TT's Lost in Tokyo

[Note: This is a work in progress]

Elinor Ostrom is the guru of CPR regimes; anyone interested should look into her fascinating and highly-regarded work, particularly her seminal and extensively researched Governing the Commons (1990). Here is a review.

A profile of Ostrom, who is a member of the National Academies of Science and and Editor of its Proceedings, is here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1748208

Her work can be found here: http://scholar.google.co.jp/scholar?q=Ostrom,+Elinor&hl=en&btnG=Search

here: http://de.scientificcommons.org/elinor_ostrom

and here: http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/browse?value=Ostrom%2C+Elinor&type=author

[She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a recipient of a number of prestigious awards. Her other books include Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (1994); The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations (2003); The Samaritan’s Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid (2005); Understanding Institutional Diversity (2005); and Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (2007).]

Here is one link to get readers started: 

Elinor Ostrom et al., Revisiting the Commons: Local Lessons, Global Challenges, Science 9 April 1999: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf

Here is one general bibliography on commons research: http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/wsl/tragedy.htm

1.  Here are the statements from the 2009 Nobel Prize committee:

a.  From the press release:

Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.

Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.

b.  The background explanation is useful and contains a pointed criticism of many centrally-directed approaches to common pool resources (emphasis added):

If we want to halt the degradation of our natural environment and prevent a repetition of the many collapses of natural-resource stocks experienced in the past, we should learn from the successes and failures of common-property regimes. Ostrom’s work teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies.

It has frequently been suggested that common ownership entails excessive resource utilization, and that it is advisable to reduce utilization either by imposing government regulations, such as taxes or quotas, or by privatizing the resource. The theoretical argument is simple: each user weighs private benefits against private costs, thereby neglecting the negative impact on others.

However, based on numerous empirical studies of natural-resource management, Elinor Ostrom has concluded that common property is often surprisingly well managed. Thus, the standard theoretical argument against common property is overly simplistic. It neglects the fact that users themselves can both create and enforce rules that mitigate overexploitation.
The standard argument also neglects the practical difficulties associated with privatization and government regulation. ...

There are many .... examples which indicate that user-management of local resources has been more successful than management by outsiders. ...

[T]he main lesson is that common property is often managed on the basis of rules and procedures that have evolved over long periods of time. As a result they are more adequate and subtle than outsiders – both politicians and social scientists – have tended to realize. Beyond showing that self-governance can be feasible and successful, Ostrom also elucidates the key features of successful governance. One instance is that active participation of users in creating and enforcing rules appears to be essential. Rules that are imposed from the outside or unilaterally dictated by powerful insiders have less legitimacy and are more likely to be violated. Likewise, monitoring and enforcement work better when conducted by insiders than by outsiders. These principles are in stark contrast to the common view that monitoring and sanctioning are the responsibility of the state and should be conducted by public employees.

2.   Miscellaneous recent materials

On December 16, Spiegel Online ran the following interview with Elinor Ostrom

NPR`s Planet Money: Podcast: Elinor Ostrom Checks In (October 23, 2009)

Lecture at Cornell University: "Collective Action and the Commons: What Have We Learned?" (September 17, 2009)

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3.  These following earlier posts: