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I highly recommend that people read the article by Erling Moxnes entitled
"Not Only the Tragedy of the Commons: Misperceptions of Bioeconomics"
which appeared in Management Science, 44(9), Sept. 98 (1234-1248).

Erling conducted a lab experiment with a simulated fishery in which the
decision makers (mostly professionals in the Norwegian fishing industry)
managed a stock of fish and decided how many boats to buy and how intensely
to fish.

As you might expect, people tended to buy too many boats and harvest too
many fish. This is not surprising since we all know that a common resource
like fish is subject to destruction through the .tragedy of the commons.

What is surprising is that Erling eliminated the common resource problem in
his experiment by giving each subject in the experiment complete and
perfect property rights. They owned the fish completely, and there was no
migration of fish away from their private fjord.

Therefore, the overfishing behavior observed cannot be explained by the
commons problem. Erling shows that overfishing arises from
mispercepctions of feedback - specifically, the dynamic complexity of the
fishery management system was not captured in the mental models of the
subjects (remember, most were experts in the real fishing industry). That
is, as shown in prior experiments, people are unable to manage well in
dynamically complex systems.

I believe this study is highly significant. Most discussions of commons,
from fisheries to highways to water to the ozone layer to the global
climate, are dominated by the commons problem. Indeed, the commons problem
is serious, and must be addressed if these resources are to avoid
overexploitation and collapse. However, most analysis also assumes that
if the commons problem were solved, then resources usage would rapidly
approach the socially optimal rate and lead to sustainable exploitation.
Erlings results show this optimistic view is unlikely to be correct.
Solving the commons problem, though crucial, is far from sufficient to
ensure critical resources will be used appropriately. Erling suggests some
remedies for the misperceptions of feedback that may lead individuals and
society to destroy resources even when there is every incentive to harvest
them sustainably.


John Sterman
J. Spencer Standish Professor of Management
Director, MIT System Dynamics Group
MIT Sloan School of Management
E53-351
30 Wadsworth Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
617/253-1951 (voice); 617/258-7579 (fax), jsterman@mit.edu
http://web.mit.edu/jsterman/www