Abstract
The present paper investigates the political feasibility of policies to control pollution and fishing. It first hypothesizes the following: when common or usufruct property rights are changed to full ownership, the new policy is not an unadulterated charge or auctioned license because of the implied wealth transfer. This hypothesis is “tested” by reviewing the cases in which full ownership rights have been established and is found to be consistent with the evidence. The paper then investigates the conditions that facilitate the development of full ownership rights. It concludes that proposing policies that are simple and incremental increases political feasibility, in large part because of greater understanding by fishermen and polluters.
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Welch, W.P. The political feasibility of full ownership property rights: The cases of pollution and fisheries. Policy Sci 16, 165–180 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138349
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138349