Enforcement Of Property Rights Research Articles

Turning cheap talk into economic growth: On the relationship between property rights and judicial independence

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might, for example, not per se lead to increases in observed growth rates. This paper contributes to the debate by emphasizing that the mere promise of secure property rights is unlikely to have any effects unless accompanied by some commitment to enforce these rights that is perceived as credible by private actors. An independent judiciary is interpreted as a tool that permits governments to make credible commitments to abide by the law. We provide empirical evidence for a positive growth effect of constitutional property rights, once the judicial system is independent enough to guarantee their enforcement.

Emerging Property Regimes in India: What It Holds for the Future of Socio-Economic Rights?

The paper develops a framework for understanding property regimes with reference to land. The paper identifies the classification for property regimes, primarily inspired by economic theory since Coase (1960), as ‘private vs. collective’, to be strait jacketed for comprehending the dynamic nature of the relationship between property rights and socio-economic rights. The framework that the paper develops is that of a two pillar model: 1) how planning, market activities, and societal undertakings change property values. All three dimensions of change – economic, social and ecological – are considered in this pillar. 2) Institutional space for enforcing property rights. The legal and knowledge spaces are considered prominent here along with value orientations in society.The paper is structured into four sections. After stating the problem, the paper undertakes a conceptual tour of property. Then, the relationship between property rights and socio-economic rights is delineated. The second section of the paper presents 15 archetypical land conflicts occurring in the post-reform period. These conflicts show how the property context in India is changing rapidly and new land regimes are emerging indicating a transformation. The third section of the paper presents how, across the world, the question of property has been addressed in the context of transformation. The fourth section builds on this foregone discussion and develops a framework to understand property regimes.

Do Insecure Property Rights Ground Rights of Jurisdiction? Miller on Territorial Justice

A prominent approach in the debate on territorial rights claims that a group may have jurisdictional rights over a particular land if that land has become a repository of value for the group. This justification relies on a premise which has remained largely unsubstantiated, namely that having jurisdictional rights should be our preferred means for ensuring the group’s retaining of the land’s embedded value. This article discusses a recent attempt to fill this gap. David Miller acknowledges that the value could be retained by the group if it has private property rights. However, he argues that because such rights can be changed at will by the holder of jurisdictional rights the group’s retaining of value is unacceptably insecure. I argue that this attempt fails. Miller’s argument is briefly stated so I start with some reconstructive work. Most importantly, I suggest that the argument relies on a descriptive claim about empirical probabilities, namely that the group’s having jurisdictional rights (in international law) provides the largest feasible reduction of insecurity. I then provide some tentative suggestions about expected state behavior which challenge the validity of that descriptive claim; I argue that a reform of international law which confers internationally enforced property rights on the relevant groups—rather than jurisdiction—may provide a similar (or even relatively larger) reduction of insecurity. My tentative conclusion is that Miller’s appeal to insecurity fails to provide the “embedded value” approach (favored by him and others) with the needed bridge from property rights to rights of jurisdiction.

Coffee, mines and dams: conflicts over land in the Bolaven Plateau, southern Lao PDR

During the last decades, neoliberal economic reforms aiming at facilitating trade and cross‐boundary investment have encouraged transnational and national economic actors to search for ‘empty’ land to grow export crops, to mine, or to develop hydroelectric dams. Mainland Southeast Asia is one of the regions where such investment has been taking place as it contains resource‐hungry countries (Thailand and in particular neighbouring China), and countries with ‘empty’ land and the willingness to use such land to foster economic growth (Laos, Cambodia and Burma). This beset the question as to what happens to the people who inhabit the land that is supposed to be ‘empty’, and the relationship between the different land uses that takes over that ‘empty’ land. This paper describes the land conflicts in one area in southern Laos, the Bolaven Plateau, where national and international capital backing large‐scale coffee plantation, bauxite mining and dam construction is displacing smallholding coffee farmers – the ‘traditional’ land users – within a political environment of poorly enforced property rights and endemic corruption. We describe how the smallholding coffee farmers are relocated to make way for the new economic activities supported by considerable amounts of foreign capital, and how the land grabbing results in lower standards of living for the smallholding coffee farmers, with few benefits to the country as a whole.

Was the Glorious Revolution a Constitutional Watershed?

Douglass North and Barry Weingast's seminal account of the Glorious Revolution argued that specific constitutional reforms enhanced the credibility of the English Crown, leading to much stronger public finances. Critics have argued that the most important reforms occurred incrementally before the Revolution; and that neither interest rates on sovereign debt nor enforcement of property rights improved sharply after the Revolution. In this article, I identify a different set of constitutional reforms, explain why precedents for these reforms did not lessen their revolutionary impact, and show that the evidence, properly evaluated, supports a view of the Revolution as a watershed.

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Where There is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa

Book Review: Comparative Politics: Where There is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa

Governance and Norms as Determinants of Arming

Gouvernance et normes comme déterminants de l’armement Dans cet article, nous explorerons deux facteurs qui limitent l’armement et plus généralement, les coûts de la mise en œuvre intra-et entre les Etats: la gouvernance ou les organisations et institutions formelles contribuant à définir et à mettre en œuvre les droits de propriété, et les normes ainsi que les arrangements informels pour résoudre les litiges potentiels. Nous examinerons les effets de ces deux facteurs dans un modèle de conflit statique simple dans lequel les deux parties choisissent les niveaux d’armement et décident si elles s’engagent dans un conflit réel ou le résolvent sous la menace du conflit. Nous démontrerons que l’armement dépend sévèrement de la gouvernance et des normes, et qu’en conséquence, les sociétés aux relations potentiellement conflictuelles peuvent indifféremment engager des dépenses élevées ou basses dans la sécurité sans qu’il y ait de différence dans les niveaux de sécurité dont elles jouissent. Nous explorerons aussi comment les investissements dans la gouvernance peuvent réduire l’armement.

Turning Cheap Talk into Economic Growth: On the Relationship Between Property Rights and Judicial Independence

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might, for example, not per se lead to increases in observed growth rates. This paper contributes to the debate by emphasizing that the mere promise of secure property rights is unlikely to have any effects unless accompanied by some commitment to enforce these rights that is perceived as credible by private actors. An independent judiciary is interpreted as a tool that permits governments to make credible commitments to abide by its laws. We provide empirical evidence for a positive growth effect of property rights, once the judicial system is independent enough to guarantee their enforcement.

PROTECTIONISM AND PROPERTY RIGHTS: COASIAN BARGAINING AND DEBT-FOR-NATURE SWAPS

Debt-for-nature swaps (DNSs) are a method of simultaneously addressing debt problems in developing countries and protecting environmentally-sensitive tracts of land and forests. The number and scope of DNSs declined after a flurry of activity in the early to mid-1990s. While a number of problems have been identified that may have contributed to this pattern the literature has ignored the role that weakly defined and enforced property rights may play. DNSs are interpreted as Coasian bargains and an explanation for their decline based upon property rights, transactions costs, and competitive bidding is advanced.

Where There Is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa. By Sandra F. Joireman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 224p. $59.95. - Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. By Christian Lund. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 224p. $99.00 cloth, $25.99 paper.

Where There Is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa. By Sandra F. Joireman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 224p. $59.95. - Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. By Christian Lund. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 224p. $99.00 cloth, $25.99 paper.

The Growth Effects of Property Rights: The Role of Finance

Using a variety of statistical approaches, we show that the relationship between property rights and growth is nonlinear; stronger enforcement of property rights raises growth up to a point before growth begins to decline. We provide a simple theoretical rationale for this conclusion using a model with informational asymmetries in the financial sector. Stronger property rights have two opposing effects. On the one hand it increases capital formation and growth. On the other hand it encourages bad borrowing practices. Thus there exists an optimal level of property rights which maximizes growth. However, as financial markets mature, the negative effects associated with stronger property rights become weaker.

The Collapse of the Bison-Hunting Societies on the Great Plains

In this essay I examine the economic history of bison-hunting societies as an application of Diamond’s collapse thesis. I merge the theory of property rights with the theory of renewable resource use and argue that changes in property rights regimes, in market forces, and changes in legal-political institutions ultimately determined the fate of native bison societies. Some of my findings are consistent with the thesis advanced by Diamond while others are not.In particular I argue that bison societies declined (nay collapsed), after rising rapidly, as a result of the following forces. First, these groups were under pressure (for land and resources) from white immigrants to the east. Second, these pressures and the emergence of the horse into native societies changed the structure of native societies and initially allowed extensive exploitation of the bison on the Great Plains, under both common property and open access regimes. During this period intertribal conflicts led to the demise of prairie societies at the hand of the plains societies. Third, on the emergence of a bison hide market and the inability of tribes to enforce property rights to land and the bison led to rapid and dramatic depletion of the bison herds. I do not find evidence of dramatic changes in climate or the natural environment to have been an important factor.

Where there is no government: enforcing property rights in common law Africa

1. Introduction 2. Colonization and the Myth of the Customary 3. Under the Circumstances, We Do What We Can: Entrepreneurial Bureaucrats and the Allocation of Property Rights 4. Property Rights Enforcement by Other Means: The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations 5. Private Enforcement of Property Rights: The Demand for Specialists in Violence 6. In Search of Order: State Systems of Property Rights Enforcement and their Failings 7. Drawing Conclusions 8. Bibliography 9. Appendix

IS THE COMMON LAW A FREE-MARKET SOLUTION TO POLLUTION?

Whereas conventional analyses characterize environmental problems as examples of market failure, proponents of free-market environmentalism (FME) consider the problem to be a lack of markets and, in particular, a lack of enforceable and exchangeable property rights. Enforcing property rights alleviates disputes about, as well as the overuse of, most natural resources. FME diagnoses of pollution are much weaker, however. Most FME proponents suggest that common-law tort suits can adequately protect private property and ecological resources from pollution. Yet such claims have not been substantiated. Further research is needed before the common law, or regulatory reforms grounded in common-law principles, can be seen as a viable alternative to traditional environmental regulation.

MONEY AND THE EXTENSION OF MORALS: THE CASE OF THE SOVIET UNION

Functioning markets require a state that will enforce property rights; contracts mediated by money; and the prevalence of a certain type of morality that prevents people from cheating in complex exchange relationships. Monetary exchange abstracts from the personal loyalties that bind small groups together, but at the same time it creates an overarching commitment to norms that bind people more loosely in national societies—as long as monetary exchanges are enforced by the state. In the Soviet Union, conversely, the abolition of money as a universal medium of exchange led both to a deterioration of the norms of impersonal morality and to a loss of state capacity. The state lost control of the economy to informal, personally binding economic networks, and it lost its monopoly on violence in competition with sub-state, personal enforcers of impersonal economic commitments between these networks. Thus, capitalism can be seen as diverting people from norms of loyalty to the members of the relatively small groups of which they are a part toward loyalty to the abstract norms that make it possible for anonymous people to deal with each other reliably.

The Case for Imperfect Enforcement of Property Rights

A persistent theme in the literature on property rights suggests that perfect state protection of private property rights would provide owners with an optimal incentive to invest in their assets. In this Essay, we challenge this view. Specifically, we argue that in many instances, perfect state protection would result in over-investment in resources. This is because perfect enforcement gives rise to a problem akin to the moral hazard problem that plagues insurance markets. In addition to pointing out this problem, we define the conditions under which it may arise in the real world and discuss the measures law should take in order to combat it. To illustrate our thesis, we provide examples of legal rules and doctrines that may be best understood as a response to the moral hazard problem resulting from state protection of private property.

Tbilisi reinvented: planning, development and the unfinished project of democracy in Georgia

In this paper, we highlight the changing developmental patterns and planning strategies for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, from late communism till the present day. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, interviews, analysis of documents and plans, we reconstruct the change of course from Soviet planning to fragmentation of plans and policies. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow, Moscow actors and Moscow knowledge disappeared behind the horizon. New actors and new knowledge were introduced in the planning and design system. Most notably, architects-turned-developers introduced Western architectural forms and development practices. Foreign advisors and Western-educated Georgians gave weight to Western economic visions of transition. With the Georgian leadership, as well as with the audience at large, attitudes towards planning are very ambiguous, disputing the relevance of government intervention in spatial development, at the same time cherishing certain results of Soviet planning or planning as such. We argue that the developer-led renaissance of urban design ought to be embedded in a reinvented planning system, and that such system in turn can only function in an improved institutional frame. This should include a more clearer separation of powers and unambiguously enforced property rights. Whatever system of spatial governance the Georgian people and its government prefer in the end, choices will have to be made and the coupling of political institutions, law and planning has to be reflected upon, for developers and their creations to contribute sustainably to spatial quality and economic development.

Endogenous Changes in Property Rights Regime*

The purpose of this article is to present a model of the endogenous evolution of a society's property rights regime. We use an overlapping‐generations framework in which capital accumulation takes place. Property rights enforcement is costly. Individuals decide collectively in each period the appropriate level of enforcement and pay taxes to finance it. Poor households have less interest in the enforcement of property rights than rich households. We also consider heterogenous households with different tastes. They differ on their choice of law enforcement. As their wealth and numbers evolve, political power may change sides, hence the property rights regime also evolves.

Poverty, voracity, and growth

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable property rights are missing and basic needs matter for consumption. It suggests a new view of the so-called voracity effect according to which windfall gains in productivity induce behavior that leads to lower economic growth. Taking into account that the rate of intertemporal substitution in consumption depends on the level of consumption, it is shown that “voracious behavior” is situation-specific. It occurs when an economy is in decline and sufficiently close to stagnation.

An application of fuzzy methods to evaluate a patent under the chance of litigation

The value of a patent, including such unmeasurable things like the chance of litigation, is calculated using a methodology which combines real option theory and fuzzy numbers. The vagueness about the patent holder’s future profits, the validity and scope of the patent, the litigation costs, the court’s decision under imperfect enforcement of property rights are specified introducing fuzzy numbers. This method is embedded in a real option computation, where the value of a patent includes the option value of litigation. We study how the value of a patent is affected by the timing and incidence of litigation. The main results are compared with the empirical findings of previous results.