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India’s Disappearing Common Lands: Fuzzy Boundaries, Encroachment, and Evolving Property Rights

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Author Info
Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson
Abstract

Opportunistic land encroachment occurs in many low-income countries, gradually yet pervasively, until discrete areas of common land disappear. This paper, motivated by field observations in Karnataka, India, demonstrates that such an evolution of property rights from common to private may be efficient when the boundaries between common and private land are poorly defined, or "fuzzy." Using a multi-period optimization model, and introducing the concept of stock and flow enforcement, I show how effectiveness of enforcement effort, whether encroachment is reversible, and punitive fines, influence whether an area of common land is fully defined and protected or gradually or rapidly encroached.

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File URL: http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/84/3/409
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Publisher Info
Article provided by University of Wisconsin Press in its journal Land Economics.

Volume (Year): 84 (2008)
Issue (Month): 3 ()
Pages: 409-422
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Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:84:y:2008:i:3:p:409-422

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
Q24 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Land

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This page was last updated on 2009-11-22.

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