Grasslands used for domestic livestock are often the common property of several owners and are typically characterized by complex ecosystem dynamics. We account for both these aspects by modeling the problem as a differential game where each farmer maximizes profits, given the dynamics of livestock and grass interaction. We compare the first best outcome obtained when farmers cooperate with tha...

One of the basic tenets of the theory of common property resources is that private property rights work to conserve natural resources. There is growing evidence, however, that some large forest owners in Maine are cutting their forests heavily, using poor-quality silviculture techniques. This overexploitation is being done by paper companies, forest contractors, and some private land owners, wh...

Public opinion formation plays a very important role in economic policy development. Opinions put forward in various social platforms offered by the media and the Internet have a large impact on international treaty negotiations. In particular this seems to be the case for international negotiations regarding the abatement of greenhouse gasses. In this paper we argue that social opinion formati...

SUMMARY The government of common agricultural and forestry land is a topic that is currently enjoying a revival of interest. Many local communities have shown the ability to pursue sustainable use of natural resources thanks to their self-governed authorities. In this context the relationship between public and private interest which is established in use of the resource is a fairly controversi...

There is an enormous stress on livelihood analysis of rural communities and their economies. Village common property resources (CPRs) have played a substantial economic role for the sustenance in rural areas of the drylands. The CPRs of drylands of western Rajasthan shows a varied range of habitats due to strong functional disparities in topographic, geomorphological, climatic, edaphic and phys...

Developing countries tend to suffer the most from natural disasters, but the mechanisms underlying this outcome are poorly understood. I postulate that the lack of strong and well defined property rights for renewable resources is a key factor increasing the impacts of disasters. Using a theoretical model for renewable resource extraction with irreversible investment, I show that common propert...

In this paper we argue that ambiguity, combined with social opinion formation, can be used as the foundation of a game-theoretic equilibrium concept that transcends the standard Nash equilibrium concept, applied to a model of the tragedy of the commons. Our approach sheds light on the international environmental crisis and the relevant ongoing international negotiations. We conclude that social...

Agrarian Attorney General), and the World Bank for financial and/or logistical support with data collection. We are obliged to the representatives and members of agrarian communities for their participation in the surveys and case studies. have dominated thinking about the endogenous evolution of land rights from open access to individual property. According to these views, there are two fundam...