The Rudiments of a Theory of the Origins, Survival, and Performance of Common Property Institutions

Abstract

From Page One: 
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\n "In the first chapter of the forthcoming volume, Essays on the Commons. Dan Bromley reminds us that there is 'no such thing as a common property resource
\n? there are only resources controlled and managed as common property, or as state property, or as private property' [Bromley, in Bromley forthcoming]. Bromley stresses the confusion created when 'resources over which no property rights have been recognized' are casually referred to as common property resources rather than as open access resources [see Ciracy-Wantrup and Bishop 1975]. A clear prediction can be made in situations where no one has a property right related to the flow of benefits from a resource. If the benefits are greater than the costs of obtaining them, open access resources will be overexploited and potentially destroyed. When property rights exist
\n? whether private property, state property, or common property ? overexploitation and destruction depend on how well the property rights regime copes with problems of allocating the costs and benefits of managing and governing a particular resource. In other words, property rights defining who has access, how much can be harvested, who can manage, and how rights are transferred are a necessary but not sufficient condition for avoiding overexploitation of a resources [see Schlager and E. Ostrom 1987].
\nThe authors of the empirical chapters in Bromley [forthcoming] have heeded Bromley's advice. They have not presumed that all resources used jointly by multiple individuals are open-access resources. Instead, they have attempted to explore how decision-making arrangements ? to use the general concept of Oakerson's framework ? affect 'who decides what in relation to whom.'"