Fennell, Lee Anne --- "Commons, Anticommons, Semicommons" [2011] ELECD 146; in Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law

Editor(s): Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209795

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: Commons, Anticommons, Semicommons

Author(s): Fennell, Lee Anne

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

2 Commons, anticommons, semicommons*
Lee Anne Fennell


In recent years, theorists interested in the commons have increasingly broadened their
gaze to take in two new entries in the property lexicon: the anticommons1 and the semi-
commons.2 Notwithstanding some excellent work comparing and contrasting these tem-
plates and their associated tragedies,3 the literature lacks a cohesive account of how they
relate to each other and to larger questions of incentive misalignment. Although scholars
sometimes frame the commons, anticommons, and semicommons as conceptually dis-
tinct forms,4 each is best understood as a lens for apprehending a single core, challenging
fact about resource systems ­ their need to accommodate multiple uses that are most
efficiently pursued at different scales, whether simultaneously or over time.5 This chapter
offers a brief introduction to the commons, anticommons, and semicommons models
and shows how the three fit together in a unified theoretical framework.


I. THE COMMONS

Although the underlying idea is much older,6 Garrett Hardin (1968) popularized the
phrase `tragedy of the commons' and illustrated it with an example involving an open-
access pasture (ibid., 1244). Reasoning that each herdsman would bear only a fraction
of the costs of grazing another steer but would internalize all of the benefits of doing so,
Hardin predicted that the pasture would be overgrazed (ibid.). The same problem of
incentive misalignment can lead people to underinvest in collective activities (communal
farms or public television, for example), take too many resource units out of a given
system (as ...