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A Simple Model of Power and Property Rights in the Inland Fisheries of Bangladesh

Dr. Kazi Ali Toufique
Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS)E-17, Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Dhaka-1207

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

The problem of appropriators to maintain property rights over resource systems is generally considered secondary to the problem of developing institutions that can internalize externalities associated with resource systems. It is assumed that the appropriators maintain property rights over resource systems at zero or negligible costs. In some practical setups this sequence is often reverse - i.e., the appropriators find it increasingly difficult or costly to maintain their rights over resources. We provide such an example from inland fisheries of Bangladesh where the fishers have in general failed to establish property rights over water bodies despite being explicitly sponsored by the state. Property rights over water bodies are transferred to socially powerful agents coming from outside the fishing community. We relate power and enforcement costs to explain this transfer of rights.

Keywords: Simple Model,Power and property rights,Inland fisheries,Bangladesh

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Program Area: Socio-economic and Policy

Commodity: Fish

Objectives:

To analyze the causes behind the failure of the fishers to establish property rights over water bodies in Bangladesh.

Methodology:

A simple model is developed to explain why the fishers are generally unable to retain property rights over water bodies. Let us first identify the agents of the model before we define enforcement costs and rent. The Agents Assume that the state owns a very large number of water bodies and transfers property rights over these water bodies to the fishers. Property rights are transferred for a specific period, say one year. There are two types of agent in the model, fishers (F) and lessees (L). The fishers are the owners of effort. The supply of effort is perfectly elastic. Effort is homogeneous and the fishers do not differ in terms of fishing skills. They move across water bodies at negligible cost to maximize income. The state transfers rights only to fishers' cooperatives not to individual fisher. The fishers thus have to organize cooperatives to establish property rights over water bodies. In the absence of state policy the fishers are unable to organize and hence they do not intend to establish rights over water bodies. Therefore, they have no right over rent. Establishment of property rights gives the fishers rights to rent but it also necessitates incurring of costs such as of policing or of monitoring and so on which we will assume are equally shared by the members. When the fishers do not intend to hold property rights over a water body no cooperatives are formed or the existing cooperatives become dysfunctional.

Source of Information: The Bangladesh Development Studies,Vol. 25, No. 1/2 (March-June 1997), pp. 1-29 Published by: Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies

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Achievement/Findings:

The case presented in this paper may be outright pathological but its potential implications cannot be ignored. With a rapidly growing population and an increasing complexity in defining and enforcing property rights over many resource systems, the policy-makers have to seriously address the problem of holding rights of the appropriators over resource systems that are likely to increase in value over time. These issues cannot be addressed without analyzing the broader socioeconomic contexts that defines the relationship of the appropriators with the rest of the society. This does not mean that the present effort to analyze and understand the mechanisms for handling common-pool losses is of secondary importance. On the contrary the factors emphasized in this paper will improve our understanding of the processes that determine the demand and supply of institutions, their emergence, persistence.

Knowledge Management: Journal