IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jafrec/v7y1998i3p384-423.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Tragedy of the Commons, Livestock Cycles and Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Fafchamps, Marcel

Abstract

This paper revisits the tragedy of the commons and examines the conditions under which externalities contribute to livestock cycles. Using a stylised intertemporal model capturing the main characteristics of African livestock producers, we show that externalities magnify livestock cycles triggered by occasional droughts. This is true even when producers are fully rational. Two forces fuel such cycles: producers' concerns with consumption smoothing; and expected capital gains when demand for livestock products is inelastic. Implications regarding African livestock production are discussed. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Fafchamps, Marcel, 1998. "The Tragedy of the Commons, Livestock Cycles and Sustainability," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 7(3), pages 384-423, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:7:y:1998:i:3:p:384-423
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cuong Le Van & Anh Ngoc Nguyen & Ngoc‐Minh Nguyen & Michel Simioni, 2018. "Growth strategy with social capital, human capital and physical capital—Theory and evidence: The case of Vietnam," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(5), pages 768-787, October.
    2. Baldwin, Katherine L. & DeVeau, Vanessa & Foster, Kenneth A. & Marshall, Maria I., 2008. "Traits Affecting Household Marketing Decisions in Rural Kenya," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6445, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    3. Baldwin, Katherine L. & Foster, Ken & Jones, Keithly, 2011. "A stochastic approach to evaluating livestock marketing policy initiatives," African Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, African Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 6(2), pages 1-14, September.
    4. Travis J. Lybbert & Christopher B. Barrett & Solomon Desta & D. Layne Coppock, 2004. "Stochastic wealth dynamics and risk management among a poor population," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(498), pages 750-777, October.
    5. Kabubo-Mariara, Jane, 2009. "Global warming and livestock husbandry in Kenya: Impacts and adaptations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1915-1924, May.
    6. Verpoorten, Marijke, 2009. "Household coping in war- and peacetime: Cattle sales in Rwanda, 1991-2001," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 67-86, January.
    7. Anne Johannesen & Anders Skonhoft, 2011. "Livestock as Insurance and Social Status: Evidence from Reindeer Herding in Norway," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 48(4), pages 679-694, April.
    8. Christopher B. Barrett & Francis Chabari & DeeVon Bailey & Peter D. Little & D. Layne Coppock, 2003. "Livestock Pricing in the Northern Kenyan Rangelands," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(2), pages 127-155, June.
    9. Samuel Mburu & Micha Kaiser & Alfonso Sousa-Poza, 2023. "Livestock Asset Dynamics Amongst Pastoralists in Northern Kenya," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 32(5), pages 572-597.
    10. McCarthy, Nancy & Dutilly-Diane, Céline & Drabo, Boureima, 2002. "Cooperation, collective action and natural resources management in Burkina Faso: a methodological note," CAPRi working papers 27, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:7:y:1998:i:3:p:384-423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.