2002•Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooksRequires access
Local Common Property Rights
Paul Seabright
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Abstract
Local common property rights are property rights exercised in common by members of a group that is sufficiently small for these members to be able to observe and react to one another’s behaviour, and consequently to have an interest in cooperating with each other in the right circumstances. Typical examples of assets managed under common property systems include many kinds of environmental resource such as village grazing lands, inshore fisheries, underground aquifers, canal systems, forests and watersheds — but also other kinds of institutions such as partnerships, joint-stock companies, collective farms, research joint ventures and cabinet government, the management of which raises intriguingly similar incentive issues. Understanding these issues requires a careful analysis of the differences between these and other kinds of property right.