Private property rights and presumptive policy entitlements: reconsidering the premises of rural policy

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Private property in land gives agricultural producers a presumptive claim to certain policies that may be more costly than necessary, and may not achieve their intended results. In this paper, an alternative specification of property rights in land is explored, and it is shown how this different structure opens up new options for governments to influence the visual and economic attributes of rural areas. Under existing property regimes, farmers must be induced with financial concessions to use land in socially desired ways. Under an alternative property rights specification, farmers would have to pay for the right to modify certain land-use practices. Copyright 1990 by Oxford University Press.