Abstract
This study investigates cooperation and strategic behavior in dynamic social dilemmas where individual actions generate both immediate private benefits and persistent collective costs. Motivated by real-world settings such as climate change mitigation and renewable resource management, we examine how individuals manage a shared stock-dependent resource in environments where the shadow of the future and dynamic complexity shape incentives.Through laboratory experiments, we vary initial stock levels, time horizons, and whether decisions are made individually or strategically in pairs. These treatments allow us to identify whether participants coordinate on socially efficient behavior and to separate the roles of dynamic complexity, myopia, and coordination frictions in departures from theoretical benchmarks. Furthermore, we assess the presence of stock-dependent strategies, contributing evidence on behavior in intertemporal resource dilemmas.