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Land Encroachment: India’s Disappearing Common Lands Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, Oxford University WPS/2004-28 Download the Paper (PDF format) - September 5, 2004 Tell a colleague about it. Printing Tips: Select 'print as image' in the Acrobat print dialog if you have trouble printing. ABSTRACT: Opportunistic land encroachment, resulting from costly and incomplete enforcement of common land boundaries, is a problem in many less-developed countries. A multi-period model of such encroachment is presented in this paper. The model accounts explicitly for the cumulative effects of non-compliance of regulations designed to protect a finite, non-renewable resource - in this case common land - from private expropriation. Gradual evolution of property rights from common to private - the consequence of encroachment - is demonstrated to be an equilibrium. To prevent the complete loss of common land, full enforcement must be the rule rather than the exception. SUGGESTED CITATION: Elizabeth J.Z. Robinson, "Land Encroachment: India’s Disappearing Common Lands" (September 5, 2004). The Centre for the Study of African Economies Working Paper Series. Working Paper 228. http://www.bepress.com/csae/paper228