Economics of Property Rights

Edited by Svetozar Pejovich, Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M University, US, Honorary Doctorate, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Professor of Law and Economics, University of Donja Gorica, Montenegro

'It goes without saying that Professor Pejovich is one of the founding fathers of the economics of property rights. This new theory has revolutionised economic reasoning since the early sixties in two ways: firstly by making law a subject of economic analysis, and secondly by introducing the real world of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge into mainstream economics. Nowadays the Property Rights School is part of the quickly expanding fields of transaction cost analysis and institutional economics. It is rapidly changing our understanding of what is going on in our daily life. The readings in these two volumes cover the classics of property rights economics through to the latest developments in a tremendous area of fresh and informative research. I highly recommend them as a superb collection.'

• ContentsVolume IAcknowledgementsIntroduction Svetozar PejovichPART IAN OVERVIEW 1. R.H. Coase (1992), ‘The Institutional Structure of Production’2. Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz (1973), ‘The Property Right Paradigm’3. Mark Blaug (1998), ‘The Disease of Formalism in Economics, or Bad Games That Economists Play’PART IITHE DEVELOPMENT AND SIGNIFICANCE OF PROPERTY RIGHTS IN VARIOUS CULTURES, RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS 4. Fred D. Miller, Jr. (1982), ‘The Natural Right to Private Property’5. Imad A. Ahmad (1994), ‘An Islamic Perspective on the Wealth of Nations’6. Douglass C. North (1978), ‘Governments, Voluntary Organizations, and Economic Life: The Preindustrial Development of Western Europe’7. Bruce L. Benson (1994), ‘Emerging from the Hobbesian Jungle: Might Takes and Makes Rights’8. Silke Stahl (1997), ‘Transition Problems in the Russian Agriculture Sector: A Historical-Institutional Perspective’9. Fred S. McChesney (1990), ‘Government as Definer of Property Rights: Indian Lands, Ethnic Externalities, and Bureaucratic Budgets’PART IIIPROPERTY RIGHTS AND LAW 10. Richard A. Posner (1998), ‘Property’11. Robert C. Ellickson (1986), ‘Adverse Possession and Perpetuities Law: Two Dents in the Libertarian Model of Property Rights’12. Douglass C. North and Barry R. Weingast (1989), ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’13. Henry G. Manne (1997), ‘The Judiciary and Free Markets’14. Gary D. Libecap (1989), ‘Contracting for Mineral Rights’15. Elizabeth Brubaker (1998), ‘The Common Law and the Environment: The Canadian Experience’16. Yoram Barzel (1992), ‘Confiscation by the Ruler: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Lending in the Middle Ages’17. James M. Buchanan (1972), ‘Politics, Property, and the Law: An Alternative Interpretation of Miller et al. v. Schoene’PART IVTHE DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF ALTERNATIVE PROPERTY RIGHTS: PRIVATE OWNERSHIP, STATE OWNERSHIP, COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP AND AMBIGUOUS OWNERSHIP 18. Ulrich Witt (1991), ‘On the Emergence of Private Property Rights’19. Martin J. Bailey (1992), ‘Approximate Optimality of Aboriginal Property Rights’20. Terry L. Anderson and Peter J. Hill (1990), ‘The Race for Property Rights’21. Richard A. Epstein (1994), ‘On the Optimal Mix of Private and Common Property’22. David Schmidtz (1994), ‘The Institution of Property’23. Ellen Frankel Paul (1987), ‘Conclusion: Resolving the Constitutional Muddle’24. Richard A. Epstein (1998), ‘Habitat Preservation: A Property Rights Perspective’25. Armen A. Alchian (1959), ‘Private Property and the Relative Cost of Tenure’Name IndexVolume IIAcknowledgementsAn introduction by the editor to both volumes appears in volume IPART IPROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE USE OF RESOURCES 1. Stanley L. Engerman (1973), ‘Some Considerations Relating to Property Rights in Man’2. G. Warren Nutter (1968), ‘Markets Without Property: A Grand Illusion’3. Alexander Bajt (1993), ‘The Property Rights School: Is Economic Ownership the Missing Link?’4. Clifford G. Holderness (1985), ‘A Legal Foundation for Exchange’5. Louis De Alessi (1983), ‘Property Rights, Transaction Costs, and X-Efficiency: An Essay in Economic Theory’6. Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., Robert F. Hébert, Robert D. Tollison, Gary M. Anderson and Audrey B. Davidson (1996), ‘Monasteries as Agents of the Corporate Church’7. Oliver E. Williamson (1990), ‘A Comparison of Alternative Approaches to Economic Organization’8. Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling (1979), ‘Rights and Production Functions: An Application to Labor-managed Firms and Codetermination’9. Harold Demsetz and Kenneth Lehn (1985), ‘The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences’PART IIPROPERTY RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 10. Johan Torstensson (1994), ‘Property Rights and Economic Growth: An Empirical Study’11. Viktor Vanberg (1992), ‘Innovation, Cultural Evolution, and Economic Growth’12. Svetozar Pejovich (1996), ‘Property Rights and Technological Innovation’13. Robert Higgs (1997), ‘Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War’14. Erich Kaufer (1986), ‘The Incentives to Innovate under Alternative Property Rights Assignments with Special Reference to the Patent System’15. John H. Moore (1981), ‘Agency Costs, Technological Change, and Soviet Central Planning’16. Stefan Voigt (1993), ‘Values, Norms, Institutions and the Prospects for Economic Growth in Central and Eastern Europe’PART IIIPROPERTY RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC REFORMS IN EASTERN EUROPE 17. Cass R. Sunstein (1993), ‘On Property and Constitutionalism’18. Anthony de Jasay (1993), ‘Ownership, Agency, Socialism’19. Enrico Colombatto and Jonathan R. Macey (1997), ‘Lessons from Transition in Eastern Europe: A Property-Right Interpretation’20. Svetozar Pejovich (1994), ‘A Property Rights Analysis of Alternative Methods of Organising Production’21. Silvana Malle (1994), ‘Privatization in Russia: A Comparative Study in Institutional Change’22. László Urbán (1997), ‘Privatization as Institutional Change in Hungary’23. Joze Mencinger (1994), ‘Privatization Dilemmas in Slovenia’PART IVPROPERTY RIGHTS AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT COUNTRIES24. Deepak Lal (1998), ‘The Far East’25. Janet Tai Landa (1998), ‘The Co-Evolution of Markets, Entrepreneurship, Laws, and Institutions in China’s Economy in Transition: A New Institutional Economics Perspective’26. Joel M. Guttman (1980), ‘The Economics of Tenant Rights in Nineteenth Century Irish Agriculture’27. Malcolm R. Fisher (1978), ‘Labor Participation in the Management of Business Firms in Great Britain’28. Peter Moser (1994), ‘Constitutional Protection of Economic Rights: The Swiss and U.S. Experience in Comparison’29. Thráinn Eggertsson (1992), ‘Analyzing Institutional Successes and Failures: A Millennium of Common Mountain Pastures in Iceland’30. Pradeep K. Chhibber and Sumit K. Majumdar (1999), ‘Foreign Ownership and Profitability: Property Rights, Control, and the Performance of Firms in Indian Industry’31. Lee J. Alston, Gary D. Libecap and Robert Schneider (1996), ‘The Determinants and Impact of Property Rights: Land Titles on the Brazilian Frontier’Name Index