Re: Overfishing

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

> > it's one [market failure] that I heard
> > about in grad school (concerning
> > common-property resources or common-pool
> > resources).

Julio:
> If it concerns *common* property, how can it be a *market* failure?
> Markets presuppose private property.

Oh, I see. Well instead of being called a market failure, it might be
called an example of how market-type rationality (possessive
individualism) conflicts with inherently social resources (like fish
in the sea). But I still think it's an example of market failure: the
fishing boats are owned individually while the fishing firms compete,
just like in a market, but the individual property rights in other
assets (the fish) are imperfectly defined. It's a market failure as we
of the Econ tribe typically use the term: a deviation of the
real-world market from the idealized Walrasian world. Of course, this
is just a matter of useless argument over the meaning of words...


--
Jim Devine / "The price one pays for pursuing any profession or
calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." -- James Baldwin