Private Land and Common Oceans

Analysis of the Development of Property Regimes

Bibliographic Data

ID2224263
AuthorsJames Acheson (corresponding author), James M Acheson
Year2015
Volume56
Issue1
Pages28-55
Publication date2015-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/679482
OpenAlexW1965575147
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited64

In the literature on property rights, there is general consensus framed by people such as Boserup and Demsetz that common property regimes will change to private property regimes when resources are scarce and population increases. This is mostly correct where land tenure is concerned. However, there are many cases where common property regimes continue even though the population has grown and resources have become scarcer. Ocean areas are almost always held as common property. This article analyzes property regimes that develop for land and ocean and the conditions under which they do so. The analysis is based on worldwide ethnographic case studies. I argue that the form property regimes take is determined by economic defendability. Many variables influence economic defendability, ranging from technical change and physical attributes of the resource to government action and cultural factors. That arable land is usually held privately suggests this solution is adaptive for land with high economic defendability. However, the fact that many ocean areas, forests, pastures, and swidden lands are held as common property suggests that this type of tenure may be an optimal solution when the value of resources are low relative to defense costs

Agriculture · Arable land · Business · Common-pool resource · Economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Land tenure · Land use · Market economy · Natural resource · Natural resource economics · Political science · Population · Private property · Property (philosophy · Property rights · Resource (disambiguation · Sociology · Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management · Ecology · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology