Restraint under Open Access: Are Voluntary Incentives Sufficient or Is Coercion Required?: Discussion

Abstract

In describing the inefficiencies of open access fisheries, earlier writers (e.g., Gordon) relied heavily on some simplifying assumptions. In particular, it was assumed that inputs (effort) were homogenous and their supply to the industry was perfectly elastic. The potential for cooperation among the individual participants was ignored. The end result, after some hand waving, was that entry would lead to the complete dissipation of the rental value of the resource. This particular open access model with its average-product argument has been applied to other resource areas and is widely evident in the public choice literature. Despite the widespread application of the model, there remains skepticism about its predictive powers and the policy implications drawn from it. Three of the four papers presented at this session are reflective of that skepticism. In that regard, they are not alone. One can, for example, find numerous anthropological studies arguing that communities have, on occasion, established informal arrangements for controlling entry and the use of resources in such areas as fishing and grazing. A distinctive feature of many of those studies is cautious approach to the full dissipation implication found in the traditional open access model. The traditional model has been criticized because it ignores the potential for cooperation and instead treats producers as though they were a sack full of ornery cats (Johnson, p. 246). Furthermore, challenges to the complete dissipation argument are not restricted to anthropological literature. Experiments involving finite repetition of the prisoners' dilemma game suggest that players do not always follow the single-period dominant strategy (defection). Instead, they achieve some measure of cooperation. Finally, there is the existence of institutions such as nature groups who finance the purchase of lands even where benefits accrue to numerous individuals who were not party to the transaction. In those cases it appears that the free rider problem does not completely dominate the outcome. If, however, full dissipation does not occur, does it then follow that some form of explicit cooperation with internally imposed rules and sanctions has evolved? The answer appears to be no. First, individual participants may not be homogenous, and thus, the supply function of effort is not perfectly elastic. In that case, the rental value of the resource need not be