Defined Property Rights Research Articles

POLAND AND UKRAINE: PERSPECTIVE OF INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS

The residential real estate market is one of the most important elements of any economy, based on housing objects that can be owned by different households on certain rights. Identifying all forms and rights of ownership in the housing market of Poland and Ukraine in accordance with the theses of institutional economics and comparing them was the main goal of the study. In our analysis, we want to confirm the hypothesis that the structure of property rights that exists in the residential real estate market and is described in various literature provides only a general description of the real situation. Therefore, the result of our research was the determination that the property rights operating on the housing market in Poland and Ukraine are much more diverse and complex than the five main forms described in the Ostrom model, which is the main basis for defining property rights. This made it possible to identify the existing forms of property rights, in particular for apartments that exist in the analyzed markets, and to establish the distribution of these rights among possible co-owners of these objects.

We must discuss research environments.

A major challenge facing the biomedical community is creating and sustaining high-quality research environments. A literature search identified five common themes underlying biomedical research environments comprising collaboration, data access, user-led innovation, data provenance and a deep commitment to public and scientific benefit. Club theory is used to develop a model describing social structures that underpin these themes. It is argued that collaboration underlies impactful science and that collaboration is hindered by high transaction costs. This, combined with poorly defined property rights surrounding publicly funded data, limits the ability of data markets to operate efficiently. Although the science community is best placed to provide solutions for these issues, incentivization by funding agencies to increase the benefits of collaboration and reduce uncoordinated activity will be an accelerator. Given the complexity of emerging datasets and the collaborations needed to exploit them, trust-by-design solutions are suggested. The underlying motivational 'glue' that holds this activity together is the aesthetic and ethical value base underlying good science. The model has implications for data-driven science more generally. As biomedical science in the Global South develops, there is an opportunity to address foundational structural issues prospectively rather than inherit unwanted constraints of current practice.

Unlocking Community Engagement in REDD+ Initiatives: Insights from a Case Study in the Amazon

The literature on national plans to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) shows that the stakeholders present in the territory, especially the communities, are the focus of these actions. The article questions the level of community engagement in a proposed REDD+ project in the Amazon by private companies, with the aim of analyzing the socio-economic and environmental aspects of community residents. The theoretical framework integrates stakeholder theory and community participation theory to support the analysis of the level of engagement. 338 small rural producers were chosen from among the residents of 23 communities in four municipalities in the state of Pará. The socio demographic characteristics were collected and structured in tables and graphs. The results reveal that the communities are socially disjointed, with problems defining property rights and access to government goods and services, which makes it difficult to achieve the benefits declared by the REDD+ project.

Environmental enforcement, property rights, and violence: evidence from the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract Conflicts over resources with poorly defined property rights have fuelled both deforestation and violence in the Brazilian Amazon. However, what happens when the State enhances its ability to monitor and enforce existing environmental laws? We study the case of the list of Municípios Prioritários, a policy that allocates additional resources to verify compliance with environmental laws in municipalities with high deforestation rates. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, our findings suggest that an improvement in the ability of the State to monitor and enforce environmental laws can reduce conflicts over the appropriation of value from resources with poorly defined property rights. Consistent with existing studies, we also find that the policy led to a reduction in deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the current approach to curb violence in a region where the activity of mafias has considerably grown since the turn of the twenty-first century.

Research on the Path of Adaptive Transformation of Vocational Education by SOEs under the Background of High-quality Development

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are important institutions for higher vocational education and play a significant role in promoting its high-quality development. However, SOEs face challenges such as balancing profitability with public welfare, ambiguous legal status of property rights, dual-system management drawbacks, and flawed operational mechanisms, which severely hinder the development of vocational education. In order to enhance the adaptability of SOEs in organizing higher vocational education, the following adaptation paths are proposed: firstly, coordinating interests to enhance market adaptability. Secondly, defining property rights to improve organizational legitimacy. Thirdly, adopting a diverse governance approach to unleash institutional vitality. Lastly, integrating industry and education to establish a long-term mechanism.

Dilemmas and theoretical exploration of China’s rural land property rights system reform

IntroductionThe property rights system, as the core component of the land system, is related to the long-term stability of the country, the well-being of farmers and the realization of the value of ecological products. The reform of China’s rural land property rights system has long been controversial. This paper compares the main historical lines of the reform of the rural land property rights system since the founding of New China, notes its dilemmas, and theoretically explores its development.MethodsThis article adopted literature analysis method(LAT), Sorted out the historical mainline of rural land property rights system reform since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, proposed its reform path.ResultsThe paper finds that the two main difficulties of the reform are the weakening of collective property rights, leading to the disintegration of rural public services, and the refinement of farmers’ property rights, leading to an increase in agricultural operation costs. These issues lead to extremely high transaction costs in the process of agricultural production and operation, making agricultural production a worthless business activity.DiscussionThis paper argues that a complete market structure is a “unified” market structure that includes the government and the market, in which the government plays the role of defining property rights and reducing transaction costs.

Equity's Role in Defining Property Rights

Equity's Role in Defining Property Rights

ТЕМПОРАЛЬНО-РЕТРОСПЕКТИВНИЙ АНАЛІЗ РОЗВИТКУ КОМУНАЛЬНОГО СЕКТОРА ТА ВИКОРИСТАННЯ ЕНЕРГЕТИКИ В НЬОМУ

This article examines the problems associated with the formation and development of the utility sector in individual countries, as well as the use of energy in this sector. According to the temporal retrospective analysis, the authors have provided recommendations for ensuring the sustainable development of the utility sector in a variety of countries by reducing energy intensity and energy consumption, introducing green technologies, and taking into account the structure of the utility sector’s energy consumption. The article explores the dynamics of electricity production for 2012-2021 in China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and some European countries, as well as differences in the degree of electricity independence among them. These differences are reflected in the division of countries into electricity-sufficient and electricity-deficient countries, with a predominance of the latter. A study of the dynamics of energy consumption from 2012 to 2021 has been presented by the authors in order to estimate the level of fuel consumption per unit of the gross domestic product produced by the country. According to the analysis performed, the dynamic of electricity price indexes for Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and France for 2019-2021 indicates that the high cost of energy threatens both the availability of basic energy requirements for the utility sector and the competitiveness of the entire industry. Excessive energy production costs automatically increase the prices of goods and services for all utility consumers. Analysis of the dynamics of household electricity use for 2012-2021 has revealed trends towards diversification and an increase in the share of alternative energy sources in the total volume of energy consumption. The dynamics of the share of renewable energy sources in the total electricity production analyzed by the authors indicate that the provision of energy services and energy consumption should be more efficient and energy-saving. A statement of the problem of utility sector use and its connection with important scientific or practical tasks has been proposed in the article. The utility sector depends significantly on the political context and the public trust factor of society. It represents an important part of the economy and is characterized by the presence of multilateral connections with other spheres of the social economy. In many countries, the utility sector is represented by public services. Considering this, the authors have noted that it must be regulated quite strictly. Clearly defined property rights are a significant factor influencing the process of reforming the utility sector. The article stresses that one of the characteristics of the utility sector is its attachment to individual use by end users and its reliance on electricity. In addition, the authors have emphasized that scarcity of resources, relevant geopolitics, and the economy of a particular country, as well as agreements on the supply of gas, oil, and coal influence the politics of the electricity market globally

Joint venture wildlife management of the Loliondo Game Controlled Area in Tanzania: a multi-criteria analysis

ABSTRACT This study focuses on wildlife management in the Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA) in the northern region of Tanzania. There are ongoing concerns surrounding wildlife management in the LGCA including an acute lack of community involvement in the wildlife management planning and decision-making process, poorly defined property rights, and the unequitable distribution of the economic benefits generated from the ecotourism and trophy hunting schemes being implemented. Employing multi-criteria analysis techniques, this study explores and evaluates the alternative wildlife management options for the wildlife tourism site at issue. The joint venture wildlife management option has been identified as the most preferable. Under a joint venture wildlife management scheme, trophy hunting and ecotourism is allowed in the area designated for conservation, while livestock grazing, agriculture, and village settlements are permitted in the remaining area of the LGCA. Under this scheme, a community-based organization (CBO) is granted user rights to wildlife and other natural resources in the conservation area. A joint venture programme is established between commercial investors and a CBO. The study argues that joint venture wildlife management should be introduced to ensure well-defined property rights, implement efficient wildlife conservation, and the equitable share of economic benefits across the various stakeholders.

Research into an ecological compensation standard in the Minjiang River Basin under the combined scenario of ‘clear property rights, water quality and quantity, and opportunity cost’

Abstract Quantification methods of river basin ecological compensation with a scientific basis are not only a research hotspot in the field of resources and environment, but also an urgent technical difficulty needing to be solved in environmental management. The theory of property rights and externalities provides us with a new method to understand ecological compensation, which helps us to put forward a clear policy path to effectively solve the problem of ‘the tragedgy of the Commons’ in the ecological environment protection of river basins. Based on the externality problems of social and economic activities for a river basin, a standard calculation method under the combined scenario of ‘clear property rights, water quality and quantity, and opportunity cost’ was built in this paper. Taking the Minjiang River basin as an example, the definition of ecological property rights of the basin was divided into three scenarios: ‘upstream has pollution rights’, ‘upstream has no pollution rights’ and ‘upstream and downstream co-construction and sharing’. Ecological compensation standards of the Minjiang River basin under different property rights from 2015 to 2019 were calculated. The results showed that: (i) in the case where the upstream has pollution rights, the ecological compensation amount of Sanming City ranged from 2.41–9.36 × 108 Yuan, the final compensation value of Nanping City was 2.29–18.99 × 108 Yuan, and the ecological compensation cost of Fuzhou City was 6.78–28.35 × 108 Yuan; (ii) if the upstream area has no pollution rights, the compensation values of Sanming City and Nanping City to the downstream area were each 0; and (iii) under the case of upstream and downstream co-construction and sharing, the ecological compensation value of Sanming City was 6.25–21.34 × 108 Yuan, the final compensation value of Nanping City was 5.80–20.38 × 108 Yuan, and Fuzhou City needed to pay 12.05–36.38 × 108 Yuan for eco-compensation. The calculated results of ecological compensation standards in the Minjiang River basin indicated the amount of ecological compensation paid by the downstream to the upstream showing an upward trend on the whole. This method was relatively easy to define property rights and obtain data, taking into account the benefits of upstream and downstream, and the calculation process was relatively simple, which developed and supplemented the traditional ecological compensation method used for river basins.

The puzzle of garbage disposal in India

Safe garbage disposal is a challenge for every developing country. In India it’s become further difficult due to massive urbanization, poverty and population density. Lack of fund with municipalities and ill defined property rights offer an easy solution to poor households to throw the un-segregated waste in nearby drains/streets/open areas. This unsafe disposal of garbage is creating a challenge to environment by emitting high emission, marine life by choking rivers and sea, creating health externalities and even impacting tourism. Hence garbage disposal in sustainable way is taken care while drafting sustainable development goals. SDG 11.6 is specifically focused on working towards Sustainable cities and communities. To achieve this SDG, it is necessary to reducing the adverse per capita environment impact of cities. This can’t be achieving without the help of safe disposal of garbage. The current paper is focused on the behaviour of garbage disposal by Indian households and how it can be harmful for their own health. To achieve this aim, the study will be using NSS 76th round survey on “Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition.

Characterisation and typology of urban wetlands in Ghana: Implications for the governance of urban commons in secondary cities in Africa

Urban wetlands continue to provide essential ecosystem services to the urban populace and are largely seen as urban commons that need to be managed properly for continuous wise use of wetlands. Yet fewer studies have highlighted the characteristics as basis for the development of a typology to make it easy for differentiated and appropriate spatial, management and policy planning interventions. The study draws on urban commons and resource access theories to highlight the different land management practices, land use activities, land ownership within and around wetlands in a developing country secondary city, Kumasi. Levels of encroachment and institutional support are used to categorise wetlands in Kumasi. The findings indicate four different typologies, with many wetlands characterised by high levels of encroachment and low institutional support for the enforcement of regulations. The study attributes this to the commoditisation of wetlands due to land scarcity and failure of planning agencies to conserve urban wetlands as urban commons because of pressure from customary landowners. Underlying these shortfalls in wetland management are legislative, institutional, and spatio-political conflicts, inability of state agencies to create, protect and sustainably use wetlands, poorly defined property rights and power imbalances in the land market. Also, the major dynamics of urban wetlands were encroachment by residential, civic, and recreational uses, overlapping institutional roles and functional inefficiencies, and poor functional collaborations and synergies between the stool and the state. The results suggest that governance of urban commons will require comprehensive planning modules that engage various stakeholders at the different levels of urban planning and enforce planning legislations in consultation with urban land custodians.

The idea of a transparent world full of equality and common property—a way to disaster

Abstract The idea of an overly idealized “sharing economy”, in which private property becomes a common good, is gaining power. The proponents seem to forget, that private property and clearly defined property rights are essential factors for the prospering development of society. This article illustrates how the world has got so far and why the idea of a transparent world full of equality and common property is a misleading effort.

Space Debris Mitigation and Remediation: Historical Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Economically Preserving and Utilizing Common Areas

Space debris is an increasing problem. Unlike terrestrial debris, there are no natural systems, other than exponentially diminishing atmospheric drag, to self-correct. This creates a self-perpetuating problem that worsens over time as debris collisions create more debris. This danger is exacerbated by the exponential rise in space assets from small satellites and mega constellations, projected to increase >30-fold this decade. Detection and mitigation strategies to monitor and reduce the level of space debris carried out by NASA, UNCOPUOUS, and others are admirable. They are likely a key component of any long-term strategy for space debris management. However, due to the physical nature of space debris propagation, they cannot address current problems alone. Space debris removal and remediation must be implemented in parallel to these systems. Currently, space debris removal is economically, legally, and technically infeasible. Fundamentally, this is a textbook example of a tragedy of the commons created by the self-serving actions of individuals in a shared space creating detrimental conditions for others sharing the same common resources. The purpose of this article is to find viable economic strategies that create a greater marginal benefit than marginal cost for space debris remediation. Then, exploring what legal changes, modifications, or provisions would be needed nationally and internationally to implement these economic strategies. Only after the necessary economic and legal steps have been taken can space actors move to technically address this problem—something beyond the scope of this article. To find possible paths forward, this article uses case studies to analyze the economic and legal strategies employed to address different terrestrial tragedies of the commons scenarios, particularly those in maritime settings, comparing the applications of these outcomes with current conditions in space. Case studies focus on examples in which government and private actors have worked to successfully address large public negative externalities profitably without major disruption to business practices. Finally, this article reviews some of the unique challenges of space law, weakly defined property rights, and intellectual property concerns, and their parallels and differences to the foundational law of the sea precedent. Nations and private actors are moving forward despite the mentioned concerns, pushing and testing the boundaries of what is acceptable whether the laws support them or not. A viable economic solution must be found to support the legal, institutional, and economic aspects of space debris detection, mitigation, and removal.

Grassroots farmers’ perceptions on climate change and adaptation in arid region of Rajasthan

Understanding farmers’ perspectives to climate change and adaptation is essential in designing effective and informed strategies to combat the associated vulnerability. The study assessed farmers’ perceptions to changing climatic conditions, their impacts, adaptation measures and constraints to adaptation in Bikaner district of Rajasthan. Our results showed that farmers perceived change in the distribution of rainfall, rise in temperature, increase in frequency of heat waves and droughts in the region. Further, degradation of common property resources, uncertainty in crop yields, increased soil salinity, farm unemployment and reduction in consumption were some of the potential non-climatic impacts as perceived by the farmers. As climate adaptation measures, farmers resorted to disease/heat tolerant varieties, plant protection chemicals and water conservation techniques. Moreover, lack of access to institutional credit, poorly defined property rights, inadequate infrastructure and information gaps were some of the major barriers to climate adaptation in the region. The study provides a useful guide for identifying region-specific issues and implementable adaptation strategies. Policy actions are needed in creating awareness, improving climate information services and development of infrastructure for climate resilient farming.

Analyzing Economic Sustainability of Market Gardening and Rice Farms in Southwest Benin under FAFA Project

The issue of agricultural sustainability remaining a topical concern. While agriculture being an important sector for the development of world economies. It has noted that implementing farming sustainably for a better contribution in the next generation economic development needed. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the economic sustainability of the rice farms and market gardening benefiting from the FAFA MC project in the Southwest juxtaposed departments in Benin. Specifically, it is first of all a question of assessing, with regard to the two types of farms, which type of farming is the most sustainable. Next, to see whether rice farms are more sustainable than market gardening farms; and finally, to highlight the relationship between economic sustainability and environmental and social sustainability. The data used where obtained from FAFA MC database (2012). Finally, a data of 48 farms were used in the analysis. The analysis techniques have consisted of three steps these are: descriptive analysis, the principal component analysis applied and an ascending hierarchical classification applied. The analysis of data supported by SPSS 2.0, Excel 2013 and SPAD 5.5 software package. To understand the economic sustainability of the farms, the sustainability indicators methodology of IDEA was employed. Overall, it emerges from the analysis of results that the farms considered have limited economic sustainability (a score of 38.25 / 100); group farms prove to be more economically sustainable than individual farms and vegetable farms are more economically sustainable compared to rice farms. So, it seems important to encourage groupings of individual farmers, to clearly define property rights on agricultural land, to sensitize producers to the application of the principles of sustainable development.

Institutional Design and Performance of Markets for Watershed Ecosystem Services: A Systematic Literature Review

Markets for watershed ecosystem services have been developed as a tool in integrated water resources management. The development of vast markets for watershed ecosystem services has raised attention for the performance of these markets, their institutional design, and how their institutional design influences market performance. The main research questions guiding this systematic literature review are: Which types of markets can be distinguished; how is market performance operationalized; which institutional design characteristics are distinguished in the literature; and which of these characteristics are crucial to understanding performance? A systematic review of 224 journal articles from Web of Science leads to several main findings regarding these questions. Market performance is usually equated with effectiveness in the reviewed articles. Discussions in these articles include whether the market contributes to the preservation of ecosystem services, what the distributional impacts are, and what the participation rate is. The reviewed articles have illustrated specific institutional design features as well. The key features include the security of property rights, role of governments, bundling of ecosystem services (ES), and role of trust. In those articles addressing the relationship between institutional design and performance, the relevance of monitoring and enforcement, clearly defined property rights, and geographical market scope have been pointed out.

Finance Beyond the Bounds of the Fiscal-Military State: Debt, Speculation and the Renovation of Nineteenth-Century French Financial Capitalism

Abstract Focusing on the Paris Stock Exchange in the early nineteenth century, this article examines the renovation of public debt and speculation following financial, political and military collapse. Though financial capitalism at the Exchange in the eighteenth century had been located mostly within the architecture of the fiscal-military state, the fallout of the Revolution and the defeat of the Napoleonic regime eliminated this option. Rather than military competition, financial capitalism at the Exchange in the nineteenth century was rebuilt by focusing inwards, by being linked to political values such as defined property rights, a particular vision of liberty and theories of representative government. Financial capitalism was still connected to empire, however; the reconstruction of financial capitalism at home helped to establish the conditions for exporting capital abroad, in the pursuit of informal empire. The article thus shows how financial capitalism came to be aligned with the political good in the post-revolutionary world.

Regulating Natural Monopolies in Canada: An Introduction to 'Regulatory Failure and Renewal: The Evolution of the Natural Monopoly Contract', by John R. Baldwin

In the first decades of the twenty-first century – more than 150 years after the earliest franchise contracts were negotiated between Canadian governments and privately owned utility companies, and 30 years after the Economic Council of Canada published John R. Baldwin’s Regulatory Failure and Renewal: The Evolution of the Natural Monopoly Contract in 1989 – the federal government still holds a controlling interest in more than 40 crown corporations. The provinces and territories in Canada own at least 150 more firms. These public enterprises typically operate in industries prone to the formation of what economists call “natural monopolies”, including pipelines, power generation, municipal water systems, transportation, broadcasting and telecommunications. A wide range of policy instruments can be used to regulate natural monopolies, and these instruments lead to different redistributive patterns, and different levels and forms of inefficiency. In general, the social, political and economic environments in Canada have been institutionally secure, mature and sophisticated. However, the division of power that defines the federal system of governance in Canada has opened the door for idiosyncratic provincial (and therefore municipal) policy making, which has lead to the adoption of a wide range of regionally distinct regulatory responses to the formation of natural monopolies. In this introduction to Baldwin's classic work, the history of Canada's efforts to regulate natural monopolies is surveyed, and the lessons learned from a theoretical framework founded on a transactions cost approach are articulated. Questions about privatization and public ownership still swirl around Canada’s pipelines, telecommunication networks and transport systems. In pursuit of answers to these questions, this introduction explains how Baldwin’s work helps us to make sense of policy heterogeneity by describing how transactions costs have shifted across time and space, how courts have constrained government opportunism and defined property rights, how local industrial, economic and technological environments have interacted with political pressures, and how private and public stakeholders have strategically engaged with the policy making process in pursuit of influence and control.

AN INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH TO THE ANALYSIS OF KLEPTOCRATIC ECONOMY IN THE CONTEXT OF EUROPEANIZATION

Relevance. Kleptocratic economy, as an institutional system, is oriented towards a key function that involves gaining wealth by the ruling elite through the introduction of non-market transaction costs for companies and households, which is based on administrative, bureaucratic, and political violence. For this purpose, the kleptocratic states create such systems of state institutional management that give the authorities the possibility of rent-oriented behaviour, which impedes the functioning of the real sector of the economy and encourages the shadow one. Under such circumstances, transaction costs are redirected to administrative intervention into the market mechanism, rather than aimed at increasing its efficiency; property rights are not clearly specified; the level of uncertainty about rules and norms of economic behaviour increases, and the motivational system of business activity is distorted. As a result, on the one hand, inefficient allocation of resources and slow economic growth (decline) are observed, and on the other hand, there is the redistribution of income in favour of the ruling elite and its excessive enrichment, that is detrimental to the welfare of the majority of the population. The aim of the article is to analyse the political-economic formation of a kleptocratic basis, which in the future transforms the state and its economy into kleptocratic formations; defining ways of counteraction and institutional capacity for transformations in the direction of Ukraine’s aspirations for European integration. Methodological basis. The methodological basis of the research is the work of domestic and foreign scientists in the field of institutionalism and kleptocratic economy. The models of the development of a kleptocratic state and the influence of kleptocratic factors on the socio-economic processes in the country have been studied with the application of the method of analysis, systematization, and generalization. Results. It is determined that in order to liquidate the grounds of kleptocratic economy, it is of primary necessity to eliminate institutional obstacles that interfere with the unification of the legal and shadow sectors of the economy and ensure their institutional formalization. This requires the introduction of effective ways of restraining the ruling elite in order to restrict corruption abuses of the government and its close reigning coalition with special privileges and bureaucracies and form an institutional structure, in which firms and households have clearly defined property rights and also have the possibility to protect contractual rights provided by formal institutes. Particular attention should be paid to the ways of civil society’s monitoring the state information policy and methods of adopting laws, which is, the institutional foundation that guarantees the openness of information as to the actions of government institutions. According to the results of the study, definite measures are proposed, the implementation of which will ensure the opportunities for Europeanization, particularly in Ukraine. The emphasis is placed on the fact that the important factors of counteracting the kleptocratic economy are the wage reform and the “transparent” selection of employees in the public administration sector on the basis of their professional qualities only.