Property Rights Institutions and Resource Conditions: A Study from the Western Himalaya

本研究调查的主要目的是比较制度安排与广泛的社会经济和人口因素对资源条件的影响，并研究不同类型的制度是否会系统地导致不同的资源相关结果。 产权是制度安排的形式，这将是研究的重点。 森林是要研究的资源类型。 这项研究是在印度喜马拉雅山脉中部的Kumaon地区进行的，那里有近5000个村级社区森林，与私人拥有的森林和印度政府税务和森林部门管理的其他森林并存。 调查人员选择了100个案例，在每个案例中，存在四种不同形式的森林保有权。 在同一地区存在不同的保有形式，这提供了一个理想的环境，可以在其中审查：l）财产权的影响，并将其与经常被认为会影响资源状况的其他因素进行比较（研究特别注意人口、移民、市场和对资源的文化观念），2）财产制度的变化对森林状况的不同影响，（3）不同的监督和执行机制对产权制度有效性的重要性。通过研究构建和分析的数据集补充了调查人员通过在Kumaon地区的研究创建的早期数据集，以深入研究24个村庄的森林管理机构。 现有的数据收集使用stet的10份问卷，使研究人员与资源条件的生物，气候和土壤，社会经济，人口，和institutional variables.通过定位和识别的过程和精确的手段，制度安排影响资源管理和条件，研究借给更大的特异性，试图在这个问题上的政策。 此外，很少有研究对财产权相对于较大的社会经济或气候变量的相对重要性进行比较研究，也很少有研究对不同财产制度的可变影响进行比较研究。 因此，这项研究大大提高了我们对这个问题的理解。

The primary objective of this research investigation is to compare the impact of institutional arrangements vs. broad socio-economic and demographic factors on resource conditions, and to examine whether different types of institutional regimes lead systematically to different resource related outcomes. Property rights are the form of institutional arrangements that will be the focus of research. Forests constitute the resource type to be studies. The research is carried out in the Kumaon region of the Indian Middle Himalaya where nearly 5000 village-level community forests exist side by side with privately held forests and other forests managed by the Revenue and Forest Departments of the Indian government. The investigator selects 100 cases and, in each case, four different forms of tenure over forests exist. The existence of different tenurial forms in the same region provides an ideal setting in which to examine l) the effect of pro0perty rights in comparison to other factors that are often asserted to influence the condition of resources (the research pays specific attention to population, migration, market, and cultural perceptions about resources), and 2) the different impact of variations in property regimes on forest condition, and 3) the importance of different monitoring and enforcement mechanisms in the effectiveness of property rights regimes. The data set constructed and analyzed through the research complements an earlier data set created by the investigator through research in the Kumaon region to study intensively forest management institutions in 24 villages. The existing data was collected using a stet of ten questionnaires that allow researchers to relate resource condition to biological, climatic and edaphic, socio-economic, demographic, and institutional variables.By locating and identifying the processes and precise means whereby institutional arrangements influence resource management and conditions, the research lends greater specificity to attempted policies on the subject. In addition, few studies have undertaken a comparative examination either of the relative importance of property rights in comparison to larger socio-economic or climatic variables, or of the variable influence of different property regimes. Thus, this research enhances significantly our understanding of the topic.