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.

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.

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.

"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

scholarly journals Modeling the ecology of parasitic plasmids

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime G. Lopez ◽  
Mohamed S. Donia ◽  
Ned S. Wingreen
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Modeling ◽  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Fitness Costs ◽  
Metapopulation Model ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Modern Biotechnology ◽  
Natural Ecology ◽  
Unique Plasmid ◽  
Competing Populations

AbstractPlasmids are autonomous genetic elements that can be exchanged between microorganisms via horizontal gene transfer (HGT). Despite the central role they play in antibiotic resistance and modern biotechnology, our understanding of plasmids’ natural ecology is limited. Recent experiments have shown that plasmids can spread even when they are a burden to the cell, suggesting that natural plasmids may exist as parasites. Here, we use mathematical modeling to explore the ecology of such parasitic plasmids. We first develop models of single plasmids and find that a plasmid’s population dynamics and optimal infection strategy are strongly determined by the plasmid’s HGT mechanism. We then analyze models of co-infecting plasmids and show that parasitic plasmids are prone to a “tragedy of the commons” in which runaway plasmid invasion severely reduces host fitness. We propose that this tragedy of the commons is averted by selection between competing populations and demonstrate this effect in a metapopulation model. We derive predicted distributions of unique plasmid types in genomes—comparison to the distribution of plasmids in a collection of 17,725 genomes supports a model of parasitic plasmids with positive plasmid–plasmid interactions that ameliorate plasmid fitness costs or promote the invasion of new plasmids.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document