Bromley on property rights : A critique of "Property Rights and the Environment : Natural Resource Policy in Transition"

Abstract

In August 1987 Professor Daniel W. Bromley from Wisconsin University visited New Zealand. In a series of lectures he generated widespread interest in the role and significance of property rights in natural resource and environmental policy and in the process did much to dispel the suspicions that those concerned with natural resource and environmental policy had of economists. Fortunately the lectures that he gave have now been published as a collection of papers titled "Property Rights and the Environment: Natural Resource Policy in Transition" (Ministry for the Environment, April 1988). * The framework that Professor Bromley has provided for the analysis of natural resource and environmental policy is without parallel in New Zealand both in its penetration of the issues and in the scope with which it considers them. The importance of his work has not been lost on New Zealanders. It was, for example, extensively referred to in the recent Royal Commission on Social Policy. His framework is also proving of especial importance as New Zealand's town and country planning, minerals, and soil and water legislation undergoes major reform. Professor Bromley has made, in short, an enormous contribution to policy analysis in New Zealand. Professor Bromley has also stimulated ourselves and other scholars to think about the importance of property rights to resource allocation. Because of the importance of his work we have studied it most carefully. What began as marginal notes and discussion has now grown into a full critique. It is a critique that should prove of interest to students of policy and those interested in natural resource and environmental issues.