Enforcement Of Property Rights Research Articles

An An Ideological Land Reform Policy Shift of State Custodianship and ‘Transforming the Rural Land Economy’

In customary landholding practices land is regarded as more than an asset of economic value to be owned. African people’s rights in land and other natural resources exceed the idea of mere possession. To African rural land holders, land is not only a material resource for agricultural production, nor is the commercialisation and commoditisation of land the primary driving force for most customary landholding communities’ even though the land is productively used. This broader conceptualisation of the social function of land beyond the economic, aligns with modern property law on the proprietary function of property. However, excessive state limitations imposed on customary land tenure can hinder economically valuable property rights, but also other rights to social, cultural, and ontological resources embodied in the spirituality of African communities.
 Security of tenure for land reform beneficiaries cannot be secondary to commercialisation and commoditisation of the rural land economy in the national interest. Commercialisation and commoditisation are the by-products of recognised, protected, and enforceable property rights and not the “pre-requisites” or “qualifiers” for secure land tenure. Thus, the state custodial approach reflected in land reform law and policy that places an overemphasis on private property capitalism, above the constitutional mandate of security of land tenure is critically discussed. It is argued that if not carefully formulated transformative land reform law and policy can be conduits for a state custodianship approach that inadvertently reproduces apartheid-like ideology and preoccupations.
 Key words: Secure tenure, state custodianship, National Development Plan 2030, transformative land reform law and policy.

The long-term welfare effects of colonial institutions: Evidence from Central India

In Central India, the Narmada River separates two regions that have been ruled by different types of government only during the colonial period, and for reasons independent of their initial economic development. I implement a spatial RDD on village population in the Nineteenth Century as well as in 1901, and I run the same model on proxies of welfare in 2015. My results highlight that divergence has realised where the river overlapped with the colonial border, but not in a neighbouring area where the same Narmada River separates two shores with the same type of former colonial institution. I discuss the following transmission mechanism. The treated group was directly administered by the British with more modern state tools - such as the enforcement of property rights and a transparent taxation system - that made it easier to develop private investment. The most prominent example is the mixed-capital enterprise in charge of the construction of the first trans-continental railway. Infrastructure endowment seems to be crucial for the long-term transmission of the colonial institutional characteristics to the outcomes measured in 2015, which show better average welfare outcomes, as well as higher wealth inequality in the treated group. My work provides an explanation of how the improvement in the quality of the institutions of an embryonic state may sustain the growth of the local markets it deems relevant.

Externalities and the State

Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises argued that cases of negative externalities all turn out to be instances of failure of government to enforce individual property rights adequately. This article goes beyond Rothbard and Mises in claiming that failure to enforce property rights is far from the only way in which government gives rise to externalities. Indeed, rather than externalities requiring government intervention to remedy the problems they cause, this article argues that most actions of the government actually cause externalities. Looking at externalities in this way leads to the logical conclusion that government interventions are the main obstacle to markets’ attaining maximum social utility. The line of reasoning leading to this conclusion is as follows: (1) government failures lead to externalities; (2) externalities lead to market failures; ergo (3) government failures lead to market failures. Specific government actions whose externality-generating effects are analyzed include taxes, subsidies, price controls, government spending, monetary policy, prohibitions, and income redistribution.

Capitalism and Distributive Justice: Musings of a Mormon Economist

Capitalism and Distributive Justice: Musings of a Mormon Economist

Insecure Property Rights and Conflicts: How to Solve Them?

According to the leading literature, the valid enforcement of property rights is a key ingredient for economic development. However, their enforcement can be problematic in international relations, which can be a valid approximation of an anarchic or state of nature environment. In such a context, we do not have a third party that may sanction any illegal behaviour, since the existing international organizations may lack the necessary power to force countries to behave in a specific way. A large variety of papers have attempted to provide a self-enforcing solution to a conflict among players by defining a bargaining range, which may prevent the emergence of a war. Hence, players renounce the fight and leave peacefully, enforcing de facto property rights. In contrast, we propose a model in which contestants decide to solve their dispute by forming a union. The latter can be interpreted in a broad sense, also encompassing the possibility that they form a new political entity. We highlight the welfare implications of that solution and define the non-empty set of parameters, which support such a decision in the long run. Intuitively, from a dual perspective, the model also discloses the circumstances that may lead players to deviate from the union path and split. Therefore, our paper contributes to the literature about the formation and breakdown of countries, although our primary concern is to present a model with an innovative solution to conflicts. Moreover, our work stresses the importance of the enforcement of property rights to guarantee the peaceful development of relations among countries.

Working Capital Management and Stock Performance: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Previous research found a negative relationship between net working capital (NWC) and firm risk without accounting for investor protection. Bangladesh is different. We find a positive relationship between NWC and firm risk in an environment with weak governance and lax protection of property rights. Higher NWC must maintain to balance firm risk. Financial reporting quality (FRQ), liquidity risk, revenue uncertainty and weak capital market access have impact on firm risk. Poor FRQ adversely affects cost of capital and also limited financing choice. Changes in NWC have a significant impact on stock performance in firms with slower sales growth and less access to external capital. Our finding’s reliability is supported by both the fixed-effects panel and GMM regressions. The results have implications for Bangladeshi investors and firm managers as well as for other emerging markets with limited capital market access, high cost of bank debt and weak enforcement of property rights.

Do voluntary commitment mechanisms improve welfare? The effect of mandatory and voluntary oaths in a social dilemma

AbstractWe investigate whether oaths can enforce property rights in a social dilemma and increase welfare. We examine the impact of mandatory and voluntary oaths in a laboratory experiment where individuals can produce wealth, protect accumulated wealth, and take wealth from others. Individuals are more productive when oaths are mandatory compared to a no‐oath environment. Subjects’ voluntary signing oaths behave similarly to those who sign a mandatory oath. When the oath is voluntary, nonoath‐taking individuals engage in nonproductive behavior, negating the positive impact from the voluntary oath. Our results show that altering commitment mechanisms can result in varying welfare levels.

In search of a fertile entrepreneurial landscape: how to keep it on the level

PurposeRecent analysis suggests entrepreneurship is in decline. If so, some argue that the appropriate policy response is to devote even further government intervention to nurture both fledgling ventures as well as entirely new undertakings, lamenting the fact that much current economic policy caters to already-successful firms – thereby creating a decision-making environment that stacks the deck against would-be entrepreneurs. While it is indeed true that entrepreneurial ventures lead to value creation over time, this paper argues that the answer to any slowdown in entrepreneurship is not to add even more policy Band-Aids to an already broken system of carve-outs, exemptions, subsidies and tax breaks. Instead the solution to bad policy is to unwind bad policy that favors Goliaths over Davids, thereby creating a level playing field for all. Any attempt to use government initiatives to spur entrepreneurship will, over the longer term, only serve to distort the economic outcomes society would have observed as the product of a system of rule-of-law, clearly defined and enforced property rights and freely functioning markets that permit entrepreneurs, investors, consumers and savers to make the most sensible choices available to them.Design/methodology/approachThis essay cites fundamental pieces of existing entrepreneurial research to make its argument.FindingsRather than adding even more policy initiatives to address any slowdown in entrepreneurship, policymakers should aspire to create the most fertile environment possible to foster entrepreneurial activity. Adding more policies on top of existing ones presumes to know which policies are better than others. Even when perceived as neutral, policy incentives cannot improve upon the outcomes of the unseen price system.Originality/valueThis paper reminds readers that entrepreneurship is vital to economic flourishing, while reminding readers that even policy actions presumed to be beneficial likely bear unintended consequences because they bring their own disruptions to the decision-making environment.

Sustainable harvest training in a common pool resource setting in the Peruvian Amazon: Limitations and opportunities

Many organizations provide sustainable resource management workshops in the Peruvian Amazon. Some teach climbing techniques to communities who harvest wild Mauritia flexuosa palm fruit because most harvest is done by cutting down adult female palms. The objectives of this study were to describe the approaches and identify the factors and conditions linked to adopting sustainable harvesting practices and explain what conditions may be necessary for achieving conservation outcomes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 474 heads of households in 24 communities, as well as focus groups with community leadership in each community. Project managers from 15 organizations that provide workshops and two instructors that teach climbing workshops were also interviewed. Analysis relied on the design principles of common pool resources and research on enabling conditions, which predict that certain contextual factors may be required for the establishment of effective resource management. We find no evidence that training workshop participation led to long-term behavior change absent institutional changes such as the establishment of informal but enforced individual spatial property rights. However, there is strong community adoption of climbing practices in areas where these enforced property rights are coupled with provision of climbing equipment and training. Lessons learned from this project explore characteristics of successful workshops, providing insights for effective conservation. We suggest adopting a diagnostics step to evaluate existing community conditions, a formal plan for collaboration among organizations, emphasis on broader institutional reforms to alleviate conservation disincentives related to non-exclusivity, and impact evaluation to assess strategies.

Absurda lex, sed lex? Public value and the decay of the Rule of Law: A conceptual perspective

The Rule of Law serves, under a broadly accepted notion of justice, the enforcement of property rights and a relative predictability of citizen affairs, i.e. it fosters Public Value. However, it is subject to risks that materialise in weakened institutions, uncertainty and transaction costs. The connection between Public Value and the Rule of Law becomes salient when understanding how the latter degenerates at the expense of the former. This article provides two theoretical frameworks that explain the connection between the two concepts, as well as three manifestations of the Rule of Law’s decay. These comprise the excess of legal-formalism, the excess of discretion in enforcement and the instrumentalisation of the law, i.e. when it embodies injustice. Although they vary depending on the legal system, these aspects build a conceptual body that illustrates how contingent legal outcomes affect society, developing Daly’s (2019) concept of democratic decay in the economics and business literature.

Blockchain as a tool to facilitate property rights protection in the Global South: lessons from India’s Andhra Pradesh state

The lack of a comprehensive property rights system is an issue of pressing concern in most economies in the Global South. Property rights-related issues have important social, economic and environmental consequences. This paper argues that one of the most impactful uses of blockchain in the Global South could be in the creation, implementation and enforcement of property rights. The article provides an in‐depth analysis of a blockchain-based land registry project in the Andhra Pradesh state of India. It also delves into facilitators for and barriers to a large-scale adoption and deployment of blockchain for this purpose. The paper shows that with blockchain, the benefits of digitisation of land records can be amplified and some of the major drawbacks of digitisation can be avoided.

Unenforceable Target Movable Property Under Enforcement

Abstract Nowadays, enforcement is one of the crucial elements of justice. Right to the property is guaranteed by the constitution and therefore exercising property rights is one of the key goals of justice, the latter is implemented through effective and efficient enforcement. The present study is mainly dedicated to the specifics of enforcing property rights. Methods used in the research involve qualitative study, the latter encompasses observation of rules and regulations in national and international practices based on primary and secondary legal and historical sources, including official legal documents, court decisions as first-hand material, as well as derived sources such as various articles, monographs, comments on laws and regulations, etc. The comparative method used in the study is aimed at demonstrating differences and similarities of enforcement rules and procedures in different legal systems, revealing their advantages and disadvantages, while practical examples focus on the identification of gaps to lay the path for better legal solutions. The complex scrutiny of the subject to the present research allows to review it from different angles and suggest legal recommendations to raise the efficiency of the enforcement system and subsequently provide a firm basis for justice.

Volatility-reducing biodiversity conservation under strategic interactions

How can decentralized individual decisions inefficiently reduce the ability of biodiversity to mitigate ecological and environmental variability and then its “natural insurance” role? In this article we present a simple theoretical set-up to address this question and to evaluate some policy options.We study a model of strategic competition among farmers for the conversion of a natural forest to agricultural land. Unconverted forest land allows to conserve biodiversity, which contributes to reducing the volatility of agricultural production. Agents' utility is given in terms of a Kreps Porteus stochastic differential utility capable of disentangling risk aversion and aversion to fluctuations.We characterize the land used by each farmer and her welfare at the Nash equilibrium, we evaluate the over-exploitation of the land and the agents' welfare loss compared to the socially optimal solution and we study the drivers of the inefficiencies of the decentralized equilibrium.After characterizing the value of biodiversity in the model, we use it to obtain a decomposition which helps to study the policy implications of the model by identifying in which cases the allocation of property rights is preferable to the introduction of a tax on land conversion. Our results suggest that enforcing property rights is more relevant in case of stagnant economies while taxing land conversion may be more suited for rapidly developing economies.

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of scientific contributions in agribusiness

The agribusiness is a major generator of employment and income worldwide and contributes to food security and nutrition. Therefore, the objective was to perform a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the scientific contributions in agribusiness. A bibliographic consultation was made in Scopus and "Agribusiness" was used as keyword. A textual analysis was performed on 407 scientific papers from 2020, through Nvivo 12 software using the following analysis codes: Mega trade agreements and institutional harmonization, farm-level technology pricing and contracts, market power related to the mega consolidation of companies, new agricultural technologies, emergence of agrocorporations, institutional land access rules, property rights regimes and their consequences, private enforcement of property rights, farmer class action studies and territorial reconversion. Two more codes emerged in the analysis process: Environmental impact and human health impact. Current scientific contributions in agribusiness are focused on new agricultural technologies (24%), environmental impact (17%) and local actions of farmers (14%). A qualitative improvement of the contributions is observed as more elements that support the complex processes agribusiness generates are increasingly incorporated. From focusing on economic and financial aspects, sustainability-oriented and social commitment domains are now considered. A modern and innovative concept defines agribusiness as economic activities with different forms or models of production, derived from or linked to agricultural products. It considers production-consumption processes and farmers are inserted in a differentiated way according to their economic rationality. These activities are not only focused on the generation of monetary value, but also on the social processes it produces, where multiple actors are involved.

Do growth-promoting factors induce income inequality in a transitioning large developing economy? An empirical evidence from Indian states

We examine the role of the enforcement of property rights, human capital formation, and the efficiency of various components of state governments' developmental expenditure on states’ economic growth and interstate income inequality. Together with private sector investment in rural areas, property rights enforcement, human capital, government expenditures on economic services, and health and education are found to have positive effects on states’ growth. We also observe that the interstate difference in the provisioning of government economic services is the leading factor in contributing to interstate income divergence in India. These findings can serve as vital technical inputs for formulating economic policies to achieve faster economic growth and mitigate regional income inequality in transitioning developing economies like India and hold greater relevance for other developing economies on their way to experiencing similar social and economic transitions.

Culture and the Historical Persistence of Minority Shareholder Expropriation

Can historical culture explain persistent regional differences in economic expropriation? We document that the levels of tunneling and opacity of Chinese public firms are negatively associated with regional Confucian culture, captured by data from the Qing Dynasty of Imperial China (1644--1912 AD). The results are robust to controlling for local economic development, enforcement of property rights, and geography and to using two instruments constructed from data in the Ming Dynasty (1368--1644 AD). The findings suggest that culture represents a fundamental force that constrains economic expropriation, which has important implications for economic development (Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson, 2001; Rajan and Zingales, 2003).

Socio-Economic Effects and Prospects of Oromo-Somali Conflicts: The Case of Miesso District of Oromia, and Mullu District of Somali Regional States, Eastern Ethiopia

This study aimed to investigate the socio-economic effects and prospects of capacities of sustainable peace surrounding the conflicts between Oromo-Somali PAP groups in the study area. Conflicts between <i>Oromo </i>and <i>Somali </i>PAP groups have existed in different forms for centuries. A number of empirical studies were conducted on the effects of Oromo-Somali conflicts between the PAP groups in a generic manner. Nonetheless, earlier studies have methodological dearth in pinpointing conflict of interests between range resources users, the main effects of conflicts and prospects of peace in the study area. So, it needs to bridge existing information and knowledge gaps. Hence, 160 PAP households were randomly selected to facilitate primary data collection by using household survey. Qualitative data were also collected by using key informant interviewees (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs). Descriptive research design; descriptive and inferential statistics were employed. The proportion of sample households composed of 49% of Oromo and 51% Somali groups. The result of findings showed death and injury, internal displacement, destruction of infrastructure and public services, weakening of customary institutions; loss of household assets and livelihoods, weakening government capacity, land degradation and fertility deterioration due to lack of natural resources management were also found the socio-economic impacts of violent conflicts. Traditional customary and formal security institutions were found the important factors of capacities of peace. Strengthening the formal and customary institutions in defining and enforcing property rights, limiting opportunistic behavior would help significantly to maintain rule of law and ensure sustainable peace. Sustainable development interventions and looking for alternative solution to the degrading and deteriorating resource environment are critical to reduce vulnerability in the study area.

A Pre-requisite for Sustained Economic Growth in India: Securing Property Rights through Blockchain-based Ledger Distribution Technology

India has seen strong economic development in recent years, with the GDP rising 7.6 percent in recent fiscal years. While economic activity is robust, the country is still a long way from recovery. The administration must seize the economic momentum prevailing now and use it to advance its reform programmes. The property market is one of the sectors that need regulatory attention. Despite efforts to modernise the land title system, under the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), India's present land title system continues to have flaws. If India wants to become an economic superpower, it would require a standardised property rights framework. To strengthen existing systems, a decentralised, open, and transparent form of record keeping must be implemented, complemented with a legal framework, capable of protecting and enforcing property rights. Blockchain technology may hold the key to resolving the present record-keeping problem. If the government can assist in overcoming technical, institutional, and regulatory impediments, the blockchain land registry, when combined with rigorous titling legislation, may still prove to be the most secure, transparent and efficient means to establish a land records system in India.

Property, redistribution, and the status quo: a laboratory study

We report experimental evidence showing a positive effect of redistribution on economic efficiency via the self-enforcement of property rights, and identify which status groups benefit more and which less. We model an economy in which wealth is produced if players voluntarily comply with the—efficient but inequitable—prevailing social order. We vary exogenously whether redistribution is feasible, and how it is organized. We find that redistribution benefits all status groups as property disputes recede. It is most effective when transfers are not discretionary but instead imposed by some exogenous administration. In the absence of coercive means to enforce property rights, it is the higher status groups, not the lower status groups, who benefit from redistribution being compulsory rather than voluntary.

Personal Data as Property

Today, a growing chorus of experts, journalists, and policymakers calls for the creation of property rights in personal data. In theory, property rights emerge when the gains from propertization outweigh the costs of securing those rights. This formula, originally identified by Harold Demsetz, explains the development of property rights in land, intellectual property, and many other assets. Applying Demsetz’s theory, this Article asks whether the time has come to extend property rights in personal data. The answer is yes. The first half of Demsetz’s formula estimates the gains from extending property rights. Under the contract-law-based status quo, the market for personal data suffers from high information and enforcement costs along with inadequate incentives to supply and safeguard data. Propertization promises to mitigate — though not completely resolve — those challenges. The second half of Demsetz’s formula trains on the cost of securing property rights. For property rights to be secure in practice — not just desirable in theory — institutional investments are necessary. The conventional wisdom holds that only state-run institutions, such as courts and regulators, can protect property. But rather than rely on regulators and courts, policymakers should deputize private adjuncts to define and enforce property rights. This approach enlists the most efficient managers of information — data processing firms — in securing property. Compared with a propertization regime that relies on state-run institutions, mobilizing private adjuncts promises to substantially lower the cost of securing property rights. Because the gains from propertization are larger, and the costs smaller, than previously thought, both prongs of Demsetz’s formula favor the creation of property rights in personal data.