22. Jean-Philippe Platteau provided a brief exposé of some theoretical considerations on the relationship between the level of resource exploitation, the resource access regime and outcomes in terms of efficiency and equity. Where open access conditions prevail fishery resources tend to become overexploited. The effect on equity and poverty was dependent, however, on whether the resources were overexploited in economic terms only (i.e. dissipation of resource rent because of excess capital employed in the fishery), or in both economic and biological terms (i.e. rent dissipation as well as a reduction in sustainable yield). While in open access situations, resource rents tend to become totally dissipated, in common property resource regimes, rents may only be partially dissipated, because some community control over resource access and capital investment applied.
23. Assuming that there is no biological overfishing, but rent dissipation, open access and community management would lead to a larger wage bill than under a private property regime (that would maximize resource rent). Thus, while this situation was economically inefficient, it could be beneficial for the poor because of a higher wage bill. In addition, insurance was better for the poor under open access or community management. These results derived from theoretical considerations would not hold in situations where open access or weakly or non-regulated common property regimes caused economic as well as (significant) biological overfishing.
24. Dr Platteau then considered the impacts of other factors on equity. Population growth would lead to a decline in average incomes, and a decline in the insurance function that both would be detrimental for the poor. The effect of market integration had the opposite effect (as long as real prices for fish increased as a result) i.e. higher incomes and better insurance. The effects of increased socio-economic differentiation in fishing communities would reduce the insurance benefit for the poor, because those with more boats could stabilize incomes at the expense of the poor, as access rights were usually apportioned by the number of boats (i.e. harvesting capacity) that people have, and not according to households. Finally, he noted that inequality in a community is not invariably bad for the poor, as the rich were more likely to push for the establishment of effective resource access controls that could be of benefit to the poor as well.
