Property Rights and Forest Commons

Although property rights have been linked to a variety of positive social outcomes at the macro‐level, less research focuses on how property rights affect the benefits that actors receive at the micro‐level. This article examines property rights to a common‐pool resource (CPR) that are asymmetrically allocated among users, and presents a theoretical argument that property rights affect the allocation of resource benefits in two important ways. First, users with extensive property rights receive more benefits than users with limited property rights. Second, users with the power to influence how community rules are enforced—for example, landholders and ethnic majorities—more effectively define and defend their property and thus receive disproportionate CPR benefits compared to users with similar levels of property rights, but with less power. Using household‐level survey data in Bolivia, Kenya, Mexico, and Uganda, collected after a period of property rights decentralization, the empirical analysis finds support for these propositions. We conclude that power critically moderates the effects of property rights on the commons.