Institutional arrangements in common pool resources: the case of fishery

Findings revealed that institutional arrangement could be described using a matrix of bundle of rights and property systems. A number of institutional arrangement could exist in fishery ranging from open access to complete ownership or a combination of any of the four property systems (i.e. private property, state property, open access and common property). At the present status of fisheries, a combination of de jure and de facto arrangement could be found. State property in particular was prone to such situation. All five bundles of rights could be present in a particular property system like in state property and common property, but not always. There were situations wherein common property arrangements did not have clear-cut rules for use rights. The effectiveness of an institutional arrangement with reference to fishery was dependent upon how well it could exclude others from entering and withdrawing resource units, which relied on how well the authority implemented rules and provided sanctions. Case studies have provided different combinations of institutional arrangements, which existed in real world fishery thus providing a firm basis for theoretically effective combinations. There was no effective combination that would work in all types of fishery. The effectiveness of the combination of arrangements was on a case to case basis depending on several factors. No model could explain how institutional arrangements could be reproduced or effectively applied to every fishery. But evidence showed that fishery could exist under different property institutions. In such cases, factors like the nature of the resource, the supply and demand conditions on the resource, the prevailing legal and political environment, and the characteristics of the user groups, which included culture and social norms were very vital for the success of any institutional arrangements. Transaction cost was one gauge by which one could determine whether an arrangement would be adopted or not