The commons and anti-commons problems in the tourism economy

Carmen D. Álvarez-Albelo () and Raúl Hernández-Martín ()
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Carmen D. Álvarez-Albelo: Department of Economic Analysis, University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain & CREB
Raúl Hernández-Martín: Department of Economic Analysis, University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain

No XREAP2009-16, Working Papers from Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP)

Abstract: Countries specialised in tourism tend to face two problems with contradictory effects: the commons and the anti-commons, which lead to tourism over- and under-production, respectively. This paper develops a two-period model to analyse the joint effects of both problems on a small and remote tourism economy. Congestion and the complementariness between foreign transport and local tourism services are key features in this type of markets. As a result, direct selling and the presence of foreign tour-operators emerge as possible market arrangements with different implications in terms of welfare and public intervention. Four main results are obtained. First, in the direct selling situation the optimal policy depends on the relative importance of the problems. Second, the existence of tour-operators always leads to tourism over-production. Third, the presence of a single tour-operator does not solve the congestion problem. Lastly, the switch from several tour-operators to a single one is welfare reducing.

Keywords: commons; anti-commons; tourism; direct selling; tour-operators; optimal policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F12 F13 F14 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2009-12, Revised 2009-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tur
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2009-16.pdf First version, 2009 (application/pdf)
http://www.xreap.cat/RePEc/xrp/pdf/XREAP2009-16.pdf Revised version, 2009 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:xrp:wpaper:xreap2009-16

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