The purpose of this essay is to argue that process-regarding preferences or social norms are pervasive in traditional village communities, yet are subject to gradual erosion under the influence of new forces, particularly population growth and market penetration. This is illustrated with respect to norms regarding the allocation of locally controlled natural resources, such as land, forest, pastures and water spaces. As a matter of fact, a communal system of land rights, together with the accompanying set of norms and preferences, is conceivable only under conditions of high land-man ratios resulting in extensive land use patterns. When land becomes intensively exploited, the efficiency costs of equity-oriented arrangements increase significantly. On the other hand, informal insurance arrangements relying on voluntary state-contingent transfers tend to be less effective under the pressure of market integration and the emergence of alternative income-earning opportunities accessible to at least a segment of rural populations.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF This chapter was published in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.) , Elsevier, chapter 12, pages 819-886, 2006.
Find related papers by JEL classification: Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Social Norms and Social Capital; Social Networks Economic Anthropology