Endangered Commons? Modeling the Effects of Demographic Trends Coupled with Admission Rules to Common Property Institutions

Cristina Dalla Torre (), Rocco Scolozzi (), Elisa Ravazzoli and Paola Gatto
Additional contact information
Cristina Dalla Torre: Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Rocco Scolozzi: Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, 38122 Trento, Italy
Elisa Ravazzoli: Institute for Regional Development, Eurac Research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Paola Gatto: Department of Land Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF), University of Padova, 35020 Legnaro, Italy

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 10, 1-18

Abstract: This study investigates the long-term effects of demographic trends and admission rules on common properties in the Province of Trento, Italy, which we refer to as historical commons. Historical commons have evolved into socio-ecological systems over the centuries, meaning that communities governed collectively natural resources and lands essential for community survival. Communities and the admission rules that determine their composition are an important constituting element of historical commons because they have developed local ecological knowledge and practices of sustainable use of natural resources. Our study hypothesizes that commons continuity is endangered because of the declining trend of the size of communities being influenced by demographic trends coupled with admission rules. Grounding our research in systems dynamics, we use empirical data including demographic projections and existing admission rules to simulate their effect on the site of the community using the Province of Trento, Italy, as our study region. To achieve that, three types of historical commons are identified: open, semi-open, and closed, each with different admission criteria based on inheritance and/or residency. Results indicate that inheritance-based admission rules can significantly reduce the number of commoners over time, potentially endangering the continuity of these self-governance institutions. The study discusses the results in light of the literature on historical commons’ continuity to evaluate different policies affecting the size of the community grounding on different mental models. The study concludes that a simulation approach can promote an anticipatory approach to the co-design of policies to ensure inclusive continuity of historical commons.

Keywords: agile modeling; system dynamics; historical commons; admission rules (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/10/1704/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/10/1704/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:10:p:1704-:d:1501549

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().