distinguishes between stability and outcomes. Sec- tion 3 provides an overview of the study area.
Sections 4 and 5 analyse the stability and out- comes of community forestry, respectively. Sec-
tion
6 presents
conclusions and
discusses implications for other settings.
2. An analytical framework
Institutions are formal and informal rules that govern human behaviour. More precisely: ‘‘Insti-
tutions consist of informal constraints, formal rules, and the enforcement characteristics of
both’’ North, 1989, p. 239. Institutions are linked to behaviour by the incentive structures
they represent and the physical and social envi- ronment in which human beings live. The ap-
proach followed in this article is therefore to analyse the patterns of behaviour which alterna-
tive property regimes generate in the particular economic, political, and social setting of the con-
temporary Terai society. The analysis of property institutions in this article focuses on two aspects
of institutions: their stability and their outcomes.
The concept of stability intends to capture suffi- cient conditions under which a set of rules gener-
ates a constant pattern of behaviour at a low transaction cost over an extended period of time.
Obviously, this is the case when actors comply with an unchanging set of rules. More precisely,
an institution is called stable if compliance is high and rules are rarely changed over an extended
period of time. Transaction costs rise when com- pliance is low or declines over time i.e. the num-
ber and intensity of rule violation rises or when rules are frequently changed. Alterations in rules
cause transaction costs because they need to be negotiated and agreed upon – a process, which
can absorb considerable economic resources. It is possible that alterations contribute to stability if
they set incentives that support compliance. How- ever, this does not necessarily involve frequent
changes in rules. An institution is therefore called unstable if compliance is low or rules are changed
frequently.
The stability criterion alone is insufficient to assess the performance of an institution. Institu-
tions that govern economic behaviour have evolved because actors seek certain outcomes in
terms of the allocation and distribution of eco- nomic resources. If individuals pursue their own
objectives, it is possible that all actors conform to an unchanging set of rules, but that the resulting
pattern of allocation and distribution is different from what has been desired. In this sense, stability
does not guarantee particular outcomes.
Two types of outcomes are considered in the following analysis: ecological sustainability and
poverty alleviation. Ecological sustainability re- quires that the forest area does not shrink further
and forest quality in terms of the diversity of forest products and the age composition of the
forests does not decrease. Poverty alleviation re- quires that the per capita quantity or the range of
forest products e.g. in terms of species available to the rural poor expand compared to a historic
point of reference or compared to an alternative forest management institution. This increase may
be continuous or once-and-for-all. Poverty allevi- ation may also take place when other economic
opportunities for the poor arise as a result of a forestry institution. For example, a forestry insti-
tution may raise the employment of the poor if it increases labour demand from the non-poor.
The specification of ecological sustainability and poverty alleviation as criteria for the evalua-
tion of outcomes represents a simplification, as it neglects the complex choices between competing
land use patterns agriculture vs. forestry and the structure of output in forestry i.e. whether biodi-
versity conservation or the production of wood or other forest products should be a priority. As far
as the structure of output in forestry is concerned, any allocation of forest area to particular uses has
to strike a compromise between the basic needs of the rural poor and other objectives. Given the
importance of forest products for the livelihoods of the poor, the objective to increase the availabil-
ity of forest products to the poor appears to be justified.
As far as the conflict between agriculture and forestry is concerned, a standard result of dy-
namic optimisation models is that, along an effi- cient path, the static marginal benefits of the two
land use alternatives are equal see, for example,
Ehui et al., 1990. Two observations indicate that the marginal benefits from forestry currently ex-
ceed those from agriculture in the Terai. First, the relative prices of forest products have increased.
Respondents in Dhanusha District stated that the prices for sal Shorea robusta timber and for
fuelwood increased at annual rates of 25 and 17, respectively, during 1987 – 1997, which is
above the inflation rate of roughly 11. Second, private returns from tree plantations exceed re-
turns from agriculture in a variety of settings. Kanel 1995, p. 102 calculates an ex ante finan-
cial internal rate of return to a block plantation of sissoo Dalbergia sissoo of 25 and an economic
internal rate of return of 35. Similar results have been calculated for agroforestry Jaiswal et al.,
1994; Kanel, 1995. Most Terai farmers who have access to formal credit are currently offered mar-
ket interest rates below 20. Consequently, there has been a considerable increase in the establish-
ment of block plantations by farmers in the study region.
Stability and outcomes are interdependent. On the one hand, stability is a necessary condition if
particular outcomes are to be achieved continu- ously and the physical and social environment of
an institution does not change significantly. On the other hand, stability can only be achieved if
incentives exist for the actors that the outcomes they prefer will be achieved at least in the long
run.
The analysis in the following sections focuses on the stability and outcomes of common prop-
erty institutions. Under common property, a set of rules exists which limit both access to the
resource system and the extraction of resource units. The rules can be designed, enacted, and
enforced by the group of individuals who jointly own the resource.
3
Recent theoretical and empiri- cal contributions emphasised that stability, eco-
logical sustainability, and economic efficiency can be achieved if natural resources are managed un-
der common property Larson and Bromley, 1990; Ostrom, 1990; Ostrom et al., 1994; Bromley,
1992; Baland and Platteau, 1996. Incentives exist for all actors to establish a common property
institution because efficiency gains can be at- tained. However, actors fail to establish appropri-
ate institutions if transaction costs are too high. Furthermore, a common property institution may
not remain stable after it has been established because incentives exist for individual resource
users to defect from their commitments as long as their actions remain unnoticed by others.
Three factors can support the stability of an institution Ostrom, 1990, pp. 192 – 214. First,
each actor has to make a commitment to comply with the rules, which has to be credible in the eyes
of all other actors. This is generally difficult to achieve because incentives to defect are always
present. Second, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms are required. Monitoring mechanisms
help to detect violators while enforcement mecha- nisms raise the cost violators have to incur for
their infringements. The existence of these mecha- nisms works as an additional incentive to make a
commitment. Third, external factors i.e. the legal and political environment can support or erode
the stability of an institution.
The following analysis therefore focuses on commitment, monitoring and enforcement mecha-
nisms, and external factors to explain the stability of the common property institutions that exist in
the Terai. First, however, an overview is provided on the study region.
3. The study area
