Commons

Abstract

"The 'tragedy of the commons' has been a famous metaphor for problems related to common-pool resources ever since Garrett Hardin (1968) wrote his evocative article in Science. Common-pool resources (CPRs) are natural or human-made resources that share two attributes: (I) substantial difficulty (but not impossibility) of devising ways to exclude individuals from benefiting from these resources and (2) the subtractability of benefits consumed by one individual from those available to others."