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The Optimal Commons
Author(s) -
Field Barry C.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
american journal of agricultural economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.949
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1467-8276
pISSN - 0002-9092
DOI - 10.2307/1240699
Subject(s) - commons , citation , field (mathematics) , library science , computer science , operations research , sociology , political science , law , mathematics , pure mathematics
Much of the work on problems of open-access and common-property natural resources has been focused on deducing and documenting the pathologies of inefficiency to which these resources are prone. Another important job has been deriving policy conclusions; the main one being, perhaps, that productivity will improve in proportion to the speed with which a change is made to individual, or something that behaves like individual, ownership. In making these prescriptions our kit bag of institutional forms contains depressingly few items; in fact, it contains just two: common and individual. We have a situation analogous to one we had in the 1950s, when all goods were divided into two types: private and public. But the space between these two goods types was soon filled in with an infinity of intermediate forms. It is only fair that we fill up the comparable space in the property institutions continuum.