Biswajit Ray

Bio: Biswajit Ray is an academic researcher from University of Calcutta. The author has contributed to research in topics: Collective action & Forest management. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 6 publications receiving 73 citations.

Transaction Costs, Collective Action and Survival of Heterogeneous Co-management Institutions: Case Study of Forest Management Organisations in West Bengal, India

Abstract: Cost-effective natural resource management is important for equity and efficiency. Yet transaction costs of cooperation may pose a challenge to heterogeneous co-management institutions. We conducte...

Attitudes and cooperation: does gender matter in community-based forest management?

Abstract: Does gender matter in people's attitudes and cooperation in community-based natural resource management? If so, how do gender differences in conservation-related attitudes help or hinder sustaining the commons? Since biases ingrained in community norms and expectations often exclude women from decision making in co-management, it is imperative to find plausible answers to these queries in order to understand gender relations and cooperation in co-management. To this end, the authors conducted psychometric surveys and trust experiments on 196 forest-dependent households in West Bengal, India during 2009–2010. The findings suggest that, despite an overall negative perception about women's involvement in co-management, women are more conservation friendly and pro-social than men. It is also noticed that forest biomass and forest incomes as the indicators of sustainability have increased in those forest communities where women's proportional strength as decision makers is greater and people hold an overall positive conservation attitude.

Status differences in collective action and forest benefits: evidence from joint forest management in India

Abstract: Does status matter in community-based forest management? If so, are the high-status households more benefited than the low-status households? What drives status differences, if any, in the appropriation of forest resources? To address these questions, we draw on a theory of status and resource use that defines one’s status as one’s relative position in a group on the basis of power, prestige, honor and deference. Following this perspective, we surveyed the heads of 341 forest-based rural households in India from 2009 to 2010. We find that collective actions themselves are status-driven and the high-status households are more interested and involved in status-maintaining collective actions such as decision-making and implementation, while the low-status households perform general tasks like forest patrol. Moreover, the high-status households derive benefits from local forest significantly more than the low-status households. Further, decomposition analysis shows that a household’s prestige and honor measured by its access to social resources, problem faced and useful contacts explain about 56 % of the status gap in forest benefits, while socioeconomic characteristics explain only 16 % of the gap. Thus, due emphasis on household status from a broader socioeconomic perspective is required to reduce inequality in participation and the distribution of forest benefits in co-management.

Stakeholder Attitudes and Conservation of Natural Resources: Exploring Alternative Approaches

Abstract: Individuals make decisions embedded in a social context and their attitudes affect their decisions Based on this argument, there is a long history of empirical research in social sciences (beyond economics), that elicits subjective testimony on feelings, beliefs, values, expectations, plans, attitudes, and behavior This body of empirics was excluded from the neoclassical economic analysis on the assumption that individual preferences remain unchanged, despite the fact that economic theorizing often includes reference to attitudes, beliefs and the like An important example is the data on stakeholder attitudes toward environment (Infield 1988) Its importance has been documented recently (Agrawal 2006) and pro-environmental attitudes studies have started to catch the attention of economists

Collective Action and Tragedy of Tank Water

Abstract: Tank irrigation is important in agriculture-dependent developing economies such as India. Since tank water is a common pool resource, managing tanks cost-effectively through collective action (CA) ...

Analyzing Health Equity Using Household Survey Data: A Guide to Techniques and Their Implementation

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Public Participation and Institutional Fit: A Social–Psychological Perspective

Abstract: Public participation plays a role in the development and long-term maintenance of environmental institutions that are well-matched to local social–ecological conditions. However, the means by which public participation impacts such institutional fit remains unclear. We argue that one major reason for this lack of clarity is that analysts have not clearly outlined how humankind’s sense of agency, or self-determination, influences institutional outcomes. Moreover, the concept of institutional fit is ambiguous as to what constitutes a good fit and how such fit could be diagnosed or improved. This is especially true for “social fit,” or how well institutions match human expectations and local behavioral patterns. We develop an interdisciplinary framework based on principles of human agency and institutional analysis from social psychology to address these problems. Using the concept of “institutional acceptance” as an indicator of social fit, we show how analysts can define, diagnose, and improve social fit of participatory programs. We also show how such fit emerges and is sustained over time. This interdisciplinary perspective on fit and participation has important implications for participatory approaches to environmental management and the scientific study of institutional evolution.

The Variety of Property Systems and Rights in Natural Resources

Abstract: Property theory has not kept pace with the growth of empirical and historical information on property systems. This paper, prepared for a Lincoln Institute conference on "The Evolution of Property Systems and Rights Related to Land and Natural Resources": (a) introduces conventional theories of property rights in natural resources (based largely on Hardin 1968 and Demsetz 1967); (b) addresses issues in the construction and meaning of property rights and systems; (c) describes the findings of social scientists from decades of field and experimental research about the structure and performance of existing property systems; and (d) calls on property scholars to move beyond "naive" and simplistic theories of property rights in light of the wealth of empirical evidence demonstrating the variety of successful property regimes in use.