Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Beyond Gopikas and Grasslands…

That value of “commons” increases proportionally with scarcity in the resources is easy to comprehend.But what of resources that aren’t tangible.The air around us is as much a common resource and we mostly fail to realize that. There are no examples of common property regimes which solve problems of overuse on a larger scale COMPLETELY, such as air pollution. In some cases, regulations combined with tradable environmental allowances (TEAs) are used successfully to prevent excessive pollution, whereas in other cases — especially in the absence of govt being able to set limits and monitoring economic activities — excessive use or pollution continue.

-p30054

2 comments:

rajat said...

As far as I have understood, a Common Resource is defined as any resource that may be owned by governments, groups as common property, or by individuals as private goods. However, air is not owned by anyone, neither are hteir any rules governing its usage. Hence it is an open access resource rather than a common resource.

vamsi said...

rajat,there is a category called "public good" which is more on the lines of what you are talking about.
here are a few definitions which i hope will answer your questions:

Private goods, which are excludable and rival in consumption, like wheat

Public goods, which are non-excludable and non-rival in consumption, like a public sewer system

Common resources, which are non-excludable but rival in consumption, like clean air,clean water in a river