Pastoralist Economic Behavior: Empirical Results from Reindeer Herders in Northern Sweden

This paper presents a model of pastoralists, as illustrated by reindeer herders, together with an analysis based on a cross-sectional data set on Swedish reindeer-herding Saami. The intrinsic utility of being an active reindeer herder plays an important role in determining supply. Results show this...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Agricultural and Resource Economics Vol. 30; no. 2
Main Author Bostedt, Goran
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Western Agricultural Economics Association 2005
SeriesJournal of Agricultural and Resource Economics
Subjects
backward-bending supply
externalities
Industries
Livestock Production
pastoralist
reindeer husbandry
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Summary:This paper presents a model of pastoralists, as illustrated by reindeer herders, together with an analysis based on a cross-sectional data set on Swedish reindeer-herding Saami. The intrinsic utility of being an active reindeer herder plays an important role in determining supply. Results show this can lead to unconventional supply responses among pastoralists, and suggest that the probability of a backward-bending supply response increases with stock size. Further analyses confirm that reindeer herders with backward-bending supply curves have significantly larger herds than herders with conventional supply responses. Relaxed externalities from forestry would cause most herders to increase their slaughter.