The impact of changes in common property resource management on intrahousehold allocation

Abstract

In developing countries, common property resources (CPRs) can be an important source of income for certain individuals within households. This paper demonstrates that if changes in the management of CPRs impose fixed costs on them, or cause a decline in the prices of goods produced from it, the intrahousehold allocation of resources may alter in a manner detrimental to those individuals. The paper also shows that the assumption of a unitary household model causes the detrimental effects of certain CPR policy interventions to be overlooked. Although the model is narrowly conceived, the results can be generalised to examples where households have members who specialise in different economic activities outside the home.