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Article: The Rise and Fall of the Sand Monopoly Colonial Hong Kong
Title | The Rise and Fall of the Sand Monopoly Colonial Hong Kong |
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Authors | |
Keywords | Open access property Sand Schumpeterian innovation State monopoly Transaction costs |
Issue Date | 2016 |
Publisher | Elsevier BV. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon |
Citation | Ecological Economics, 2016, v. 128, p. 106-116 How to Cite? |
Abstract | A state monopoly over a scarce natural resource under open access can theoretically reduce the costs of supply by constraining rent dissipation and innovations. A monopoly over the collection and trading of sand was formed in Hong Kong by legislation in 1935 in the wake of disputes between sandmen and villagers and imminent shortages of sand. Arguably, a monopoly at this stage of Hong Kong's development was a better alternative to merely defining rights over sand extraction in terms of the transaction costs of enforcement. During the 1950s and 1960s, when Hong Kong's economy and construction industry began to boom, the monopoly's existence was further justified due to the politics of China being the sole source of Hong Kong's sand supply. However, this case study of the sand monopoly and its post-war operation as a bilateral monopoly shows that it did not protect coastal villagers, as violations of the sand law were not infrequent. The local sand supply was huge, and the monopoly's abolition in 1981 was followed by a long period of falling, rather than rising, real wholesale prices of the resource. Nor was there any sign of scale economies, as claimed by the government. The policy implications of this are discussed. |
Persistent Identifier | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/227422 |
ISSN | 2023 Impact Factor: 6.6 2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 1.983 |
ISI Accession Number ID |
DC Field | Value | Language |
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dc.contributor.author | Lai, LWC | - |
dc.contributor.author | Chau, KW | - |
dc.contributor.author | Lorne, FT | - |
dc.date.accessioned | 2016-07-18T09:10:23Z | - |
dc.date.available | 2016-07-18T09:10:23Z | - |
dc.date.issued | 2016 | - |
dc.identifier.citation | Ecological Economics, 2016, v. 128, p. 106-116 | - |
dc.identifier.issn | 0921-8009 | - |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10722/227422 | - |
dc.description.abstract | A state monopoly over a scarce natural resource under open access can theoretically reduce the costs of supply by constraining rent dissipation and innovations. A monopoly over the collection and trading of sand was formed in Hong Kong by legislation in 1935 in the wake of disputes between sandmen and villagers and imminent shortages of sand. Arguably, a monopoly at this stage of Hong Kong's development was a better alternative to merely defining rights over sand extraction in terms of the transaction costs of enforcement. During the 1950s and 1960s, when Hong Kong's economy and construction industry began to boom, the monopoly's existence was further justified due to the politics of China being the sole source of Hong Kong's sand supply. However, this case study of the sand monopoly and its post-war operation as a bilateral monopoly shows that it did not protect coastal villagers, as violations of the sand law were not infrequent. The local sand supply was huge, and the monopoly's abolition in 1981 was followed by a long period of falling, rather than rising, real wholesale prices of the resource. Nor was there any sign of scale economies, as claimed by the government. The policy implications of this are discussed. | - |
dc.language | eng | - |
dc.publisher | Elsevier BV. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon | - |
dc.relation.ispartof | Ecological Economics | - |
dc.rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. | - |
dc.subject | Open access property | - |
dc.subject | Sand | - |
dc.subject | Schumpeterian innovation | - |
dc.subject | State monopoly | - |
dc.subject | Transaction costs | - |
dc.title | The Rise and Fall of the Sand Monopoly Colonial Hong Kong | - |
dc.type | Article | - |
dc.identifier.email | Lai, LWC: wclai@hku.hk | - |
dc.identifier.email | Chau, KW: hrrbckw@hku.hk | - |
dc.identifier.authority | Lai, LWC=rp01004 | - |
dc.identifier.authority | Chau, KW=rp00993 | - |
dc.description.nature | postprint | - |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2016.04.021 | - |
dc.identifier.scopus | eid_2-s2.0-84964817098 | - |
dc.identifier.hkuros | 259618 | - |
dc.identifier.volume | 128 | - |
dc.identifier.spage | 106 | - |
dc.identifier.epage | 116 | - |
dc.identifier.isi | WOS:000378669700012 | - |
dc.publisher.place | Netherlands | - |
dc.identifier.issnl | 0921-8009 | - |