The Tragedy of Public Goods: The Case of a Marine Protected Area

Fishing resources are classified as a “commons good”, that is they are highly non-excludable and rival. This characteristic leads to the so-called tragedy of the commons, the tendency for a good that has no price to be used until its marginal benefit falls to zero. In this paper, a win-win fishery management policy is implemented for the Marine Protected Area of Asinara Island, (Sardinia, Italy). To this aim, a choice experiments methodology to elicit preferences based on conjoint analysis is developed. A graphical variant questionnaire, that is a block chart, is also implemented aimed at avoiding typical response bias. The empirical findings show that Asinara stakeholders overall would prefer increase sustainable yields of commercial species, reduce inner conflicts and increase profits from fishery