This wide-ranging book, which synthesises current theoretical and empirical research, and challenges traditional assumptions, examines the Tragedy of the Commons, the mismanagement of natural resources. Focusing on local ecosystems, it asks how they can be most efficiently and equitably protected-by private, public or community management.

In order for economic specialization to develop, it is important that well-defined property rights are established and that suspicion and fear of fraud do not pervade transactions. Such conditions cannot be created ex abrubto, but must somehow evolve. What needs to develop is not only suitable practices and rules themselves, but also the public agencies and moral environment without which generalized trust is difficult to establish. The cultural endowment of societies as they have developed over their particular histories is bound to play a major role in this regard, and the matter of cultual...