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Exploiting common resources with capital-intensive technologies: the role of external forces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2008

STEFANIE ENGEL  and
RAMÓN LÓPEZ
STEFANIE ENGEL
Affiliation:
Chair of Environmental Policy and Economics, Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich, Universitaetstrasse 22, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland. Email: sengel@ethz.ch
RAMÓN LÓPEZ
Affiliation:
University of Maryland at College Park, USA
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Abstract

This paper focuses on the interactions between local communities having at least some degree of informal claims over natural resources and firms interested in commercially exploiting such resources, explicitly allowing for interventions by third parties interested in community welfare and environmental outcomes. Integrating conflict and bargaining theories, we develop a bargaining model with endogenous inside and outside options, in which the feasibility and outcomes of a potential bargaining game depend on the unraveling of a conflict stage and vice versa. The model implies that, contrary to the conventional bargaining model, distribution and efficiency cease to be separable. We show that certain third-party interventions in the bargaining process may have unexpected and counterproductive effects.

Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 5: THE ECONOMICS OF POVERTY, ENVIRONMENT AND NATURAL RESOURCE USE , October 2008 , pp. 565 - 589
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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