Erosion of Commons

Understanding the Role of Inequality, Rights and Access

Arnab Mukherji 1 and Sneha Thapliyal1

1 Center for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

29th Dec 2011

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Common Pool Resources (CPRs) . . .

. . . are resources to which local communities have varying access. Bromley (1989) denes them as non-exclusive resources whose rights of use are distributed within a community or a village. Chopra (2002) identies multiple and overlapping property and regulatory regimes as central to CPRs Nationally, CPRs declined from 21.6% of total geographic area to 15% over 1980-98 (NSSO 1999); Jodha (1990) documents much higher losses at the village level . . . Key efciency and equity roles:
CPR generate US$ 5 billion a year in India; about 12% of total income of rural poor (Beck and Nesmith 2001) Key contribution to incomes for the poor (Jodha 1986; Pasha 1992)

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Research Question . . .

What determines the decline of village CPRs in rural India? More specically: What role do socio-economic inequalities play in the erosion of village commons? CPRs are often marketed; does better market access increase the likelihood of the loss of commons? Do the locally dened rights of access play any role in maintaining the commons?

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Common pool resources include . . .

. . . community pastures and forests, wastelands, dumping and threshing grounds, etc. where property regimes are not well-dened. importance to the poor; particularly during agrarian/rural stress and its use by the rich (Jodha 1990; Pasha 1992; Singh et al 1996) Baland and Platteau (1999) and others argue: heterogeneity along social, political, and economic domains may lead to resource governance that may not support commons Local governance institutions (rules) may explain the health of forest and village commons (Andersson and Gibson, 2007) Alix-Garcia (2008) argues that heterogeneities are associated with positive outcomes as the poor do not gain benets Mostly case studies . . . few national studies, fewer on India.

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Two exceptions . . .

Chopra and Dasgupta (2002) analyse the household level data to show that households collect for commercial sale over and above home consumption (safety net) in Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Menon and Vadivelu (2006) describe the differential use and dependence on CPRs across agro-climatic zones and of farmers with different sizes of operational land holdings for the entire country.

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Data

54th Round NSSO on CPRs Multi-Stage Random Sample with villages as primary sampling units
5242 villages with village questions in Schedule 3.3 78,990 households with individual questions in Schedule 31

Detailed CPR usage, rights, and other variables with agro-climatic zone classications Only nationally representative sample for understanding CPR use in the country that provide a detailed link-up with agro-climatic zones in India.

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Agro-Climatic Zones
Classication based on soil, climatic conditions, and availability of water resources created by the Planning Commission to study Indias rural economy (NSSO 1998). These are district specic identications and not at the village or block level.

Table: Agro Climatic Zones

Code CHg DP EG EHg EHm GC LG MG TD TG UG WC WHg WHm Label Central Plateau and Hills Southern Plateau and Hills East Coast Plains and Hills Eastern Plateau Hills Eastern Himalayas (inc. N.E.Hills) and Bramhaputra Valley Gujarat Coast Plains and Hills Lower Gangetic Plains Middle Gangetic Plain Western Dry Region Trans-Gangetic Plains Upper Gangetic Plains West Coast Plains and Hills Western Plateau and Hills Western Himalayas % 11.05 8.56 9.28 7.65 11.67 4.58 1.37 11.43 2.3 8.53 3.42 4.49 7.88 7.79

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Inequality
Literature nds positive and negative impacts of inequality (Poteete and Ostrom 2004; Adhikari and Lovett 2006) Economic inequality is measured using district specic Gini indices for total saleable land that households own.

Note the wide variation in district level Gini indices across and within states and agro-climatic zones.

Social Inequality is measured using caste.

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Institutions and Rights . . .

Past research documents the explanatory role of local governance institutions in observed forests (Gibson et al. 2005) We use local rights at the village level in this study
Village panchayat grazing lands Village forests Village common threshing oor Other Barren and waste lands

Each of the above is classied into no access, partial access to some activities or communities, and complete access. In addition to the above rights we look at impact of JFM and Van Panchayats

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Access . . .

Jodha (1985) discusses the role of market forces and the effects improved market-related infrastructures in the Indian context; reemphasized by Chomitz (1995), Agarwal and Yamada (1997) and Agarwal (2001) Following Chopra (2002) we operationalize market access as follows:
Access to Metalled roads in the village Availability of Banks in the village (commercial, cooperative, or rural) Access to Self-Help Groups in the village

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Estimation Strategy . . .
Unit of observation: village Estimating: yv yvd yvd = 0 + 1 Inequv + 2 Rightsv + 3 Accessv +
1 v 2 vd 3 vd

= 0 + 1 Inequvd + 2 Rightsvd + 3 Accessvd + A + = 0 + 1 Inequvd + 2 Rightsvd + 3 Accessvd + S +

Village commons in the same agro-ecological zone are likely to have similar levels of regeneration and usage that would inuence inequality, rights and the likelihood of loss of commons Village commons in the same state have similar institutional norms and public goods inuencing inequality, rights and the likelihood of loss of commons
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Data Summary . . .
Variable Mean Std. Dev. Land Reduced in last 5 yrs? 0.142703 0.349772 Socio-economic Inequality Gini (Land owned) 0.586223 0.10613 Social Category: (omitted category : % General) % ST 0.135314 0.34206 % SC 0.206371 0.404703 % OBC 0.265041 0.441358 Institutions and Rights JFM/VP 0.039086 0.193802 Rights to Village Panchayat grazing land or pasture (omitted: No Access) Partly Reserved 0.059326 0.236237 Complete Access 0.878021 0.327267 Rights to Village and Van Panchayat Forests (omitted: No Access) Partly Reserved 0.137142 0.344008 Complete Access 0.606536 0.488534 Rights to Village Threshing Floor (omitted: No Access) Partly Reserved 0.083928 0.277284 Complete Access 0.866357 0.340274 Rights to Other Barren Land (omitted: No Access) Partly Reserved 0.062555 0.242164 Complete Access 0.847025 0.359967 Access to Market in the village: Presence of metalled road 0.610188 0.487711 Presence of rural bank 0.098941 0.298584 Presence of cooperative bank 0.164352 0.370597 Presence of commercial bank 0.14228 0.34934 Presence of self help group 0.183467 0.387051
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Min. 0 0.13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Max. 1 0.87 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
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Table: Linear Probability Models for Reduction in Village Commons

OLS Inequality: Gini (Land owned) Social Category: % SC % ST % OBC Rights: JFM or Van Panchayat? (Y/N) Rights to: (omitted category: No Access) Village Panchayat grazing land or pasture Partly Reserved Complete Access Village Forest Partly Reserved Complete Access Village Threshing Floor Partly Reserved Complete Access Other Barren Land Partly Reserved Complete Access Access to: Metalled road 0.05 0.07 0.01 -0.01 0.04 *** FE -AgC-Zone 0.09 0.09 0.02 -0.04 0.05 *** FE-State 0.08 0.06 0.02 -0.01 0.03 ***

-0.03 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.02 0.02 -0.06 0.04 0.03

***

-0.05 0.04 0.02 0.03 -0.01 0.02 -0.06 0.04 0.04

***

-0.02 0.03 0.02 0.03

***

*** *** *

* *** *

***

0.02 0.03 -0.04 0.05 0.03

***

***

* **

Sample size = 4721 on all models;Agrco-Climatic Zone and State Fixed Effects; village common pool land, total NTFP, Fodder and Fuelwood collected, and access to banks, SHGs do not matter.

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Table: Linear Probability Models for Reduction in Village Commons

OLS Inequality Gini (Land owned) Social Category: % SC % ST % OBC Rights JFM or Van Panchayat? (Y/N) Rights to: (omitted category: No Access) Village Panchayat grazing land or pasture Partly Reserved Complete Access Village Forest Partly Reserved Complete Access Village Threshing Floor Partly Reserved Complete Access Other Barren Land Partly Reserved Complete Access Access to: Metalled road 0.05 0.07 0.01 -0.01 0.04 *** FE -AgC-Zone 0.09 0.09 0.02 -0.04 0.05 *** FE-State 0.08 0.06 0.02 -0.01 0.03 ***

-0.03 0.02 0.04 0.02 0.02 0.02 -0.06 0.04 0.03

***

-0.05 0.04 0.02 0.03 -0.01 0.02 -0.06 0.04 0.04

***

-0.02 0.03 0.02 0.03

***

*** *** *

* *** *

***

0.02 0.03 -0.04 0.05 0.03

***

***

* **

Sample size = 4721 on all models;Agrco-Climatic Zone and State Fixed Effects; village common pool land, total NTFP, Fodder and Fuelwood collected, and access to banks, SHGs do not matter.

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Thus . . .
Village commons are more likely to be eroded in more (economically) unequal societies . Social Category is not important at all! contrary to literature. Rights matter but in subtle way:
For village panchayat grazing land, Village Forests and Village Barren land complete access is likely to reduce village commons For village threshing oors any sort of access is likely to reduce village commons - case study evidence points to commercial use (lease-out) for private purposes.

JFM or Van Panchayat do not matter. Access (not only metalled roads) seems to play a limited role in determining any loss of village commons Agro-Climatic and State Fixed effects capture unobservable ecologically effects and state effects that are constant within the ecological region or in state. Our ndings are robust to both these sorts of xed effects.
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Future Research

Explaining the magnitude of CPR area reduced rather than the binary variable we use
Two-part Hurdle Model

Fully exploiting multi-level nature of the data

Random Coefcient Models across state and agro-climatic zones

Understanding Forest Cover Linking CPR usage to livelihoods

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