Contact Us

If you still have questions or prefer to get help directly from an agent, please submit a request.
We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Please fill out the contact form below and we will reply as soon as possible.

  • Courses
  • Find a Job
  • Tutoring
  • Home
  • Economics, Finance, & Analytics
  • Economic Analysis & Monetary Policy

Tragedy of Commons - Common Resources?

What is the Tragedy of Commons for Common Resources?

Written by Jason Gordon

Updated at March 27th, 2023

Contact Us

If you still have questions or prefer to get help directly from an agent, please submit a request.
We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Please fill out the contact form below and we will reply as soon as possible.

  • Marketing, Advertising, Sales & PR
    Principles of Marketing Sales Advertising Public Relations SEO, Social Media, Direct Marketing
  • Accounting, Taxation, and Reporting
    Managerial & Financial Accounting & Reporting Business Taxation
  • Professionalism & Career Development
  • Law, Transactions, & Risk Management
    Government, Legal System, Administrative Law, & Constitutional Law Legal Disputes - Civil & Criminal Law Agency Law HR, Employment, Labor, & Discrimination Business Entities, Corporate Governance & Ownership Business Transactions, Antitrust, & Securities Law Real Estate, Personal, & Intellectual Property Commercial Law: Contract, Payments, Security Interests, & Bankruptcy Consumer Protection Insurance & Risk Management Immigration Law Environmental Protection Law Inheritance, Estates, and Trusts
  • Business Management & Operations
    Operations, Project, & Supply Chain Management Strategy, Entrepreneurship, & Innovation Business Ethics & Social Responsibility Global Business, International Law & Relations Business Communications & Negotiation Management, Leadership, & Organizational Behavior
  • Economics, Finance, & Analytics
    Economic Analysis & Monetary Policy Research, Quantitative Analysis, & Decision Science Investments, Trading, and Financial Markets Banking, Lending, and Credit Industry Business Finance, Personal Finance, and Valuation Principles
  • Courses
+ More

What is the Tragedy of Commons for Common Resources?

There are some goods that do not fall neatly into the categories of private good or public good. While it is easy to classify a pizza as a private good and a city park as a public good, what about an item that is nonexcludable and rivalrous, such as the queen conch?

In the Caribbean, the queen conch is a large marine mollusk that lives in shallow waters of sea grass. These waters are so shallow, and so clear, that a single diver may harvest many conch in a single day. Not only is conch meat a local delicacy and an important part of the local diet, but artists use the large ornate shells and craftsmen transform them. Because almost anyone with a small boat, snorkel, and mask, can participate in the conch harvest, it is essentially nonexcludable. At the same time, fishing for conch is rivalrous. Once a diver catches one conch another diver cannot catch it.

We call goods that are nonexcludable and rivalrous common resources. Because the waters of the Caribbean are open to all conch fishermen, and because any conch that you catch is conch that I cannot catch, fishermen tend to overharvest common resources like the conch.

The problem of overharvesting common resources is not a new one, but ecologist Garret Hardin put the tag “Tragedy of the Commons” to the problem in a 1968 article in the magazine Science. Economists view this as a problem of property rights. Since nobody owns the ocean, or the conch that crawl on the sand beneath it, no one individual has an incentive to protect that resource and responsibly harvest it. To address the issue of overharvesting conch and other marine fisheries, economists typically advocate simple devices like fishing licenses, harvest limits, and shorter fishing seasons. When the population of a species drops to critically low numbers, governments have even banned the harvest until biologists determine that the population has returned to sustainable levels. In fact, such is the case with the conch, the harvesting of which the government has effectively banned in the United States since 1986.

Back to:ECONOMIC ANALYSIS & MONETARY POLICY

Related Topics

  • Market Competition and Innovation
  • New Technology and Positive Externalities
  • Externality
  • Network Externality
  • Pigovian Tax
  • Coase Theorem
  • Agglomeration Diseconomies
  • Education - Private and Social Rate of Return
  • Government Approaches to Encouraging Innovation
  • Public Good
  • Public, Private, Club, Common Goods
  • Excludable and Rivalrous Goods
  • What is the Free Rider Problem for Public Goods?
  • Free Rider
  • Social Loafing
  • Role of Government in Paying for Public Goods
  • What is the Tragedy of Commons for Common Resources?
  • Income Inequality
  • Poverty Line?
  • Poverty Trap
  • Public Safety Net
  • Measuring Income Inequality
  • Lorenz Curve
  • Ladder of Opportunity
  • Tradeoff between Incentives and Income Equality
commons tragedy tragedy of commons common resources common goods

Was this article helpful?

Yes
No

Related Articles

  • Business Starts Index - Explained
  • Quantity Theory of Money - Explained
  • Balanced Trade - Explained
  • Contractionary and Expansionary Monetary Policy - Explained



©2011-2023. The Business Professor, LLC.
  • Privacy

  • Questions

Definition by Author

0
0
Expand