hidden
Image Database Export Citations

Menu:

Analyzing Institutional Successes and Failures: A Millennium of Common Mountain Pastures in Iceland

Show full item record

Type: Conference Paper
Author: Eggertsson, Thráinn
Conference: Colloquium at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis
Location: Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Conf. Date: February 17, 1992
Date: 1991
URI: https://hdl.handle.net/10535/840
Sector: Grazing
Agriculture
Region: Europe
Subject(s): common pool resources--economics
land tenure and use
property rights
tragedy of the commons
Workshop
agriculture
mountain regions
pastoralism
Abstract: "Throughout their history, the island economies of the North Atlantic have relied to a large extent on common property resources both in agriculture and in the fisheries. It is well established that the sharing of resources need not always lead to a full-scale dissipation of wealth, the tragedy of the commons, when certain conditions are met. However, it is also well known that communities often fail to establish institutions for restricting entry to the commons, and, even when they exist, these institutions are often fragile structures, vulnerable to pressures from population growth, technological change, and shifts in political power and processes. Therefore, it is of considerable interest to examine the evolution of property rights to natural resources in the North Atlantic communities, such as Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes, and investigate whether institutions did emerge in these societies that effectively regulated entry and prevented the dissipation of their natural resources. The present study is concerned with the law and economics of Icelandic agriculture, specifically with the institutions that for more than a thousand years have regulated the use of the country's extensive common mountain pastures."

Files in this item

Files Size Format View
Analyzing_insti ... in_pastures_in_iceland.pdf 146.5Kb PDF View/Open

This item appears in the following document type(s)

Show full item record