Common Property

To avoid confusion about common property, it is important to distinguish between common‐pool goods and the governance regimes that manage those goods (e.g., private property, government, local rules). Classic theory regards a “commons” as inefficient and subject to extreme overexploitation. Yet many common‐pool resources can be well managed at the local level, as many studies by anthropologists have shown. Generating management rules necessitates solving a collective‐action problem. Elinor Ostrom lists the conditions necessary for durable management rules to be developed for common‐pool resources. However, all governance structures can fail for a variety of reasons. Holding resources jointly—particularly in the case of ocean resources—may be an optimal and efficient solution. New developments in the study of common‐pool resources are mentioned.