rural299

and urban areas are the same for the sample of subjects supporting option A. The result rejects the300

null hypothesis at 5 % significance level (χ2 = 6.66, p = 0.035). However, we could not reject the301

null hypothesis for the sample of subjects supporting sustainable option B. This implies that the302

distributions of subject types differ between urban and rural areas only for the sample of subjects
14

303

supporting option A, being consistent with the fact that the proportions of stable and dependent

304

subjects who support A are higher in urban areas than in rural areas (table 4).

305[Table 3 about here.]306

Through categorizing subject types, we find some consistency between generation choices and307

distributions of subject types that finally support options A or B. Recall that, as reported in table 2,308

urban generations choose option A more often than do rural ones, and stable subjects are defined to309

be the member in a generation that consistently shows her support for option A (or B) and explains310

her ideas, motivations and reasoning to the other members in her generation during deliberation of311

10 minutes. With the idea in mind, we see that the “stable” type of subjects that support option A

312(or B) is key for generations to make a decision in that the proportions of stable types that support

313

option A or B well reflect generation decisions between rural and urban areas. By definition, a314

stable subject in a generation could be interpreted or considered as an influencer to induce other315

members’ opinions to follow or change. In urban areas, it is likely that an existence of stable316

subjects that support option A in generations function as an influencer to induce other members of

317

dependent and/or unstable types in her generation to support option A, leading urban generations318

not to consider future generations (Chambers, 2009, Dickson et al., 2008, Niemeyer, 2011).

319[Table 4 about here.]320

The concepts of ideas, motivation, and reasoning regarding “not considering future generations,”

321

and “considering future generations,” that emerge during deliberations in urban and rural areas

322

identified by qualitative coding are summarized in table 5. The interrater reliability for the coders

323

is found to be Kappa = 0.33 and 0.35 at p < 0.01 for rural and urban areas, respectively, with324

overall 40 % agreement among the coders. A total of 87 and 109 concepts of ideas, motivations

325

and reasoning during deliberations are identified in rural and urban areas, respectively, and they326

are classified on the basis of 15 concepts. Table 6 presents the mean and standard deviations of327

how many concepts per generation are identified during deliberation in rural and urban areas. It
15

328

appears that urban generations bring more concepts during deliberation than do rural ones since the329mean and standard deviation in the number of concepts per generation in urban areas are higher

330

than in rural areas. To confirm the distributional difference between rural and urban areas, we

331

perform a Pearson chi-squared test. The result rejects the null hypothesis at 1 % significance level332(χ2 = 27.36, p < 0.01), implying that urban generations deliberate with more concepts or a wider

333

variety of concepts during deliberation than do rural generations.3[Table 5 about here.]

334

335

Based on the results shown in tables 5 and 6, the frequencies of concepts that emerge during

336

deliberations in rural and urban ares are coded and shown as histograms in figure 3. The concepts are337

represented by positive integers from 1 to 15 in the way that each number from 1 to 7 corresponds338

to one concept for “not considering future generations,” and each number from 8 to 15 does so for339“considering future generations,” as defined in table 5. Figure 3 demonstrates that distributions in340

the support between 8 and 15 do not differ between rural and urban areas, meaning that the concepts

341

for considering future generations are deliberated by rural and urban subjects in the same way or

342

same degree. In particular, concept 15 (hope to avoid future generations’ disadvantages) is most343

frequently discussed in rural and urban areas.

344

A clear difference between rural and urban areas comes from histograms whose support ranges

345

between 1 and 7 that is associated with concepts for not considering future generations (see and346

compare two histograms of black bars in figures 2(a) and 2(b)). We can see that concepts for NOT

347

considering future generations during deliberations emerge more frequently and widely than in rural

348

areas. The dominant concepts for not considering future generation in urban areas are concepts 1, 3

349

and 4 that correspond to “gratitude to earlier generations,” “maximization of the current generations’350

benefit,” and “acceptable disadvantage of future generations.” Interestingly, urban generations tend351

to feel gratitude to earlier generations when they realize that previous generations chose sustainable352

option B by considering them. However, the gratitude does not motivate urban generations to3

Table 6 shows that mean deliberation lengths do not differ between rural and urban areas. However, the standard
deviation in urban areas is higher than that in rural areas, meaning that some deliberations in urban areas become long.

16

353

choose sustainable option for future generations. Rather, they think “we are lucky to have a chance354

to choose A for high payoffs with the gratitude to earlier generations, and let us choose A.”

355

Figure 3 also reveals that urban subjects bring some “concepts” for NOT considering future356

generations during deliberations that rural subjects do not, such as concepts 2, 6 and 7 that are357“surprise at earlier generations’ decisions,” “senses of guilt relaxed by earlier generation’s decision”

358

and “non-negligible cost of considering future generation,” respectively. This implies that some359

urban subjects have unique and/or new ways of thinking and interpreting issues in ISD that rural360

subjects never have. Frequencies and histograms of concepts that emerge during deliberations are361

quite consistent with generations decisions and the distributions of subject types between rural and362

urban areas shown in tables 2 and 4, respectively, demonstrating that urban subjects bring concepts

363

not to consider future generations more frequently and widely during their deliberation than do rural

364

subjects do, leading urban generations to choose unsustainable option A. Overall, our deliberative

365

analysis finds that urban subjects may be losing sympathy and/or concerns for future generations.

366[Figure 3 about here.]

367

Urban cities are future as claimed by recent researches, and Asia and Africa are predicted to368

have the largest and fastest growing “urban cities” in the future by attracting 65 % ∼ 75 % of369

world population (see, e.g., Wigginton et al., 2016). Therefore, urban societies are expected to play370

more vital roles in shaping people’s preferences and behaviors through daily practices and lifestyle,371

and urban people shall remain the main drivers of deciding policies that affect intergenerational372

sustainability (Van Lange et al., 2007, 2011, Golub et al., 2013, Shahrier et al., 2016, 2017). Based373

on our findings, it is more likely that urban people implement the policies that may leave irreversible374

costs on future generations (Henderson et al., 2016). Fischbacher et al. (2001) and Hauser et al.

375(2014) demonstrate an importance of having “conditional cooperators” in a group for providing376

and sustaining public goods in laboratory experiments especially when some person in a group first377

takes an initiative or leadership to cooperate.

378

Our results demonstrate the opposite scenario to explain how urban people choose to be

379

intergenerationally unsustainable; a considerable portion of urban people may be “stable” to
17

380

consistently support unsustainable option A and such a stable urban person tends to be an influencer

381

for other members to follow, that is, other members in a generation are influenced to be “conditional382

followers” for unsustainable options. To resolve ISD in urban areas, it shall be necessary to change383

the ways of thinking for stable people or influencers who consistently support an unsustainable384

option and the associated “conditional followers.” A simple resolution may be introducing some385

new social device or mechanism for urban people to “recall more sympathy and concerns for

386

future generations” through education or some policies when human societies want to ensure

387

intergenerational sustainability.

388

4Conclusion

389

This paper has addressed intergenerational sustainability dilemma (ISD) through field experi-

390

ments where generations are asked to decide between sustainable and unsustainable options through391

deliberation. With deliberative analysis, we have clarified the attitudes and concepts, such as ideas,392

motivations and reasoning, that people discuss during the deliberation in ISD game (ISDG). We

393

find that a considerable portion of urban people are identified to be “stable” as an “influencer” that394

consistently argues her support for unsustainable option, while another considerable portion of395

urban people are “dependent” as a “conditional follower.” Together with this fact, urban subjects

396

bring concepts not to consider future generations more frequently and widely during their delibera-

397

tion than do rural people, leading urban generations to choose unsustainable option. Overall, our398

deliberative analysis finds that urban subjects may be losing concerns for future generations.

399

We note some important limitation and future avenues of research. In the present study, an

400

agenda for deliberation is simplified as an ISDG and exogenously given to groups to discuss

401

about choosing sustainable or unsustainable option. However, it does not fully reflect a realistic402

policy agenda that contains an issue of ISD. In the future, it is important to design and institute a

403

deliberative experiment with real policy agendas that extend over multiple generations to deeply404

understand how people in societies deliberate about real problems of ISD, such as budgets or forest

18

405

management problems. These caveats notwithstanding, we believe that this work is an important406

first step as a field experiment research as well as a qualitative-deliberative study that addresses

407

intergenerational sustainability. The experimental approach with deliberative analysis can provide

408

a rich insight into how people and groups decide on various issues. This research is considered409

an illustration of how qualitative-deliberative analysis can be usefully combined with economic

410

experiments as a methodology to reveal human behaviors, arguments and motivations in collective

411

decision making such as ISD.

19

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23

List of Figures1
2
3

Urban and rural areas in Nepalese fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Structure of experiment and data collection procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Distributions of concepts that emerge in rural and urban areas: Each number from
1 (8) to 7 (15) in the support of a histogram corresponds to one concept for notconsidering future generations (for considering future generations) . . . . . . . . . 27

24

Figure 1: Urban and rural areas in Nepalese fields

25

Figure 2: Structure of experiment and data collection proceduresIntergenerational sustainability dilemma game (ISDG)One day session
Room 7

Procedure
Room 1

K_1

Room 2

K_2

G_3

Room 3

K_3

G_4

Room 4

G_5

Room 5

G_6

Room 6

G_1

Room 8

ISDG
G_2

Room 9Individual interview
SVO

Questionnaires
Payments

26

(b) Urban areas

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

FREQUENCY

FREQUENCY(a) Rural areas

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
CONCEPTS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
CONCEPTS

Figure 3: Distributions of concepts that emerge in rural and urban areas: Each number from 1(8) to 7 (15) in the support of a histogram corresponds to one concept for not considering future
generations (for considering future generations)27

List of Tables
1
2
3
4
5
6

Summary statistics of socio-demographic variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The frequency and percentage of generation choice of A and B (percentage inparenthesis are rounded up) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The frequencies and percentages of “subject types” in rural and urban areas that
finally support options A or B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The frequency and percentage of “subject types” who finally support options A or
B in urban and rural areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Categories and concepts of ideas, motivations and reasoning during deliberation . .
Summary statistics for a number of concept that emerge during deliberation anddeliberation length per generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

29
30
31
32
33
34

29

30.5
0.00
10.00
0.00
15.000

16.00
0.00
1.00
0.00
5.000

66.00
1.00
18.00
1.00
300.000

33.77
0.66
15.20
0.63
50.91917

11.38
0.47
3.42
0.48
80.50229

6 Income is given in monthly Nepalese rupees (NPR).

32.5
0.00
16.00
0.00
34.000

18.00
56.00
0.00
1.00
5.00
18.00
0.00
1.00
10.000 900.000

Urban (59 generations, 177 subjects)
Mean
SD
MedianMin
Max

5 Business and services involvement is a dummy variable that takes 1 when the subject is engaged in business or another service sector otherwise0.

4 Education represents years of schooling.

3 A dummy variable that takes 1 when the subject is male, otherwise 0.

2 Age is a continuous variable given in years.

1 The “SD” stands for standard deviation.

11.54
0.50
2.86
0.37
40.49894

Rural (62 generations, 186 subjects)
Mean
SD1
Median Min
Max

Age2
33.27
3
Gender0.44
4
Education
10.18
Business and services 5
0.12
6Income (in NPR 1000) 3.08461

Variables

Table 1: Summary statistics of socio-demographic variables30

31 (26 %)
90 (74 %)
121 (100 %)59 (100 %) 62 (100 %)Sample total

10 (16 %)
52 (84 %)

21 (36 %)
38 (64 %)RegionUrban
Rural

The table shows generation choice of A and B with respect tourban and rural areas.

Total

A
B

Choice of A or B

Table 2: The frequency and percentage of generation choice of A and B (percentage in parenthesis are rounded up)

31

Numbers in brackets indicate the corresponding proportions of“subject types.”81 (46 %) 21 (12 %) 177 (100 %)75 (42 %)

186 (100 %)Urban

15 (8 %)

Sub-total

84 (45 %)Unstable87 (47 %)Stable

Rural

Generations Dependent

Table 3: The frequencies and percentages of “subject types” in rural and urban areas that finally support options A or B32
24 (14 %)

27 (15 %)Urban

12 (7 %)

11 (6 %)48 (27 %)

82 (44 %)

57 (32 %)

73 (39 %)

9 (5 %)

4 (2 %)

Subjects who finally support B
Dependent
StableUnstable177 (100 %)186 (100 %)Sub-total

Numbers in brackets indicate the corresponding proportions of subject types per generation type.

11 (6 %)

5 (3 %)

Subjects who finally support A
Dependent
StableUnstable

Rural

Generation

Table 4: The frequency and percentage of “subject types” who finally support options A or B in urban and rural areas

33

1

Surprise at earlier generations’ decisions
Maximization of the current generations’ benefit
Acceptable disadvantage of future generations
Risk of unsucceeded goodwill
Sense of guilt relaxed by earlier generations’ decisions
Non-negligible cost of considering future generations
Hesitation to take advantage from a happenstance
Expectation that goodwill will succeed
Sense of guilt not to consider future generations
Negligible cost of considering future generations
Willingness to terminate the chain of badwill
Willingness to succeed goodwill
Maximization of the sum of all generations’ benefits
Hope to avoid future generations’ disadvantages

2
3
4
5
6
7
8

9
10

11

12

13

14

15

We expect that if we choose option B, groups coming later will do so.
It will not make big difference by choosing option B but if we choose A,
it will gradually decreases 300 points of future groups .
We should not be selfish for just 300 points, we also need to think
about other groups.
Taking A decreases 300 points and, at the end, there might be zero oreven negative. Some groups before us have already chosen A.
I think that the previous group has selected B,
and groups before that have selected B.
Let us choose B
Every group should get the same benefits.
If all groups choose B, then the total points will be high.
There are many groups and as a previous group
if we choose A then groups later will have a disadvantage.
It is not fair that only previous groups get an advantage.

We should not take advantage of the opportunity that come to us
by chance.

to get more by choosing A. We should select B.1
Wow! At the beginning, there were 1200 and 900 points as option
for choosing A and B.
The first group has selected A and stuck to more points for herself.
First, we need to think about ourselves, then we can think about others.
We should do gambling. Let us choose A. We need to gamble,
and future groups will at least get something
We need to win that is what it matters.
There is no problem to choose A, previous group has also chosen A.
The cost from choosing B is 300, let’s choose A.

Experimental instruction uses a neutral terminology of “groups” to represent “generations.” Therefore, subjects use a word of groups
in deliberation.
A total of 9 (50) and 78 (59) ideas, motivations and reasoning have been identified for not considering (considering) future generations
in rural and urban areas, respectively.

Considering
future generations

Category
Not considering
future generations

Table 5: Categories and concepts of ideas, motivations and reasoning during deliberation
No. Concepts
Example1 Gratitude to earlier generations
Since some previous group has selected B, we have a good opportunity

34
1.01

2.01

Urban areas

1.57

1.52

0.56

1.61

Rural areas

1.24

0.95

Deliberation length (minutes)
Mean
SD

Number of different concepts
Mean
SD

Generations

Table 6: Summary statistics for a number of concept that emerge during deliberation and deliberation length per generation