From an approach related to the "Old Institutionalism," and to the analytical tools built by Williamson and Ostrom, this paper aims to analyze the economic implications of the development of different systems of collective Property Rights and of Commons. In a first part, I will show how the economic literature conceives the problem of commons and anticommons. In a second part, after some methodological considerations, I will specify the different elements necessary to built a function of collective welfare. At the end, I will define the concept of viability of a particular mode of governance and I will show why, when the transaction costs are positive, the governance based on private negotiation is not systematically the most efficient mechanism, in terms of social welfare.
property rights; commons; governance; social welfare
