The Rudiments of a Theory of the Origins, Survival, and Performance of Common Property Institutions

Abstract

From Page One:

"In the first chapter of the forthcoming volume, Essays on the Commons. Dan Bromley reminds us that there is 'no such thing as a common property resource ? there are only resources controlled and managed as common property, or as state property, or as private property' [Bromley, in Bromley forthcoming]. Bromley stresses the confusion created when 'resources over which no property rights have been recognized' are casually referred to as common property resources rather than as open access resources [see Ciracy-Wantrup and Bishop 1975]. A clear prediction can be made in situations where no one has a property right related to the flow of benefits from a resource. If the benefits are greater than the costs of obtaining them, open access resources will be overexploited and potentially destroyed. When property rights exist ? whether private property, state property, or common property ? overexploitation and destruction depend on how well the property rights regime copes with problems of allocating the costs and benefits of managing and governing a particular resource. In other words, property rights defining who has access, how much can be harvested, who can manage, and how rights are transferred are a necessary but not sufficient condition for avoiding overexploitation of a resources [see Schlager and E. Ostrom 1987]. The authors of the empirical chapters in Bromley [forthcoming] have heeded Bromley's advice. They have not presumed that all resources used jointly by multiple individuals are open-access resources. Instead, they have attempted to explore how decision-making arrangements ? to use the general concept of Oakerson's framework ? affect 'who decides what in relation to whom.'"