scholarly journals Retrospectives: Tragedy of the Commons after 50 Years

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 211-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett M. Frischmann ◽  
Alain Marciano ◽  
Giovanni Battista Ramello
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Environmental Resources ◽  
Shared Resources ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Commons

Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968) has been incredibly influential generally and within economics, and it remains important despite some historical and conceptual flaws. Hardin focused on the stress population growth inevitably placed on environmental resources. Unconstrained consumption of a shared resource—a pasture, a highway, a server—by individuals acting in rational pursuit of their self-interest can lead to congestion and, worse, rapid depreciation, depletion, and even destruction of the resources. Our societies face similar problems, with respect to not only environmental resources but also infrastructures, knowledge, and many other shared resources. In this article, we examine how the tragedy of the commons has fared within the economics literature and its relevance for economic and public policies today. We revisit the original piece to explain Hardin’s purpose and conceptual approach. We expose two conceptual mistakes he made: conflating resource with governance and conflating open access with commons. This critical discussion leads us to the work of Elinor Ostrom, the recent Nobel Prize in Economics laureate, who spent her life working on commons. Finally, we discuss a few modern examples of commons governance of shared resources.

scholarly journals Digging deeper into Hardin's pasture: the complex institutional structure of ‘the tragedy of the commons’

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIEL H. COLE ◽  
GRAHAM EPSTEIN ◽  
MICHAEL D. MCGINNIS
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Ecological System ◽  
Contract Enforcement ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Privately Owned

AbstractA revised application of Ostrom's (Ostrom, 2007) Social-Ecological System (SES) framework to Hardin's ‘tragedy of the commons’ (Hardin, G. (1968), Science, 162(3859): 1243–1248) demonstrates that its institutional structure is more complex than either Hardin or Ostrom had imagined. The ‘tragedy’ arises from several interacting resources and institutions. If the grass on the pasture was not subject to appropriation, the cattle were not privately owned, or property- and contract-enforcement institutions supporting market exchange were absent, then the ‘tragedy of the commons’ would not have arisen regardless of the open-access pasture. This paper highlights the utility of the SES framework and the care required to apply it precisely to specific social-ecological situations.

Individual transferable quotas and the “tragedy of the commons”

2010 ◽  
Vol 67 (11) ◽  
pp. 1889-1896 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Parslow
Keyword(s):  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Compliance Monitoring ◽  
Present Value ◽  
Total Allowable Catch ◽  
Individual Transferable Quotas ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Monitoring And Enforcement ◽  
The Commons ◽  
High Grading

The allocation of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) as shares of a total allowable catch (TAC) is now widely practised in fisheries management, but is not without controversy. It is often suggested that the possession of ITQs should provide an incentive for fishers to exercise stewardship of the resource. Quota holders acting in their economic self-interest should collectively exercise stewardship, setting TACs and supporting enforcement measures to maximize the present value of future profit streams. But it is in the economic self-interest of an individual fisher possessing ITQ to take additional unreported catch, through discarding, high-grading, or quota-busting. Thus, ITQs in themselves will not prevent a “tragedy of the commons”, unless there is sufficient compliance monitoring and enforcement to deter hidden catches. ITQs, with adequate enforcement, have been demonstrated to effectively address the race to fish and result in improved sustainability and profitability. There are questions of equity concerning the flow of benefits from the allocations of quotas and associated profit streams and who pays for the management costs required to sustain them. There are also issues around the ability of ITQ-based management to address other social and environmental objectives.

DIKES VERSUS WINDMILLS: CLIMATE TREATIES AND ADAPTATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 2040005
Author(s):  
SCOTT BARRETT
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Simple Model ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Sovereign Nations ◽  
Over Time

This paper begins with a tribute to William Nordhaus, focusing on the two questions that have motivated his life’s work. The first is by how much carbon dioxide emissions should be reduced over time. The second is how to reach and enforce an agreement among sovereign nations to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Nordhaus was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts to answer the first question. I argue here that the answer to this question has been solved to a satisfactory extent, not only by economists, but by diplomats, and that the greatest need now is to answer the second question. I also present a simple model that extends previous research into this second question, a model in which countries choose both whether to abate and whether to adapt. Like all previous research on this topic, including Nordhaus’s own, the model doesn’t provide a neat solution, only another perspective on one of the most vexing questions in all of human history: how to prevent a tragedy of the commons of global proportions and with profound and possibly catastrophic consequences.

scholarly journals Individual solutions to shared problems create a modern tragedy of the commons

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. eaau7296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Gross ◽  
Carsten K.W. De Dreu
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Retirement Planning ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Climatic Changes ◽  
Coordination Failure ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Shared Problem ◽  
Independent Individual

Alone and together, climatic changes, population growth, and economic scarcity create shared problems that can be tackled effectively through cooperation and coordination. Perhaps because cooperation is fragile and easily breaks down, societies also provide individual solutions to shared problems, such as privatized healthcare or retirement planning. But how does the availability of individual solutions affect free-riding and the efficient creation of public goods? We confronted groups of individuals with a shared problem that could be solved either individually or collectively. Across different cost-benefit ratios of individually versus collectively solving the shared problem, individuals display a remarkable tendency toward group-independent, individual solutions. This “individualism” leads to inefficient resource allocations and coordination failure. Introducing peer punishment further results in wasteful punishment feuds between “individualists” and “collectivists.” In the presence of individual solutions to shared problems, groups struggle to balance self-reliance and collective efficiency, leading to a “modern tragedy of the commons.”

19. A New Agenda for Security and Strategy?

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Wirtz
Keyword(s):  
Hepatitis B ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
National Security ◽  
Respiratory Infections ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Environmental Resource ◽  
The Commons

This chapter explores a range of issues that have not been included traditionally in national security agendas or considered to be within the purview of strategy. It offers a utilitarian assessment of environmental, resource, and population issues to determine whether there is a new agenda for security and strategy. It also considers the demographics of global politics by focusing on the issue of population growth, commons issues such as the tragedy of the commons, and how military action can result in direct environmental damage. Finally, it examines the spread of infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis B and C, influenza and respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases, and measles. The chapter argues that countries are beginning to exhibit sensitivities and vulnerabilities to issues of low politics.

scholarly journals Epistemological Implications of the Tragedy of the Commons

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 01-05
Author(s):  
Doaa M Salman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Environmental Economics ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Commons

This paper defines and examines the Garett Hardin’s concept of the Tragedy of the Commons. First, an introductory to the concept is presented along with an extensive critique on Hardin’s 1968 impactful publication. Second, although the tragedy of the commons belies in the field of environmental economics, an extensive research is conducted on how the concept has naturally extended to other cornerstones such as Philosophy, Ethics & Morality, and human behavior. The objective of this paper is to not see whether the concept is dubbed correct or erroneous, but rather urge readers to take a collective stand regardless of the universal validity of the concept and shed some serious insight on the hazards of climate change and pursuit of self-interest.

"Once? No. Twenty times? Sure!" Repeated decisions and uncertainty in the tragedy of the commons

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Hardisty ◽  
Howard Kunreuther ◽  
David H. Krantz ◽  
Poonam Arora
Keyword(s):  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
The Commons
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