EcoTRADE — a multi-player network game…

EcoTRADE — a multi-player network game of a tradable permit market for biodiversity credits

Florian Hartig, Martin Horn, Martin Drechsler

Environmental Modelling & Software, 25(11), 1479–1480 (2010)

Cite this

@article{hartig2010ecotrade,
  author = {Florian Hartig and Martin Horn and Martin Drechsler},
  title = {EcoTRADE — a multi-player network game of a tradable permit market for biodiversity credits},
  journal = {Environmental Modelling & Software},
  volume = {25},
  number = {11},
  pages = {1479–1480},
  year = {2010},
  doi = {10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.01.003},
}

DOI: 10.1016/j.envsoft.2009.01.003
Cited by 10 (Google Scholar) · 36 (OpenAlex), as of 07 September 2026

Abstract

EcoTRADE is a multi-player network game of a virtual biodiversity credit market. Each player controls the land use of a certain amount of parcels on a virtual landscape. The biodiversity credits of a particular parcel depend on neighboring parcels, which may be owned by other players. The game can be used to study the strategies of players in experiments or classroom games and as a communication tool for stakeholders participating in credit markets that include spatially interdependent credits.

What the paper shows and why it matters (AI-generated)

EcoTRADE turns an abstract question about spatially interdependent biodiversity credit markets — how does one player's land-use choice affect a neighbor's credit value? — into something people can actually play through and study empirically, as a multiplayer network game rather than a pure simulation. Built for both research and classroom use, it's since been cited in ecological-economic modelling reviews and instrument-design overviews as a concrete example of participatory market experimentation.