Coase, blackboard economics and the evolution of marine property in HawaiiBrooks
Kaiser, UH Visiting Scholar and Gettysburg College Dept of Economics Abstract The standard view
that the absence of property rights is inefficient contradicts the Coasean
proposition that efficiency depends on how institutions compare regarding
their ability to economize on transaction costs. Moreover, the comparative
theory of open access and private property institutions fails to recognize
the intermediate institution of common property, finesses dynamic optimization,
and provides an incomplete account of governance. We provide a comparative
statics framework for alternative modes of resource management, albeit
one that allows for dynamic optimization, and show that open access can
be efficient under conditions of low population pressure. We show that
the intensification of production with population pressure in Hawaii co-evolved
with specialization and increased governance, in accordance with the efficiency
theory. Instead of market-based specialization, however, economic organization
in pre-contact Hawaii was hierarchically determined via top-down management
of the ahupua’a. When Western institutions were exogenously imposed,
however, intellectual failure resulted in inefficient regulations and
subsidies. The example of fishing regulations illustrates Coase’s
council against blackboard economics.
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