Sustainable development and the tragedy of commons

Between now and Easter I am teaching environmental economics and other aspects of market and government failure for my A2 micro groups. This week we are looking at environmental market failures and will spend a lesson looking at the Tragedy of the Commons. I found this superb eight minute You Tube video featuring the 2009 Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom who gives a tremendously clear explanation of how enhancing the way that local people organise to manage resources can be used to achieve a more sustainable use of scarce resources.

Elinor Ostrom is the joint winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics. At the time of the award, she was cited for “for her analysis of economic governance,” saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it.”

The Lorax and market failure. [2 Mar 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Winning the War on Deforestation [5 Feb 2012]
Unit 1 Micro: Illegal logging and the human cost [23 Jan 2012]
Unit 3 Micro: Prezi on Environmental Economics [11 Jan 2012]
Economics of Deforestation [20 Dec 2011]
Unit 3 Micro: You Sue, I Sue - Patent Wars Explode! [25 Sep 2011]
Study Note - Economic Systems [13 Sep 2011]
Economics at the Movies: The Cove - Trade in Dolphins [28 Aug 2011]
Where there’s muck there’s brass [6 Jul 2011]
Oceans at grave risk [20 Jun 2011]
Economics Q&A: Can economics provide answers to the crisis of collapsing stocks in global fishing? [19 Jan 2011]
Economics Q&A: Tragedy of the Commons and Market Failure [18 Jan 2011]
Environmental Economics: Five Fresh Links [13 Jan 2011]
Trees as private and public goods [3 Jan 2011]
Promising news on deforestation [2 Dec 2010]
Successors to Roosevelt and Kruger - Marine Parks of the Sea [8 Nov 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The Vanishing Bees [27 Oct 2010]
Economics at the Movies - The End of the Line [26 Oct 2010]
Falling in love with a fish [11 Aug 2010]
Revision Presentation - EU & Carbon Emissions Trading [22 Feb 2010]
Revision Presentation - Market Failure & the Environment [21 Feb 2010]
New series of BBC Earth Report - Deforestation and Externalities [27 Oct 2009]
Explaining the Tragedy of the Commons [3 Oct 2009]
Trying to turn the tide of deforestation [10 Jul 2009]
Europe Revision: Fishing [4 Jun 2009]
Fishing for a problem for the tragedy of the commons [23 Apr 2009]
Requiem for DRM [12 Jan 2009]
Logging in Alaska - an Environmental Catastrophe? [4 Feb 2008]

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