India's Disappearing Common Lands: Fuzzy Boundaries, Encroachment, and Evolving Property Rights
研究了印度卡纳塔克邦公共土地因边界模糊而被逐步侵占的现象，通过多期优化模型分析执法效率、侵占可逆性和罚款如何影响公共土地的保护或消失。
Opportunistic land encroachment occurs in many low-income countries, gradually yet pervasively, until discrete areas of common land disappear. This paper, motivated by field observations in Karnataka, India, demonstrates that such an evolution of property rights from common to private may be efficient when the boundaries between common and private land are poorly defined, or “fuzzy.” Using a multi-period optimization model, and introducing the concept of stock and flow enforcement, I show how effectiveness of enforcement effort, whether encroachment is reversible, and punitive fines, influence whether an area of common land is fully defined and protected or gradually or rapidly encroached. <i></i>