Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:06:48.904Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Resource degradation in the African commons: accounting for institutional decay

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

DANIEL W. BROMLEY
DANIEL W. BROMLEY*
Affiliation:
Anderson-Bascom Professor of Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 427 Lorch Street, Madison, WI 53706. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The development literature has devoted considerable attention to the commons and has ignored the wider economic context of the commons. I develop a model of two kinds of agents (naïve and sophisticated) using two kinds of assets (safe and unsafe) to illustrate the possibility of resource degradation in the commons in the absence of free riding, shirking, and general theft among members of the village and its associated commons. This model makes it possible to understand that degradation of the commons arises from factors outside of the commons rather than arising from ‘perverse’ property rights and selfish behavior within the commons. This approach suggests a needed reformulation of development assistance away from prescriptions for the commons. Instead, development assistance must be refocused on the more serious challenge of institutional incoherence in the larger economy of which the village and its commons are but a part.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 5: THE ECONOMICS OF POVERTY, ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE USE , October 2008 , pp. 539 - 563
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atwood, D.A. (1990), ‘Land registration in Africa: the impact on agricultural production’, World Development 18: 659–671.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigsten, A. (2002), ‘Can Africa catch up?’, World Economics 3: 17–33.Google Scholar
Bromley, D.W. (1989a), Economic Interests and Institutions: The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bromley, D.W. (1989b), ‘Property relations and economic development: the other land reform’, World Development 17: 867–877.Google Scholar
Bromley, D.W. (1991), Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bromley, D.W. (1992), ‘The commons, common property, and environmental policy’, Environmental and Resource Economics 2: 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bromley, D.W. (2006), Sufficient Reason: Volitional Pragmatism and the Meaning of Economic Institutions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bromley, D.W. and Chavas, J.-P. (1989), ‘On risk, transactions, and economic development in the semi-arid tropics’, Economic Development and Cultural Change 37: 719–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bromley, D.W., Feeny, D., McKean, M.A., Peters, P., Gilles, J., Oakerson, R., Runge, C.F. and Thomson, J. (eds) (1992), Making the Commons Work: Theory, Practice, and Policy, San Francisco: ICS Press.Google Scholar
Carter, M. and Olinto, P. (2003), ‘Getting institutions right for whom: credit constraints and the impact of property rights on the quantity and composition of investment’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 85: 173–186.Google Scholar
de Janvry, A., Platteau, J.-P., Gordillo, G. and Sadoulet, E. (2001), ‘Access to land and land policy reforms’, in de Janvry, A., Gordillo, G., Platteau, J.-P. and Sadoulet, E. (eds), Access to Land, Rural Poverty, and Public Action, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Long, J. Bradford, Schleifer, A., Summers, L.H., and Waldmann, R.J. (1990), ‘Noise trader risk in financial markets’, Journal of Political Economy 98: 703–738.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Soto, H. (2000), The Mystery of Capital, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Deininger, K. (2003), Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction, Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar
Deininger, K. and Feder, G. (2001), ‘Land institutions and land markets’, in Gardner, B. and Rausser, G. (eds), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 288–331.Google Scholar
Easterly, W. and Levine, R. (1997), ‘Africa's growth tragedy’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 1203–1250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feder, G. and Onchan, T. (1987), ‘Land ownership security and farm investment in Thailand’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 69: 311–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzpatrick, D. (2005), ‘“Best Practice” options for the legal recognition of customary tenure’, Development and Change 36: 449–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, G. (1968), ‘The tragedy of the commons’, Science 162: 1243–1248.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Larson, B.A. and Bromley, D.W. (1990), ‘Property rights, externalities, and resource degradation: locating the tragedy’, Journal of Development Economics 33: 235–262.Google Scholar
Lund, C. (2000), ‘African land tenure: questioning basic assumptions’, London: IIED, Drylands Issue Paper E100.Google Scholar
Migot-Adholla, S., Hazell, P., Blarel, B., and Place, F. (1991), ‘Indigenous land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: a constraint on productivity?’, The World Bank Economic Review 5: 155–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ndulu, B. and O'Connell, S. A. (1999), ‘Governance and growth in sub-Saharan Africa’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 13: 41–66.Google Scholar
Ouedraogo, R.S., Sawadogo, J.-P., Stamm, V., and Thombiano, T. (1996), ‘Tenure, agricultural practices and land productivity in Burkina Faso: some recent results’, Land Use Policy 13: 229–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palomino, F. (1996), ‘Noise trading in small markets’, Journal of Finance 51: 1537–1550.Google Scholar
Place, F. and Hazell, P. (1993), ‘Productivity effects of indigenous land tenure systems in sub-Saharan Africa’, American Journal of Agricultural Economics 75: 10–19, February.Google Scholar
Place, F. and Otsuka, K. (2001), ‘Population, tenure, and natural resource management: the case of customary land area in Malawi’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 41: 13–32.Google Scholar
Platteau, J.-P. (1996), ‘The evolutionary theory of land rights as applied to sub-Saharan Africa: a critical assessment’, Development and Change 27: 29–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchett, L. (1997), ‘Divergence, big time’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 11: 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sender, J. (1999), ‘Africa's economic performance: limitations of the current consensus’, Journal of Economic Perspectives 13: 89–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sjaastad, E. and Bromley, D.W. (1997), ‘Indigenous land rights in sub-Saharan Africa: appropriation, security and investment demand’, World Development 25: 549–562.Google Scholar
Sjaastad, E. and Bromley, D.W. (2000), ‘The prejudices of property rights: on individualism, specificity, and security in property regimes’, Development Policy Review 18: 365–389.Google Scholar
Tiffen, M. (2003), ‘Transition in sub-Saharan Africa: agriculture, urbanization and income growth’, World Development 31: 1343–1366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WDI (World Development Indicators) (2006), Washington, DC: World Bank.Google Scholar