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International Review of Economics and Finance 9 (2000) 287–289
Book review
The Economics of Transnational Commons;Dasgupta, P., Maler, K.-G., and Vercelli, A. (Eds.); Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1997, 316 pages
This book contains a collection of papers from a conference held at the University of Siena in April 1991. The stated objective of two companion volumes—reviewed in Batabyal (1998)—and this volume (see p. vi) is to provide teaching materials for courses in environmental economics in poor countries. To this end, the present volume consists of 13 chapters by knowledgeable researchers on a variety of transnational environmental problems. Rather than provide a tedious chapter-by-chapter account, I shall comment on the contents of the book’s six most interesting chapters. This should suffice to provide the reader with an idea of the book’s contributions and the extent to which the book accomplishes its stated objective.
In chapter 3, Peter Rogers—whose name is unfortunately missing from the Notes on Contributors—discusses “the large range of possibilities for conflict and cooperation which arise when . . . the nation-state superimposes itself on a geographical, physical, and natural pattern of intense water-resource dependency—a river basin” (p. 35). Rogers correctly observes that the unidirectional nature of water use in river basins generally precludes the use of conflict resolution mechanisms based on reciprocity. The author’s principal point is that in order to resolve conflicts in river basins, it is of the utmost importance to conduct a basinwide study that clearly establishes“the range of possible Pareto-admissible solutions”(p. 71, emphasis in original). In general, this is a good chapter, and one learns quite a bit about river basin conflicts by perusing it. The only baffling part is at the end, when Rogers asks why it is “so hard to arrive at resolutions of [river basin] problems” (p. 73). The point of this query is difficult to fathom, because the author’s footnote 6 suggests that the core of a large class of water pollution games is likely to be empty.
Population growth and human and physical resources in sub-Saharan Africa make up the subject matter of chapter 6 by John and Pat Caldwell. These authors provide a fact-filled and informative account of “the impact of population growth on the resources of the region, and on the people themselves” (p. 119). When discussing the impact of high fertility levels on the economy, they state that “the African’s experience is that high fertility has not been financially harmful to himself while the Westerner’s personal experience has been very different” (p. 134). A disquieting feature of this chapter is that its authors seem unsure about the meaning of the term “transnational commons,” alternately referring to malaria (p. 121) and to problems associated with the establishment of family planning programs (p. 132) as transnational commons.
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288 Book Review / International Review of Economics and Finance 9 (2000) 287–289
Even so, because this chapter contains a forthright discussion of the nexuses between population growth and economic development, it should prove to be a useful pedagogi-cal tool.
A. L. Hollick and Richard Cooper provide a helpful discussion of alternate ways to manage the global commons in chapter 7. They begin by noting that “an economically efficient solution to common property resource management will depend upon the attributes of the resource in question” (p. 145). Next, Hollick and Cooper talk about management issues in the context of the oceans, Antarctica, space, and the atmosphere. This discussion is useful because it forces the reader to think hard about the characteris-tics of desirable management practices. Two conclusions are worth highlighting. First, as long as scientific findings on environmental problems are inconclusive, “the eco-nomic, political, and social costs and benefits of action will determine the policy response . . .” to environmental problems (p. 169). Second, the authors point out that regimes created to manage the global commons must utilize the best available information and “maintain the support of the major parties . . .” (p. 170).
In chapter 9, Carlo Carraro and Domenico Siniscalco analyze “the profitability and the stability of . . . international agreements to protect the environment in the presence of transfrontier . . . pollution” (p. 192). After pointing out the significance of the degree of interdependence in the design of international environmental agreements (IEAs), the authors note that as “the degree of interdependence decreases, environ-mental protection can be reached only through cooperative agreements” (p. 208). Perhaps the most significant point in this chapter is that if international cooperation is to be expanded, then it will generally be necessary to link environmental policy to other policies such as development aid and trade policy. This chapter intelligently uses game-theoretic techniques to shed light on the viability of IEAs. Although a more complete discussion of the impacts of the various assumptions would have made the chapter better, the current contents of this chapter should be useful both to researchers and to students of environmental economics.
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Book Review / International Review of Economics and Finance 9 (2000) 287–289 289
viewing ecological and economic systems as one system. Moreover, referring to papers in Ecological Economics will not give the reader a flavor for the kinds of analyses being conducted by professional economists in general.
In chapter 12, Avner Greif offers a fascinating account of “the importance of cultural beliefs as a common resource that affects the social and organizational development of societies and hence economic performance” (p. 239). On the basis of game-theoretic analysis supported with historical evidence, Greif persuasively argues that alternate behavioral beliefs have had a profound impact on the time path of trade-related organiza-tional development in the Latin and the Muslim worlds. In particular, the author’s basic proposition that “diverse behavioural beliefs contributed to the development of individualism in the Western world and collectivism in the Muslim world . . .” (p. 288) is both insightful and sensible. Consequently, researchers and students of environmental economics and economic history are sure to profit from this chapter.
Let me conclude this review by saying that although one cannot lavish praise on the entire contents of this book, the average quality of the material here is quite high. A concern that I do have relates to price. This book costs US$87. Given the intended objective of the editors, unless some method is adopted to make the work available to students and teachers in poor countries at a more reasonable price, this book may fail to achieve its intended objective on pecuniary grounds. And that would be a shame.
Amitrajeet A. Batabyal Department of Economics Rochester Institute of Technology 92 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5604, USA E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Batabyal) PII: S1059-0560(00)00064-2
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