Property Rights, Law, and Economic Development

Ronald H. Coase, The Problem of Social Cost, 3 Journal of Law and Economics (1960), 1–44.

Armen A. Alchian, Some Economics of Property Rights, 30 Il Politico (1965), 816–829.

Harold Demsetz, Toward a Theory of Property Rights, 57 American Economic Review (1967), 347–359.

Eirik G. Furubotn and Svetozar Pejovich, Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature, 10 Journal of Economic Literature (1972), 1137–1162.

Louis De Alessi, The Economics of Property Rights: A Review of the Evidence, 2 Research in Law and Economics (1980), 1–47.

Yoram Barzel, Economic Analysis of Property Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Martin J. Bailey, “Property Rights in Aboriginal Societies”, in Peter Newman (ed.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and Law (London: Macmillan Reference LTD, 1998), 155–157.

Douglass C. North and Robert Paul Thomas, The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973).

Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981).

Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell Jr., How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (London: The Harvill Press, 1999).

See, for instance, Svetozar Pejovich, The Economics of Property Rights: Towards a Theory of Comparative Systems (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990); Janos Kornai, The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).

Timothy Besley, “Investment Incentives and Property Rights”, in Peter Newman (ed.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and Law (London: Macmillan Reference LTD, 1998).

Demsetz (1967), supra note 3.

Richard A. Posner, Economic Analysis of Law (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2002).

Common property rights may be viewed as an intermediate step between open access and private ownership, emerging as an institutional solution when a resource is sufficiently valuable to justify the cost of organizing a user group, but not the cost of defining and enforcing private property rights. A fundamental problem for community members is the task of designing an effective internal governance structure to prevent excessive use and to ensure continued maintenance and improvement.

Robert C. Ellickson, Property in Land, 102 Yale Law Journal (1993), 1315–1400.

North (1981), supra note 9.

Frank B. Cross, Law and Economic Growth, 80 Texas Law Review (2002), 1737–1775.

See, for instance, Demsetz (1967), supra note 3; Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz, The Property Rights Paradigm, 33 Journal of Economic History (1973), 16–27.

See, for instance, Garrett Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, 162 Science (1968), 1243–1248.

See, for instance, Stergios Skaperdas, Cooperation, Conflict, and Power in the Absence of Property Rights, 82 American Economic Review (1992), 720–739; Herschel Grossman and Minseong Kim, Swords or Plowshares? A Theory of the Security of Claims to Property, 103 Journal of Political Economy (1995), 1275–1288.

Curtis J. Milhaupt and Mark D. West, The Dark Side of Private Ordering: An Institutional and Empirical Analysis of Organized Crime, 67 University of Chicago Law Review (2000), 41–98; Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

See, for instance, Omotunde E.G. Johnson, Economic Analysis, the Legal Framework and Land Tenure Systems, 15 Journal of Law and Economics (1972), 259–276; Besley (1998), supra note 13.

See, for instance, David A. Atwood, Land Registration in Africa: The Impact on Agricultural Production, 18 World Development (1990), 659–671; Besley (1998), supra note 13; Klaus Deininger, Land Policies for Growth and Poverty Reduction (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2003).

See, for instance, Johnson (1972), supra note 24; Richard Barrows and Michael Roth, Land Tenure and Investment in African Agriculture: Theory and Evidence, 28 Journal of Modern African Studies (1990), 265–297; Deininger (2003), supra note 25.

Besley (1998), supra note 13.

Anthony Bottomley, The Effect of the Common Ownership of Land Upon Resource Allocation in TripoliTania, 39 Land Economics (1963), 91–95.

Richard J. Agnello and Lawrence P. Donnelley, Property Rights and Efficiency in the Oyster Industry, 18 Journal of Law and Economics (1975), 521–533.

Terry L. Anderson and Dean Lueck, Land Tenure and Agriculture Productivity on Indian Reservations, 35 Journal of Law and Economics (1992), 427–454.

Tribunal-trust land is managed by the tribe subject to trust constraints administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Under fee simple, the land is privately owned by individuals who are free to use, lease, and sell it. Under individual trust, the land is held by individual Indians, but their rights are subject to trust constraints administered by the BIA.

R. Quentin Grafton, Dale Squires, and Kevin J. Fox, Private Property and Economic Efficiency: A Study of a Common-Pool Resource, 43 Journal of Law and Economics (2000), 679–713.

See, for instance, Ramón López, Environmental Externalities in Traditional Agriculture and the Impact of Trade Liberalization: The Case of Ghana, 53 Journal of Development Economics (1997), 17–39; Vinod Ahuja, Land Degradation, Agricultural Productivity and Common Property: Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire, 3 Environment and Development Economics (1998), 7–34.

See, for instance, Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Jean-Marie Baland and Jean-Philippe Platteau, Halting Degradation of Natural Resources: Is There a Role for Rural Communities (Oxford: FAO and Clarendon Press, 1996).

N.S. Jodha, Common Property Resources: A Missing Dimension of Development Strategies, World Bank Discussion Paper, No. 169 (1992).

Arthur De Vany and Nicolas Sanchez, Land Tenure Structures and Fertility in Mexico, 61 Review of Economics and Statistics (1979), 67–72.

An ejidatario is a member of an ejido, an agrarian community that has received and continues to hold land in accordance with the agrarian law established after the Mexican Revolution. In a typical ejido, all rights to crop lands are granted to individual families on a usufruct basis. The land cannot be sold, leased, mortgaged, or disposed of in any similar fashion. Rights to these lands may be passed on to heirs, but they may also be lost if the land is not under cultivation for two consecutive years.

Shannon Stokes, Wayne A. Schutjer, and Rodolfo A. Bulatao, Is the Relationship between Landholding and Fertility Spurious? A Response to Cain, 40 Population Studies (1986), 305–311.

Erica Field, Entitled to Work: Urban Property Rights and Labor Supply in Peru, 122 Quarterly Journal of Economics (2007), 1561–1602.

Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Schargrodsky, Property Rights for the Poor: Effects of Land Titling, Working Paper (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, 2006).

Gershon Feder and Tongroj Onchan, Land Ownership Security and Farm Investment in Thailand, 69 American Journal of Agricultural Economics (1987), 311–320.

Guo Li, Scott Rozelle, and Loren Brandt, Tenure, Land Rights, and Farmer Investment Incentives in China, 19 Agricultural Economics (1998), 63–71.

Hanan G. Jacoby, Guo Li, and Scott Rozelle, Hazards of Expropriation: Tenure Insecurity and Investment in Rural China, 92 American Economic Review (2002), 1420–1447.

John L. Pender and John M. Kerr, Determinants of Farmers’ Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation Investments in Semi-Arid India, 19 Agricultural Economics (1998), 113–125.

Quy-Toan Do and Lakshmi Iyer, Land Rights and Economic Development: Evidence from Vietnam, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3120 (2003).

Lee J. Alston, Gary D. Libecap, and Robert Schneider, The Determinants and Impact of Property Rights: Land Titles on the Brazilian Frontier, 12 Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (1996), 25–61.

Thomas Schweigert, Land Title, Tenure Security, Investment and Farm Output: Evidence from Guatemala, 40 Journal of Developing Areas (2006), 115–126; Klaus Deininger and Juan Sebastian Chamorro, Investment and Equity Effects of Land Regularisation: The Case of Nicaragua, 30 Agricultural Economics (2004), 101–116.

Erica Field, Property Rights and Investment in Urban Slums, 3 Journal of the European Economic Association (2005), 279–290; Galiani and Schargrodsky (2006), supra note 40.

Barrows and Roth (1990), supra note 26.

Shem Migot-Adholla, Peter Hazell, Benoît Blarel, and Frank Place, Indigenous Land Rights Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Constraint on Productivity, 5 World Bank Economic Review (1991), 155–175.

Frank Place and Keijiro Otsuka, Land Tenure Systems and Their Impacts on Agricultural Investments and Productivity in Uganda, 38 Journal Development Studies (2002), 105–128; John L. Pender, Ephraim Nkonya, Pamela Jagger, Dick Sserunkuuma, and Henry Ssali, Strategies to Increase Agricultural Productivity and Reduce Land Degradation: Evidence from Uganda, 31 Agricultural Economics (2004), 181–195.

Hanan G. Jacoby and Bart Minten, Is Land Titling in Sub-Saharan Africa Cost-Effective? Evidence from Madagascar, 21 World Bank Economic Review (2007), 461–485.

Timothy Besley, Property Rights and Investment Incentives: Theory and Evidence from Ghana, 103 Journal of Political Economy (1995), 903–937.

Sarah Gavian and Marcel Fafchamps, Land Tenure and Allocative Efficiency in Niger, 78 American Journal of Agricultural Economics (1996), 460–471.

Frank Place and Keijiro Otsuka, Tenure, Agricultural Investment, and Productivity in the Customary Tenure Sector of Malawi, 50 Economic Development and Cultural Change (2001), 77–99.

Feder and Onchan (1987), supra note 41.

Erica Field and Maximo Torero, Do Property Titles Increase Credit Access Among the Urban Poor? Evidence from a Nationwide Titling Program, Working Paper, (Harvard University, 2004).

Galiani and Schargrodsky (2006), supra note 40.

Migot-Adholla et al. (1991), supra note 50; Frank Place and Peter Hazell, Productivity Effects of Indigenous Land Tenure Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, 75 American Journal of Agricultural Economics (1993), 10–19; Thomas C. Pinckney and Peter K. Kimuyu, Land Tenure Reform in East Africa: Good, Bad, or Unimportant, 3 Journal of African Economics (1994), 1–28.

Emmanuel Jimenez, Tenure Security and Urban Squatting, 66 Review of Economics and Statistics (1984), 556–567.

David E. Dowall and Michael Leaf, The Price of Land for Housing in Jakarta, 28 Urban Studies (1991), 707–722.

Gershon Feder and Akihiko Nishio, The Benefits of Land Registration and Titling: Economic and Social Perspectives, 15 Land Use Policy (1999), 25–43.

Alston et al. (1996), supra note 46.

Deininger and Chamorro (2004), supra note 47.

Jean O. Lanjouw and Philip I. Levy, Untitled: A Study of Formal and Informal Property Rights in Urban Ecuador, 112 Economic Journal (2002), 986–1019.

Barrows and Roth (1990), supra note 26.

Jean-Philippe Platteau, Institutions, Social Norms, and Economic Development (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000).

Annette M. Kim,A Market without the “Right” Property Rights: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s Newly-Emerged Private Real Estate Market, 12 Economics of Transition (2004), 275–305.

Gershon Feder and David Feeny, Land Tenure and Property Rights: Theory and Implications for Development Policy, 5 World Bank Economic Review (1991), 135–153.

Deininger (2003), supra note 25.

World Bank, Finance for Growth: Policy Choices in a Volatile World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).

See, for instance, Rafael La Porta, Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, and Andrei Shleifer, Government Ownership of Banks, 57 Journal of Finance (2002), 265–301.

See, for instance, James R. Barth, Gerard Caprio Jr., and Ross Levine, Bank Regulation and Supervision: What Works Best, 13 Journal of Financial Intermediation (2004), 205–248.

Thorsten Beck, Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, and Patrick Honohan, Access to Financial Services: Measurement, Impact, and Policies, 24 World Bank Research Observer (2009), 119–145.

Atwood (1990), supra note 25.

Feder and Onchan (1987), supra note 41.

Atwood (1990), supra note 25.

See, for instance, Platteau (2000), supra note 67.

Klaus Deininger and Gershon Feder, Land Registration, Governance, and Development: Evidence and Implications for Policy, 24 World Bank Research Observer (2009), 233–266.

Grenville Barnes and Charisse Griffith-Charles, Assessing the Formal Land Market and Deformalization of Property in St. Lucia, 24 Land Use Policy (2007), 494–501.

See, for instance, Platteau (2000), supra note 67; Michael Trebilcock and Paul-Erik Veel, Property Rights and Development: The Contingent Case for Formalization, 30 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law (2008), 397–481.

Grenville Barnes, David Stanfield, and Kevin Barthel, Land Registration Modernization in Developing Economies: A Discussion of the Main Problems in Central/Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, 12 URISA Journal, no. 4 (2000), 33–42.

See, for instance, Barrows and Roth (1990), supra note 26; Pinckney and Kimuyu (1994), supra note 59.

Deininger (2003), supra note 25.

See, for instance, Atwood (1990), supra note 25; Pinckney and Kimuyu (1994), supra note 59; Frank Place, Land Tenure and Agricultural Productivity in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of the Economics Literature and Recent Policy Strategies and Reforms, 37 World Development (2009), 1326–1336.

See, for instance, Catherine André and Jean-Philippe Platteau, Land Relations under Unbearable Stress: Rwanda Caught in the Malthusian Trap, 34 Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (1998), 1–47; Platteau (2000), supra note 67.

Daniel W. Bromley and Jean-Paul Chavas, On Risk, Transactions and Economic Development in the Semiarid Tropics, 37 Economic Development and Cultural Change (1989), 719–736.

See, for instance, Jean-Philippe Platteau and Patrick Francois, Commons as Insurance and the Welfare Impact of Privatization, 89 Journal of Public Economics (2005), 211–231.

Ruth Meinzen-Dick and Esther Mwangi, Cutting the Web of Interests: Pitfalls of Formalizing Property Rights, 26 Land Use Policy (2008), 36–43.

Sara Berry, Tomatoes, Land and Hearsay: Property and History in Asante in the Time of Structural Adjustment, 25 World Development (1997), 1225–1241.

Barrows and Roth (1990), supra note 26.

Tor A. Benjaminsen and Espen Sjaastad, Race for the Prize: Land Transactions and Rent Appropriation in the Malian Cotton Zone, 14 European Journal of Development Research (2002), 129–152.

See, for instance, Pauline E. Peters, Inequality and Social Conflict over Land in Africa, 4 Journal of Agrarian Change, no. 3 (2004), 269–314.

See, for instance, André and Platteau (1998), supra note 86; Ben K. Fred-Mensah, Capturing Ambiguities: Communal Conflict Management Alternative in Ghana, 27 World Development (1999), 951–965.

Daniel Fitzpatrick, Evolution and Chaos in Property Rights Systems: The Third World Tragedy of Contested Access, 115 Yale Law Journal (2006), 996–1048.

Barrows and Roth (1990), supra note 26.

Fred-Mensah (1999), supra note 94.

Deininger (2003)supra note 25; Deininger and Feder (2009), supra note 79.

Fitzpatrick (2006), supra note 95.

See, for instance, Peter T. Leeson, Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse, 35 Journal of Comparative Economics (2007), 689–710; Peter T. Leeson and Claudia R. Williamson, Anarchy and Development: An Application of the Theory of Second Best, 2 Law and Development Review, no. 1 (2009), 76–96.

See, for instance, Daron Acemoglu, Politics and Economics in Weak and Strong States, 52 Journal of Monetary Economics (2005), 1199–1226.

See, for instance, Trebilcock and Veel (2008),supra note 81.

William Easterly, The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economist’s Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).

Leeson (2007), supra note 100; Leeson and Williamson (2009), supra note 100.

Edward Glaeser, Jose Scheinkman, and Andrei Shleifer, The Injustice of Inequality, 50 Journal of Monetary Economics (2003), 199–222.

Leonid Polishchuk and Alexei Savvateev, Spontaneous (Non)Emergence of Property Rights, 12 Economics of Transition (2004), 103–127.

Konstantin Sonin, Why the Rich May Favor Poor Protection of Property Rights, 31 Journal of Comparative Economics (2003), 715–731.

For example, during the political instability resulting from the Mexican Revolution, the Mexican oil industry effectively defended its property rights by making use of two powerful weapons. First, the oil companies made effective appeals to the U.S. government to intervene on their behalf. Second, they were able to coordinate their actions, which meant that they could threaten the Mexican government with production boycotts. For more details, see Stephen Haber, Noel Maurer, and Armando Razo, When the Law Does Not Matter: The Rise and Decline of the Mexican Oil Industry, 63 Journal of Economic History (2003), 1–32.

See, for instance, Joel S. Hellman, Geraint Jones, and Daniel Kaufmann, Seize the State, Seize the Day: State Capture and Influence in Transition Economies, 31 Journal of Comparative Economics (2003), 751–773.

Serguey Braguinsky, Enforcement of Property Rights during the Russian Transition: Problems and Some Approaches to a New Liberal Solution, 28 Journal of Legal Studies (1999), 515–544.

Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

Peters (2004), supra note 93.

See, for instance, Deininger and Feder (2009), supra note 79.

Peter Ho, Institutions in Transition: Land Ownership, Property Rights, and Social Conflict in China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

World Bank, Building Institutions for Markets (World Development Report 2002) (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).