Sudan is threatened by a serious deforestation problem. Total forested area decreased by about 20 percent over the last two decades, largely as a result of the expansion of rainfed mechanized farming (RMF). To safeguard against the problems of deforestation, the government's Mechanized Farming...

Prescriptive consequentialism informs currentassessments of rational action in economics. Choice is alleged to start with stable andknown preferences over alternative outcomes,and rational agents choose actions thatmaximize well being with respect to thesepreferences. Evidence suggests that...

I have been asked to prepare a brief paper on the role of property rights in the economic analysis of environmental problems in Southeast Asia. The logical starting point, it would seem, is first to talk about the causal role of property rights in the existence of environmental problems. From...

We focus here on a set of conceptual problems related to the accepted theory of externalities. We are primarily concerned with difficulties that arise when a theoretical system is extended beyond its logical domain. This is the practice in externality theory when the market model assuming...

The conceptual confusion among property, common property, open access resources, and the “tragedy of the commons” is identified and rectified. Property rights are defined and clarified. From that it is possible to understand the traditional confusion between open access resources and common...

The depth of political and economic despair in Zimbabwe is beyond dispute. This paper situates the unfortunate picture in its historical context - drawing particular attention to the role of land in setting the country on its tragic trajectory, and showing how land remains the most fundamental...

The general distinctions between open access, state property, common property and private property are now well established in the academic literature. When applied to African rangelands, however, common property admits a wide variety of resource management regimes. To formulate effective...