Tragedy, property rights, and the commons: investigating the causal relationship from institutions to ecosystem collapse

Isaksen, Elisabeth Thuestad ORCID: 0000-0002-6557-8001 and Richter, Andries (2019) Tragedy, property rights, and the commons: investigating the causal relationship from institutions to ecosystem collapse. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 6 (4). pp. 741-781. ISSN 2333-5955

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Abstract

Do private property rights mitigate overexploitation of common pool resources, and if so, under which circumstances? In this paper, we examine the effects of private property rights on the status of marine fisheries by combining data on ecological, economic and institutional characteristics into a panel data set, spanning over 50 years, 170 exclusive economic zones and 800 species. To address the inherent endogeneity problem of policy implementation, we employ both a difference- in-differences (DiD) and instrumental variable (IV) strategy. Results from both estimations suggest that property rights lower the probability of a fish stock collapsing, but the effect varies with country and species characteristics. Specifically, we find evidence suggesting that property rights are more effective when ownership is transferable, the general level of ownership protection is strong, trade openness is high, the regenerative capacity of the resource is high, and the species value is high.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/jaere/curren...
Additional Information:	© 2018 Association of Environmental and Resource Economists
Divisions:	Geography & Environment Grantham Research Institute
Date Deposited:	19 Nov 2018 15:26
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 21:45
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/90606

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