ABSTRACT
This short analytical paper discusses Heller’s (2013) concept of the ‘tragedy of the anti-commons’ (TOAC) and his car-parking fable; and translates his analysis, in its best possible light, into a Coasian property rights-access framework. Within this framework, the paper proceeds to denominate TOAC as a special case of the ‘tragedy of the commons’ (TOC) in terms of transaction costs; reformulate Heller’s idea and discuss its applications to the takings as a planning issue. TOAC, referencing legal scholar Heller’s (1998) original concept of ‘initial endowment’ received from the state, is redefined as an ex post or post-contractual underuse of a resource under joint ownership as communal or private property that arises from an increase in the potential value of that resource locked up by the original contractual arrangement interpreted from a third party’s perspective. Information based on maritime aquaculture is used to illustrate concepts of over, optimal, and underuse under various property rights regimes.
Lai, Wai and Yu, Marco KW and Lam, Terry KW, Michael Heller’s theory of the ‘tragedy of the anti-commons’: A Coasian property rights interpretation and some applications to planning policies. Posted to SSRN 13 April 2026.
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