Article Contentsp. 124p. 125p. 126p. 127p. 128p. 129p. 130p. 131p. 132p. 133p. 134p. 135p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139p. 140p. 141p. 142Issue Table of ContentsThe Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), pp. 95-186Front MatterThe Early History of Empirical Studies of Consumer Behavior [pp. 95 - 113]Social Choice, Democracy, and Free Markets [pp. 114 - 123]The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery [pp. 124 - 142]Two Concepts of External Economies [pp. 143 - 151]The Profit Concept and Theory: A Restatement [pp. 152 - 170]Economic Change [pp. 171 - 174]Book Reviewsuntitled [pp. 175 - 176]untitled [p. 176]untitled [pp. 177 - 178]untitled [p. 178]untitled [pp. 178 - 179]untitled [pp. 179 - 180]untitled [pp. 180 - 181]untitled [p. 181]untitled [pp. 181 - 182]untitled [pp. 182 - 183]untitled [pp. 183 - 184]untitled [p. 184]Books Received [pp. 185 - 186]Back MatterThe Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The FisheryAuthor(s): H. Scott GordonSource: The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1954), pp. 124-142Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1825571Accessed: 22/02/2010 20:04Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected] University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheJournal of Political Economy.http://www.jstor.orgTHE ECONOMIC THEORY OF A COMMON- PROPERTY RESOURCE: THE FISHERY' H. SCOTT GORDON Carleton College, Ottawa, Ontario I. INTRODUCTION HE chief aim of this paper is to ex- amine the economic theory of nat- I ural resource utilization as it per- tains to the fishing industry. It will appear, I hope, that most of the prob- lems associated with the words "con- servation" or "depletion" or "overex- ploitation" in the fishery are, in reality, manifestations of the fact that the natu- ral resources of the sea yield no economic rent. Fishery resources are unusual in the fact of their common-property nature; but they are not unique, and similar problems are encountered in other cases of common-property resource industries, such as petroleum production, hunting and trapping, etc. Although the theory presented in the following pages is worked out in terms of the fishing industry, it is, I believe, applicable generally to all cases where natural resources are owned in common and exploited under conditions of individualistic competition. II. BIOLOGICAL FACTORS AND THEORIES The great bulk of the research that has been done on the primary production phase of the fishing industry has so far been in the field of biology. Owing to the 'I want to express my indebtedness to the Canadian Department of Fisheries for assistance and co-operation in making this study; also to Pro- fessor M. C. Urquhart, of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, for mathematical assistance with the last section of the paper and to the Econo- mists' Summer Study Group at Queen's for afford- ing opportunity for research and discussion. lack of theoretical economic research,2 biologists have been forced to extend the scope of their own thought into the eco- nomic sphere and in some cases have penetrated quite deeply, despite the lack of the analytical tools of economic the- ory.3 Many others, who have paid no specific attention to the economic as- pects of the problem have nevertheless recognized that the ultimate question is not the ecology of life in the sea as such, but man's use of these resources for his own (economic) purposes. Dr. Martin D. Burkenroad, for example, began a recent article on fishery management with a section on "Fishery Management as Po- litical Economy," saying that "the Man- agement of fisheries is intended for the benefit of man, not fish; therefore effect of management upon fishstocks cannot be regarded as beneficial per se."4 The 2 The single exception that I know is G. M. Gerhardsen, "Production Economics in Fisheries," Revista de economia (Lisbon), March, 1952. 3 Especially remarkable efforts in this sense are Robert A. Nesbit, "Fishery Management" ("U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Special Scientific Re- ports," No. 18 [Chicago, 1943]) (mimeographed), and Harden F. Taylor, Survey of Marine Fisheries of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, 1951); also R. J. H. Beverton, "Some Observations on the Principles of Fishery Regulation," Journal du conseil permanent international pour l'exploration de la mer (Copen- hagen), Vol. XIX, No. 1 (May, 1953); and M. D. Burkenroad, "Some Principles of Marine Fishery Biology," Publications of the Institute of Marine Sci- ence (University of Texas), Vol. II, No. 1 (Septem- ber, 1951). 4 "Theory and Practice of Marine Fishery Man- agement," Journal du conseil permanent international pour l'exploration de la mer, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (January, 1953). 124THEORY OF A COMMON-PROPERTY RESOURCE 125 great Russian marine biology theorist, T. I. Baranoff, referred to his work as "bionomics" or "bio-econornics," al- though he made little explicit reference to economic factors.5 In the same way, A. G. Huntsman, reporting in 1944 on the work of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, defined the problem of fisheries depletion in economic terms: "Where the take in proportion to the effort fails to yield a satisfactory living to the