The tradeoff of the commons

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: McAfee, R. Preston; Miller, Alan D.
• 署名单位: University of Haifa; University of Haifa; Yahoo! Inc
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.12.003
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 349-353
• 关键词: Tragedy of the commons; Office hours; APPOINTMENTS; property rights; Reservations

摘要

We develop a model of scarce, renewable resources to study the commons problem. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, property rights can often be less efficient than a commons. In particular, we study two effects: (1) waste which arises when individuals expend resources to use a resource unavailable due to congestion and (2) the risk of underutilization of the resource. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for each effect to dominate the other when the cost of determining the availability of a resource is low. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.