James M. Acheson – författare

This collection of eighteen original essays evaluates the use and misuse of common-property resources, taking as its starting point ecologist Garret Hardin's assertion in ""The Tragedy of the Commons"" that common property is doomed to overexploitation in any society. This book represents the first cross-cultural test of Hardin's argument and argues that, while tragedies of the commons do occur under some circumstances, local institutions have proven resilient and responsive to the problems of communal resource use.

The last two decades have seen a convergence of the interests of anthropologists and economists. In the past few years, a small number of anthropologists have become interested in institutional economics—many of those anthropologists are contributors to this volume. The primary objective of this volume is to begin to assess the degree to which the ideas of institutional economics can be applied to societies in the Third World. They discuss a wide variety of institutions from this perspective, including family budgets, revolving credit institutions in Bangladesh, Mexican peasant unions, markets in East Africa, share contracts in the Philippine fishing communities, the actions of the agents of the state, and credit institutions in Africa. Co-published with the Society for Economic Anthropology.