Efficiency and institutional issues of shrimp farming in Bangladesh

In developing countries like Bangladesh, where many people live below the poverty line and the scope to increase the private resource is very limited, the role of common resources like forest, water etc. are very important. There are several problems and conflicts that arise due to lack of proper resource management - those ultimately affect yield, increase cost, reduce profit and efficiency for the resource users. It is hypothesised that collective effort is the best and sustainable way to proper common resource management. This book is an attempt to investigate how users’ efficiency is related to resource management, what are the characteristics of the community as well as individuals – that motivate users to manage the resource collectively. The analytical result shows that resource inequality reduces users’ efficiency. It also discourages users to manage resource collectively. In this way, inequality→ reduced efficiency →resource mismanagement – works as a downward spiral for the common resource reliant people. If the trend continues, then whole of the resource goes to few users, inequality increases, the local users loss the user right and they become resource less – which is very alarming for the resource using community. To get rid of this trend, local users should be organized through forming users’ associationthat increase social cohesion. Policy could be recommended for: to provide incentives to the actual users to hold their resource, good relationship between users association and government organization, and providing the facility of training and proper extension services.