The Commons and Anti-Commons Problems in the Tourism Economy
Document de Treball XREAP2009-16
44 Pages Posted: 2 May 2011
Date Written: December 1, 2009
Abstract
Countries specialised in tourism tend to face two problems with contradictory effects: the commons and the anti-commons, which lead to tourism over- and under-production, respectively. This paper develops a two-period model to analyse the joint effects of both problems on a small and remote tourism economy. Congestion and the complementariness between foreign transport and local tourism services are key features in this type of markets. As a result, direct selling and the presence of foreign tour-operators emerge as possible market arrangements with different implications in terms of welfare and public intervention. Four main results are obtained. First, in the direct selling situation the optimal policy depends on the relative importance of the problems. Second, the existence of tour-operators always leads to tourism over-production. Third, the presence of a single tour-operator does not solve the congestion problem. Lastly, the switch from several tour-operators to a single one is welfare reducing.
Keywords: commons, anti-commons, tourism, direct selling, tour-operators, optimal policy
JEL Classification: F12, F13, F14, L83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Duality in Property: Commons and Anticommons
By Francesco Parisi, Ben Depoorter, ...
-
Fragmentation in Property: Towards a General Model
By Norbert Schulz, Francesco Parisi, ...
-
Fair Use and Copyright Protection: A Price Theory Explanation
By Ben Depoorter and Francesco Parisi
-
By Hanoch Dagan and Michael Heller
-
Perpetual Restrictions on Land and the Problem of the Future
-
Tragically Difficult: The Obstacles to Governing the Commons