Economics · Environmental & Resource Economics
Common Pool Resources
A topic within Environmental & Resource Economics, itself one of 8 topics in that field and part of Economics.
Reading for Environmental & Resource Economics
2Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
- EssayThe Tragedy of the CommonsGarrett Hardin, 1968· 6 pages
Individually rational use of a shared resource destroys it — an argument later substantially qualified by Ostrom's fieldwork.
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Primary sources and full treatments.
- BookGoverning the CommonsElinor Ostrom, 1990
Documents real communities that manage shared resources sustainably without privatisation or state control, and extracts the design principles.