Exploitation of natural resources such as oil and gas fields, coal and water basins are very important in the economic growth of countries. The importance of this issue for countries, especially the common natural resources, is twofold. Exploitation of common resources between countries is of...

Many developing countries depend crucially on open-access renewable natural resources (NR). Trade is generally viewed as hurting the long-term health of NR in commodity-exporting countries. I examine whether trade might be beneficial in the case of population growth. Dynamic general equilibrium...

Many developing countries depend crucially on open-access renewable natural resources (NR). Trade is generally viewed as hurting the long-term health of NR in commodity-exporting countries. I examine whether trade might be beneficial in the case of population growth. Dynamic general equilibrium...

The rise of Global China or the rapid expansion of Chinese influence abroad has had a commensurate impact on transnational trade and related commercial pressure in the governance of natural resources in Africa. Rosewood with its direct link to China's cultural renaissance has had a boost in...

Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) - a range of methods to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere- are a crucial innovation in meeting temperature targets set by international climate agreements. However, mechanisms which undo the adverse consequences of short-sighted actions (as NETs)...

In this study, we provide causal evidence on the capacity of monetary incentives to encourage real-life local leaders managing water and land to improve their procedural fairness. We report results from incentivized decisions and surveys conducted with local leaders in rural Namibia (n=64) and...

The present work is a collection of essays. The first one is new, written for the collection. Then follows 7 separate essays of varying age. They are named * On the classifications of property rights * A property rights perspective on institutional change in the welfare state * On the nature of...

This paper revisits the Tragedy of the Commons - a Pareto-dominated overuse of a common resource - through the lenses of Stoicism, and, in particular, of the Stoic discipline of desires, according to which one should wish for nothing that is not under one's control. When the Stoic discipline of...

The two questions I seek to address in these pages are what is public property and why does it matter. Public property, like property more generally, is a powerful legal arrangement of allocating control and use rights with respect to resources. Unlike private property, public property does not...

Commons problems present behavioral dilemmas, with tensions between individual and collective rationality. When users of a common-pool resource are not effectively excluded, the collective behavior of individuals pursuing their self-interests dissipates resource rents. We derive a non-parametric...

The inefficiencies of common property fisheries are well-known to economists. To avoid over-exploitation, they propose multiple forms of government solutions like taxes, quotas and the enforcement of property rights regimes designed to avoid over-harvesting. However, can there be efficient...

Co-Cities by Sheila Foster and Christian Iaione (MIT Press, 2022) is a tour de force. They provide a rigorous empirical analysis of more than 200 global cities, and over 500 case studies within those metropolises, to reconceptualize “the city” for the contemporary age. (p. 24) While many...

This field study investigates the characteristics and preferences of artisanal fishers who continue their profession in a lake afflicted by overfishing. We relate their economic preferences, fishing data, social networks, and socio-demographic information to their decision to either persist or...

The inter-temporal resource allocation efficiency of a rights-based common-pool resource management system is threatened by a stock externality when one user’s extraction lowers the resource stock and raises the extraction cost for others. This paper proposes a novel decentralized rights-based...

Incomplete property rights are common across a range of natural resources such as fisheries and groundwater. The High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas provides one example of a complex but incomplete system of property rights. Rights to groundwater in Kansas are incomplete due to the physical...

From public lands to beaches and to data, our society is rich with resources purposefully kept in the public domain. Common resources provide profound economic, social, and democratic value to individuals, communities, and society as a whole. These, however, depend on the public’s ability to...

This study investigates the roles of informal gatekeepers in the context of First Nations health care in Canada. While existing literature focuses on gatekeeping by professionals, such as corporate board members, auditors, general practitioners, and specialists, we present empirical evidence on...

In commercial fisheries, the fishing decisions of a vessel are never really independent of the other vessels' decisions. Congestive externalities on fishing sites impact a vessel's behavior and create additional operation costs, while short-term stock effects, whereby fish stocks are locally...

We build on the work of Brandenburger, Friedenberg, and Keisler (2008, BFK) by showing that rationality and common assumption of rationality (RCAR) is possible in complete lexicographic type structures and characterizes iterated admissibility---i.e., iterated elimination of weakly dominated...

Humanity's problem with climate change has been likened to a "tragedy of the commons". If the atmosphere is seen as an open access dump for gasses like CO2 or methane, Garret Hardin's conclusion from 1968: "Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all" is obviously correct. But how do we create a...

The inefficiencies of common property fisheries are well-known to economists. To avoid over-exploitation, they propose multiple forms of government solution such as taxes, quotas and the enforcement of property rights regimes designed to avoid over-harvesting. But can efficient arrangements also...

Historically, common property is one of the dominant forms of ownership through which natural resources—e.g., forests, pastures, and fisheries—are managed. However, their decline across societies due to marketization and privatization has prompted intense debates. This Article seeks to...