Partial enclosure of the commons

Christopher Costello, Nicolas Querou and Agnes Tomini
Additional contact information
Christopher Costello: Bren School of Environmental Science & Management - UC Santa Barbara - University of California [Santa Barbara] - UC - University of California

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: We examine the efficiency, distributional, and environmental consequences of assigning spatial property rights to part of a spatially-connected natural resource while the remainder is competed for by an open access fringe. We refer to this as partial enclosure of the commons. We obtain sharp analytical results regarding partial enclosure of the commons including: (1) While second best, it typically improves welfare relative to no property rights, (2) all resource users can be made better off, (3) positive rents arise in the open access area, and (4) the resource maintains higher stocks. Under spatial heterogeneity, we also characterize spatial regions that are ideal candidates for partial enclosure - typically, society should seek to enclose those patches with high environmental productivity and high self-retention, but whether high economic productivity promotes or relegates a patch may depend on one's objective.

Keywords: natural resources; common property; incomplete property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published in Journal of Public Economics, 2015, 121 (1), pp.69-78. ⟨10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.11.011⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Partial enclosure of the commons (2015)
Working Paper: Partial enclosure of the commons (2013)
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:hal:journl:hal-01132260

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.11.011

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().