Common-pool resource

A resource that is difficult to exclude people from using and is diminished by each user’s extraction. Examples include fisheries, groundwater basins, and irrigation systems.

Excludability: The degree to which people can be prevented from using a good or resource. Low excludability makes controlling access to common-pool resources difficult.
Public good: A good that is difficult to exclude people from using and whose use does not diminish availability to others. Unlike a common-pool resource, one person’s use of a public good does not subtract from others’ use.
Paul Samuelson: An American economist whose 1954 work formalized the theory of public expenditure and public goods. His classification of goods helped establish the economic framework that distinguishes resource types.
Fisheries management: The regulation and stewardship of fish populations and fishing activity. Fish stocks are depleted by harvest, while excluding fishers from marine waters can be difficult.
Ostrom’s design principles: A set of institutional principles associated with durable governance of common-pool resources. They identify arrangements such as clear boundaries, monitoring, and graduated sanctions.
Rivalry (economics): A property of a good whose use by one person reduces the amount available to others. Extraction by one user leaves less of the resource for others.
Private good: A good that is both excludable and rival in consumption. Private goods are easier to control because owners can restrict access.
W. F. Lloyd: A British economist whose 1833 lectures described how individually rational grazing could overuse a shared pasture. His pasture example anticipated later accounts of resource depletion through individual use.
Groundwater: Water stored beneath Earth’s surface in pores and fractures of soil and rock. Aquifers can be hard to monitor and each pumping user reduces shared reserves.
Collective action: Coordinated effort by multiple people to achieve a shared objective. Resource users must often cooperate to limit extraction and sustain shared benefits.

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