Abstract
In the burgeoning literature on property rights, relatively little analysis has been done on the relation between property rights regimes (i.e., individual property, state property, clan property), and the types of goods that are produced. In Maine [U.S.A.], the decisions of landowners are strongly influenced by government regulation which creates a number of types of goods. In addition, some of the rights to that land are appropriated by the public who use this land for recreation. Although the right of the public to use private land is under attack, currently this forestland is both privately owned and a recreational commons. At the same time, new property institutions are coming into being. As a result, a single “privately owned” parcel of land produces private goods, public goods, common pool resources and toll goods all at the same time. The Maine case points out that the relationship between various kinds of property rights and goods is more complicated than has been assumed by many social scientists involved in the “commons” debate.
Highlights
In the growing literature on property rights, there is increasing appreciation that property is a very complicated phenomenon
We describe the property rights to Maine forestland
How do Mainers accommodate to a situation in which the forestland is private and yet produces a common-pool resource? In the past, accommodation between hunters and landowners was facilitated by the fact that many of the people hunting in a given area were themselves landowners from that area
Summary
In the growing literature on property rights, there is increasing appreciation that property is a very complicated phenomenon. Rights can be bundled in different ways to create what von Benda-Beckmann et al (2006, 18) call “master categories” (i.e. private property, state property, etc.). What has not been adequately explored is the relationship between property rights regimes and types of goods that are produced by those various property regimes. Maine forests are used and claimed by different groups who have different bundles of rights. Maine forests produce four different types of goods: private goods, common-pool goods, toll goods and public goods all at the same time. As we shall see, distinguishing between bundles of property rights and the kinds of goods produced is essential to understanding the Maine forest situation, which is undergoing considerable and rapid change. We discuss implications for the theory of property rights in general
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