Common Property Rights Research Articles

Commons Sense: Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change

Common property rights were widespread in English agriculture for at least 600 years. Since privatizing common fields allegedly produced huge profits in the eighteenth century, common land owners seemingly squandered 15 percent of potential income for generations. Ingenious explanations have been produced for this market failure. This article argues for a simple, brutal resolution. Common fields survived because enclosure was generally unprofitable before 1750, when changing relative prices made private property rights marginally more efficient. Then people responded quickly to modest profits. The rich gains from enclosure existed only in the imaginings of wild-eyed eighteenth century agrarian reformers.

Oak Leaves and the origins of the 1927 Radio Act: Comment

The Radio Act of 1927 was enacted so as to pre-empt the common law property rights then being asserted over radio waves, thus facilitating a political equilibrium where broadcasters and regulators shared license rents. The Oak Leaves case of November 1926, awarding AM frequency rights to a private broadcaster on the homesteading principle, helped motivate Congress, steering it towards a “public interest” licensing law. The Twight paper, while ostensibly critiquing this now standard view in the law and economics literature, actually endorses it. The existing history stands corroborated, uncorrected.

Pastoralism: Governance and Development Issues

Pastoralist societies face more threats to their way of life now than at any previous time. Population growth; loss of herding lands to private farms, ranches, game parks, and urban areas; increased commoditization of the livestock economy; out-migration by poor pastoralists; and periodic dislocations brought about by drought, famine, and civil war are increasing in pastoralist regions of the world. Mongolia and China, however, have seen a revitalization of pastoral production with decollectivization. This review examines problems of pastoral governance and development including the “tragedy of the commons” debate, threats to common property rights, the effects of commercial ranching on pastoral economies, decollectivization in the former socialist countries, and the current state of development policies of Western donor countries. Case examples from the Maasai and Barabaig of East Africa and pastoralists of Mongolia and China illustrate these changes.

Environmental degradation and population movements: The role of property rights

This study examines the linkages between environmental degradation (viewed primarily as deforestation and land degradation) and the movement of population from one region to another within a developing country. The hypothesis postulated is that the link between population and environmental degradation is mediated by the nature of property rights in land. This hypothesis is examined with the help of two alternative methodologies. Firstly, a simultaneous equations model using data for the arid and semi-arid region of Western India illustrates that outmigration from the region is largely the consequence of push factors such as environmental degradation and decrease in common land. Alternatively, micro experiments in environmental protection and the creation of common property rights on open access land in the same region indicate that the association between migrational change, creation of common property rights and participation indices is high. It can be concluded that once property rights are well defined with the help of appropriate institutional arrangements, labour moves towards the creation of common assets and an improvement in the environment takes place. Out migration is prevented and higher levels of population are supported by the same resources.

Changing Social Norms: Common Property, Bridewealth, and Clan Exogamy

Much has been written on change in social norms, but with few exceptions such efforts have failed to synthesize the growing theoretical literature with the specifics of empirical cases. Attempting such a synthesis, we develop a theoretical framework for explaining norm emergence and change that builds on Barth's idea of generative models. We identify three mechanisms offered in the contemporary theoretical literature to account for the dynamic process of norm change: (I) coordination on focal points, (2) competitive selection among contracts, and (3) bargaining. We investigate three examples of norm change among the Galole Orma - common property rights, bridewealth, and clan exogamy - and show that examination of strategic decision making within the constraints presented by social context can produce adequate accounts of such change. We conclude that the primary mechanism in norm change among the Orma is bargaining and that the most important sources of such change are asymmetries in bargaining power.

Property Rights, Small Woodlot Owners and Forest Management in Nova Scotia

This paper explores the political, economic and social power structure in the forest of Nova Scotia through the history of forest tenures and forest management, focussing on small woodlot owners. In forest management, one assumption holds that small woodlot owners strongly believe in the notion of private property rights; the other holds that it is unacceptable to interfere with such rights except through educational and voluntary programmes. We question these assumptions. In Nova Scotia, the state’s alleged protection of property rights has been rhetorical and highly selective. Property rights have been contested. Individual property rights, common property rights and open access arrangements have been eroded while corporate property rights have been enhanced. The ascendancy and pre-eminence of the latter are not a function of a natural order. There are precedents for different sets of rules, even within capitalism, as illustrated both by the history of Nova Scotia and by conditions in other jurisdictions.

The Political Economy of the American West

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 The Race for Property Rights Chapter 3 Homesteading and Property Rights: Or, How the West Was Really Won Chapter 4 When Common Property Rights Can Be Optimal: Nineteenth-Century Cattle Grazing in the Semi-Arid American West Chapter 5 The Political Economy of Early Federal Reclamation in the West Chapter 6 The Progressive Ideal and the Columbia Basin Project Chapter 7 Rents from Amenity Resources: A Case Study of Yellowstone National Park Chapter 8 Forseeing Confiscation by the Sovereign: Lessons From the American West Chapter 9 Public Policy and the Admission of the Western States Chapter 10 About the Political Economy Forum and the Authors

Ownership of Renewable Ocean Resources

Much of the recent fisheries economics literature promotes usufructuary rights policies to lessen the dissipation of resource rents. However, this literature does not count institutional inefficiencies which result from rentseeking and the principal-agent problem when a centralized government controls access to renewable ocean resources. As a result, the efficiency of usufructuary rights programs, including ITQs, throughout the economy could be exaggerated. From a dynamic standpoint, though, usufructuary rights policies remain an important avenue for residual claimants to contract for less attenuated institutions of common or private property rights. These conclusions are drawn from a survey of the property rights and public choice literatures.

Private and Common Property Rights in the Economics of the Environment

(1988). Private and Common Property Rights in the Economics of the Environment. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 1071-1087.

Common property rights and regional subordination in a staples economy: the rise and decline of the British Columbia coastal fishing community, 1880–1981

L'émergence et le déclin de la société de la pêche côtière de L'arrière‐pays de la Colombie‐Britannique entre les années 1880 à 1981, est examiné dans le but de découvrir les raisons de son existence et de son éclipse. Le modèle de subordination de L'arrière‐pays, basé sur des explications de dépendance de modèles de développement régionaux inégaux au Canada, est présenté et critiqué. Il est argumenté que L'affaiblissement de la théorie de deéendance de pouvoir tenir compte de facon satisfaisante des modèles de sous‐développement régionaux est associé avec le besoin de situer ces sortes d'analyses à L'intérieur du contexte de sa denrée principale et de ses uniques propriétés de ressources. L'évidence historique des pêcheries de la Colombie‐Britannique démontre comment la propriété commune et les qualités périssables des ressources des pêches en combinaison avec le capital du traitement et de la moisson ont alimenté une économie brève au long des côtes rurales au début du siècle, résultant à la création d'un bon nombre de communautés côtières de pêche. Le déclin tardif de cette région et sa glissade dans un état de subsistance marginale et de sous‐développement retranché sont vu comme supportant un modèle sectoriel de dépendance régionale. L'évidence courante de cet état dans les pêcheries de la Colombie‐Britannique est fournie, et la pertinence des explications de la théorie de dépendance dans le contexte du développement social canadien est discuté.The emergence and decline of the British Columbia hinterland coastal fishing society between 1880 and 1981 is examined for the purpose of discovering reasons for its existence and eclipse. The model of hinterland subordination, based upon dependency explanations for the pattern of uneven regional development within Canada, is presented and criticized. It is argued that the failure of dependency theory to account satisfactorily for patterns of regional underdevelopment is associated with the need to situate such analyses within the context of the particular staple and its unique resource properties. Historical evidence from the British Columbia fisheries demonstrates how the common property and perishable qualities of the fishing resource combined with processor and harvesting capital to fuel a brief economic heyday along the rural coast earlier in this century, resulting in the creation of a number of coastal fishing communities. The later decline of this region and its slide into a state of marginal subsistence and entrenched underdevelopment are seen to support a sectoral model of regional dependency. Current evidence of this state in the B.C. fisheries is provided, and the relevance of dependency theory explanations in the context of Canadian social development is discussed.

COMMON PROPERTY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND REGULATION THE CASE OF DRYLAND SALINITY

The term 'common property' has frequently been misapplied to situations where no property rights exist. Common property rights have provided a workable alternative to private property in many historical situations. Common property concepts and institutions can also play a major role in analysing and responding to current environmental problems. In this paper, the problem of dryland salinity is examined and solutions based on common property, private property and regulation are compared.

The political feasibility of full ownership property rights: The cases of pollution and fisheries

The present paper investigates the political feasibility of policies to control pollution and fishing. It first hypothesizes the following: when common or usufruct property rights are changed to full ownership, the new policy is not an unadulterated charge or auctioned license because of the implied wealth transfer. This hypothesis is “tested” by reviewing the cases in which full ownership rights have been established and is found to be consistent with the evidence. The paper then investigates the conditions that facilitate the development of full ownership rights. It concludes that proposing policies that are simple and incremental increases political feasibility, in large part because of greater understanding by fishermen and polluters.

Common Law Intellectual Property and the Legacy of International News Service v. Associated Press

That information once published should be presumptively free for all to use is a commonplace of intellectual property law. As Benjamin Kaplan has observed, man has any 'natural' rights, not the least must be a right to imitate his fellows, and thus to reap where he has not sown. Education, after all, proceeds from a kind of mimicry, and 'progress,' if it is not entirely an illusion, depends on generous indulgence of copying.' It might thus seem to follow that judges should have only modest powers to find that individuals have common law intellectual property rights. Common law judges, however, often discover such rights under the branch of unfair competition law known as misappropriation.

A Theory of Price Control

PRICE or rent control is but one of many forms of legislative action which interfere with private contracting in the market place. To delimit the scope of my analysis, I shall use the term "price control" to refer only to any set of regulations which satisfies the following three conditions. First, the control must fix the price (or income)' terms of private contracts; this categorically excludes any laws which regulate the distribution of income among the contracting parties on a share or percentage basis.2 Second, the control must involve no appropriation of proceeds to or from the government; taxation and subsidization are thus excluded. Finally, the fixing of price must not be associated with direct government sales, purchases, or manipulation of resources so as to maintain the regulated price;3 by this stipulation, price "support" is also excluded. Even on such terms, legal regulations to control price are still many and varied. To evaluate our understanding of the class of phenomena which we seek to explain it is essential that we discover implications refutable by facts. By this criterion the available body of economic theory pertaining to price control is deficient indeed: the massive literature on the subject offers few such implications.4 An alternative approach to analyzing the observable effects of price control is presented here.

Economic Analysis, the Legal Framework and Land Tenure Systems

D ISCUSSIONS of the efficiency of various systems of land tenure are marred by all sorts of imprecision in analysis. Economists have developed a clear notion of economic efficiency but discussions of land tenure invariably bring in some sociological and wealth-distribution constraints when discussing the efficiency aspects of tenure systems. Social anthropologists and others stress that certain tenure systems are integral parts of social systems involving such things as insurance for old and young, with the implication that even though these tenure systems might not facilitate (pecuniary) wealthmaximization, yet the non-pecuniary wealth facilitated provides "enough" compensation in some general welfare sense. I shall discard such sociological arguments because I believe that there is no reason why the sociological benefits of particular tenure systems cannot be obtained by some alternative arrangement while creating a tenure system that is designed to facilitate wealth maximization and wealth increases.

Common Law Property Rights in Architectural Plans

Common Law Property Rights in Architectural Plans