Power is not rights: Economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics

What are property rights? The term "property rights" carries two distinct meanings in the economic literature. One, primarily developed by Alchian (1965, 1987) and Cheung (1969), is essentially the ability to enjoy a piece of property. The other, much more prevalent and much older, is essentially what the state assigns to a person. I designate the first "economic (property) rights" and the second "legal (property) rights." Economic rights are the end (that is, what people ultimately seek), whereas legal rights are the means to achieve the end. In this book I am concerned primarily with economic rights. Legal rights play a primarily supporting role – a very prominent one, however, for they are easier to observe than economic rights.

In 2019, self-employed individuals in the United States owned and operated more than 27 million nonemployer firms and generated more than $1.3 trillion in revenue. Our study examines how self-employed workers adjust their operations in response to an exogenous regulatory change that places limits on how they can utilize their productive assets. Extending modern property rights theory of the firm (PRTF), we studied how self-employed for-hire truck drivers modified their operations in response to the required installation of electronic logging devices (ELDs) in their vehicles. The introduction of ELDs bolstered enforcement of preexisting legal hours-of-service limits, thereby weakening the drivers’ ability to accept hauls above statutory hours-of-service limits and reducing the strength of their economic property rights. Our difference-in-differences analysis that relies on self-employed truck drivers exempt from the ELD regulation as a control group reveals that the restrictions imposed by the ELD mandate, while effective at curbing major hours-of-service violations, prompted a change in a host of market behaviors among affected drivers, including a shift toward working as subcontractors, decreased labor supply, and increased exit rates from the industry. These findings contribute to the literature on PRTF. First, our findings underscore the significance of economic property rights in shaping self-employed workers’ operating decisions as legal property rights were largely left unchanged under the ELD regulation. Second, our findings with respect to subcontracting highlight that property rights restrictions placed on asset attributes may prompt self-employed workers to unbundle economic property rights and allocate them to exchange partners better equipped to maximize the economic value reaped from these rights. Such transfer of economic property rights common to intermediate forms of organizational design such as subcontracting embodies a multidimensional view of economic property rights. By demonstrating a range of consequences of restricting self-employed workers’ economic property rights, our study carries important implications for theory, managers, and policymakers.

Hodgson's (2015) critique of extra-legal ‘property rights’ – in this case, so-called ‘economic property rights’ – is right on target. This Comment contributes two further points to his critique. First, the notion of ‘economic property rights’ is based on what Gilbert Ryle (1949) referred to as a ‘category mistake’, conflating physical possession, which is a brute fact about the world, with the right or entitlement to possession, which is a social or institutional fact that cannot exist in the absence of some social contract, convention, covenant, or agreement. The very notion of a non-institutional ‘right’ is oxymoronic. Second, the fact that property is an institutional fact does not mean it must exist with the structure of a ‘state’ (as Bentham suggested). Rather, institutions like ‘property rights’ only require some community, however large or small, operating with what Searle (1995; 2005) calls collective intentionality and collective acceptance, according to shared ‘rules of recognition’ (Hart, 1997).

Homesteading and Property Rights; Or, "How the West Was Really Won"

The exercise of intellectual property rights is the realization bythe subject of intellectual property rights of moral and / or economic intellectual propertyrights, the content of which in relation to certain objects of intellectual propertyrights is determined by the Civil Code of Ukraine and other laws. The exercise of intellectualproperty rights is also the realization of economic intellectual propertyrights by other persons on the basis of the permission of the person who has the rightto allow the use of such object of intellectual property rights.The Law «On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine ConcerningStrengthening the Protection and Protection of Rights to Trademarks and IndustrialDesigns and Counteraction to Patent Trolling» (which entered into force on August16, 2020) has аmended the Law of Ukraine «On Protection of Rights to Marks forGoods and Services» (hereinafter — the Law). The amendments have removed theprovision that a well-known trademark receives the same legal protection as thetrademark for which the certificate is issued. Such changes have created a gap in thelegislation in part of defining what does the exercising of intellectual property rightsto well-known trademarks include.In this connection the following questions arise: (1) can the right to use a wellknownmark (as well as the mark for which the certificate is issued) be the subject ofa license agreement, a commercial concession agreement; (2) whether it is possible tocontribute economic intellectual property rights to a well-known trademark to the authorizedcapital of a legal entity; (3) whether it is possible to transfer such rights onthe basis of an agreement on the transfer of economic intellectual property rights or to provide as collateral. We believe that these issues should be addressed through theadoption of appropriate amendments to Art. 25 of the Law.In our opinion, the right to use a well-known trademark may be the subject of licenseagreements and commercial concession agreements. According to the currentlegislation of Ukraine, it is impossible to transfer economic intellectual propertyrights to a well-known mark to another person.It is expedient to make changes to Art. 25 of the Law, which would provide necessityof creation and functioning of the State register of Ukraine of well-knowntrade marks.The introduction of the proposed amendments to the legislation of Ukraine in thefield of economic intellectual property will help to improve the relevant legal relationsrelated to the exercise of property rights to well-known trademarks.Key words: trademark, well-known trademark, economic intellectual propertyrights, exercise of economic intellectual property rights, assignment (transfer) of economicrights of intellectual property

When property rights to valuable environmental and natural resources exist, there are many potential benefits. It is possible to restrict competitive entry to avoid the losses of open access, to encourage long-term investment in the resource (including conservation), to promote exchange, which can channel the resource to higher-valued uses, and to avoid wasteful and potentially divisive conflict that occurs when valuable resources are open to all. Property rights – common and private – are useful as alternatives to government regulation for many environmental and natural resource problems. They may be the low-cost option, relative to regulation or tax policies, and they may better align users' incentives with conservation or other mitigation goals.

Decision letter for "Power is not rights: economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics"

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Review for "Power is not rights: economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics"

Review for "Power is not rights: economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics"

Review for "Power is not rights: economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics"

Decision letter for "Power is not rights: economic versus legal property rights in neo-institutional economics"

Keywords: civil procedural protection, court, violation of private property rights toland, civil procedure The article is devoted to the study of the historical and legal aspects of the judicial procedure for theprotection of property rights to land in Ukrainian legislation. The author investigates themain stages of legal protection of property legal rights to land, in each historical periodits own characteristics of the aforementioned procedure for the protection of the correspondingproperty right are determined. Considerable attention is paid to the issues ofthe peculiarities of legal regulation and judicial procedure for the protection of propertylegal rights to land. In this scientific article, the author pays considerable attention to thedevelopment of judicial protection of legal property rights to land in the historical periodof the emergence of the independent state of Ukraine (1917−1918 yy). The author of thearticle writes that during this period the legal right to land received significant development:the land plot could be inherited, the right to rent the land could also be inherited.The procedure for the judicial protection of the legal right to land had no legal peculiarities.The author describes that during the Soviet period of Ukraine's existence, there was no legal property right to land. Only the state could have legal property rights to land.This means that the courts did not protect the private property legal right to land. Onlywhen Ukraine became an independent state did a private property legal right to landemerge. During this historical period, a significant number of legal instruments for theprotection of proprietary legal rights to land appeared in the legislation of independentUkraine. The property legal right to land was protected by the court. It is the judicialprotection of the property legal right to land that is democratic and meets the Europeandemocratic standards for the protection of property rights. The modern features of thegenesis of legal protection of property legal rights to land, which are protected by thecourt in the civil procedure of Ukraine, have been investigated. The author has createdand described new stages in the development of civil procedural protection of legal propertyrights to land.

Traditional understandings of ownership emphasize legal or economic property rights, but these conceptions come up short when examining faith communities in the United States context, where congregants often feel and act as “owners,” regardless of legal property rights. International migration to the United States further complicates this “felt ownership” within faith communities, as distinct racial, ethnic, or language groups compete or cooperate around their claims of ownership. In those Roman Catholic faith communities known as “shared parishes,” where multiple racial, ethnic, or language groups have separate worship and ministries but share facilities and leadership (Hoover 2014), the complex negotiations of sharing demonstrate the power dynamics between groups. A two-year case study of three such parishes in the Los Angeles area shows how the “felt ownership” of particular groups is privileged or limited by the various factors that shape the often asymmetrical power dynamics between the groups in U.S. society.

Property rights are the rules governing ownership in society. This Element offers an analytical framework to understand the origins and consequences of property rights. It conceptualizes of the political economy of property rights as a concern with the follow questions: What explains the origins of economic and legal property rights? What are the consequences of different property rights institutions for wealth creation, conservation, and political order? Why do property institutions change? Why do legal reforms relating to property rights such as land redistribution and legal titling improve livelihoods in some contexts but not others? In analyzing property rights, the authors emphasize the complementarity of insights from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives, including Austrian economics, public choice, and institutional economics, including the Bloomington School of institutional analysis and political economy.