Size
The effect of the number of participants facing problems of creating and sustaining a self-governing enterprise is unclear. Drawing on the early work of Mancur Olson
(1965), many theorists argue that size of a group is negatively related to solving collective-action problems in general (see also Buchanan and Tullock 1962). Many results from game theoretical analysis of repeated games conclude that cooperative strategies are more likely to emerge and be sustained in smaller rather than larger
groups (see synthesis of this literature in Baland and Platteau 1996). Scholars who have studied many user- governed forestry institutions in the field have concluded that success will more likely happen in smaller groups
(see, for example, Cernea 1989).