|
Abstract:
|
"The purpose of this background paper, as I understand it, is to share with colleagues from other disciplines and countries an overview of recent research from one's own field related to the study of natural resources and property rights systems. That is difficult to do within the allotted space, especially given the technical nature of some of the research. In the body of this paper, I will present a broad overview of results without the supporting technical detail or evidence. To provide some of the supporting theory and evidence for the interested reader, a recently published, summary of a considerable body of work undertaken by Roy Gardner, James Walker, and myself is appended.
"The establishment of the Panel on Common Property Resources at the National Academy of Sciences during the mid-1980s was an important turning point in this area of research. When the panel was first created, many social scientists interested in natural resource policy problems, presumed that the appropriators (a general term used to describe any person who harvests or withdraws benefits, and thus appropriates from a natural resource systems) were unlikely to develop their own norms, rules and property rights systems to reduce the costs of externalities associated with the use of most natural resource systems. Assuming that no evolution of local norms, rules, or rights would occur, policy recommendations were made that external agents had to impose solutions to these problems on those affected. The imposed solutions were frequently presented as 'the only way' to reduce these externalities and increase efficiency. One proposed solution was control of natural resources by a central government agency. The second favored solution was the imposition of private property. Something had to be wrong with the theories, the interpretation of the theories, or the policy prescriptions, if solutions as different as state control and market control were both proposed as the only way to efficiently manage natural resources.
"We have come a long way in the past decade.1 The initial publication of the summary volume of the National Academy of Sciences Panel (National Research Council, 1986), the many important books recently published (McCay and Acheson, 1987; Fortmann and Bruce, 1988; Wade, 1988; Berkes, 1989; Pinkerton, 1989; Sengupta, 1991; Dasgupta and Maler, 1992; V. Ostrom, Feeny and Picht, 1993; Netting, 1993), the revision of the National Academy of Sciences volume (Bromley, 1992), the influential article by Feeny, Berkes, McCay, and Acheson (1990), and recent important work on property rights (Libecap, 1989; Eggertson, 1990; Bromley, 1991) have all contributed to this progress. Books by those associated with the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University (E. Ostrom, 1990, 1992; E. Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker, 1993; Blomquist, 1992; Tang, 1992; Martin, 1989/1992; Thomson, 1992) have hopefully contributed as well."
|