Resource+regime1


 * Resource Regime**

A resource regime is regulated distribution of property and its uses. There are a variety of different regimes in place for different resources, ranging between the extremes of a purely private regime to open access. Open access refers to the economic theory of the commons, whereby access to the resource in question is open to anyone. A common argument, a put forth by [|Garrett Hardin], states that an open access resource regime is incompatible with the efficient utilization of natural resources without some form of government intervention, and that given the impediments to effective intervention private property rights are the safer option.

"No economy can survive if the majority of its scarce resources are commonly owned." Cheung, Optimal Resource Regimes

It has been put forth by Shashi Kant et al., in reference to [|optimal resource regimes], that a regime somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, such as a community regime or a joint regime (among community and state, community and private, or private and state), will be the most efficient.

//Figure One: Alternating Regimes in Consumer and Resource Populations//

Figure One shows the shifts between collapse and recovery that occur for renewable resources under different regimes. In relation to oil, however, this is not applicable; oil is a non-renewable resource, and when it collapses there can be no cycle of recovery.

//Figure Two: Regime Change in Relation to Resource Scarcity//

Figure Two, in a scenario more applicable to the depletion of oil reserves, shows the emergence of an [|institutional resource regime] as the resource becomes scarcer: in the beginning of the resource's exploitation there is little to no regulation, as it is regarded as being part of the commons. As the resource is depleted, however, an increasingly complex institutionalized resource regime is put in place, whereby the resource is regulated and made available to fewer people.