Common Property Regime

From the Wikipedia article on Common Pool Resources at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Property_Resource

Definition

"The term "common property regime" refers to a particular social arrangement regulating the preservation, maintenance, and consumption of a common-pool resource." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Property_Resource)

Discusion

From the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Property_Resource

"Common property regimes arise in situations where appropriators acting independently in relationship to a common-pool resource generating scarce resource units would obtain a lower total net benefit than what is achieved if they coordinate their strategies in some way, maintaining the resource system as common property instead of dividing it up into bits of private property. Common property regimes typically protect the core resource and allocate the fringe through complex community norms of consensus decision-making facing the difficult task to devise rules that limit the amount, timing, and technology used to withdraw various resource units from the resource system. Setting the limits too high would lead to overuse and eventually to the destruction of the core resource, while setting the limits too low would unnecessarily reduce the benefits obtained by the users.

In common property regimes there is no free access to the resource and common-pool resources are not public goods. While there is relatively free but monitored access to the resource system for community members, there are mechanisms in place which allow the community to exclude outsiders from using its resource. Thus, in a common property regime, a common-pool resource has the appearance of a private good from the outside and that of a common good from the point of view of an insider. The resource units withdrawn from the system are typically owned individually by the appropriators.

Analysing the design of long-enduring CPR institutions, Elinor Ostrom (1990) identified eight design principles which are prerequisites for a stable CPR arrangement:

1. Clearly defined boundaries

2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions

3. Collective-choice arrangements allowing for the participation of most of the appropriators in the decision making process

4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators

5. Graduated sanctions for appropriators who do not respect community rules

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms which are cheap and easy of access

7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize (e.g., by the government)

8. In case of larger CPRs: Organisation in the form of multiple layers of nested entreprises, with small, local CPRs at their bases.

Common property regimes typically function at a local level to prevent the overexploitation of a resource system from which fringe units can be extracted." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Property_Resource)