PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE GENERAL THEORY OF EXCHANGE: FREQUENTLY NEGLECTED IMPLICATIONS OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND THE LAW OF COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE

The importance of the division of labour and the law of comparative advantage to the operation of modern economies are well known, but many of the implications of these phenomena are less widely appreciated. This article examines the implications of the division of labour and the law of comparative advantage for the ownership and exercise of property rights and the creation and distribution of wealth. It is argued that a fuller appreciation of these phenomena leads to the conclusion that restraints on trade and redistributory measures infringe private property rights and reduce wealth.     

THE PUBLIC ASSIGNMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS1

Different planning systems allocate property rights differently between the state and private property owners. This article argues that the appropriate allocation of property rights between the state and private owners can only be discovered by a process of experimentation. The experience of the UK suggests that such a process can take time and may be hindered by the controlling tendencies of central government.     

PLANNING THROUGH RESIDENTIAL CLUBS: HOMEOWNERS' ASSOCIATIONS

Private homeowners' associations now govern over 18% of the American population, enforcing contractual land-use restrictions and providing what would otherwise be municipal services. The rapid spread of these associations in new housing construction is explained by rising land costs, constraints on the ability of local governments to raise property taxes, and consumer preferences. Because these associations resemble club economies in significant respects, they provide an opportunity to test whether these private associations can provide services more efficiently than municipalities. Departures from the assumptions of the club economy model are noted, including the lack of options for consumer choice that undermine the consent-based rationale.     

亚运城规划广州的世纪样本

广州亚运城以＂造城＂的概念进行规划,并充分融入＂科技亚运＂、＂人文亚运＂和＂绿色亚运＂的理念,既可满足比赛时各种需求,又能在赛后为消费者提供舒适的居住环境,并最终变成南中国宜居的＂广州人家＂。     

PLANNING THROUGH EXCLUSIVE DIALOGUE: BASIC LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM THE PRIVATE ESTATE

Empirical evidence suggests that private estates where land is managed as a multi-tenant property by a single private company with a continuing interest in the value of that property tend to be better run than estates that are subdivided into multiple parcels of separately managed land with the commons managed via some form of political decision-making. Public policy, particularly in the UK, has hindered the growth of successful multi-tenant private estates.     

SAVINGS IN THE ABSENCE OF FUNCTIONING PROPERTY RIGHTS1

Nigeria is a prime example of a developing country with ill‐defined property rights. However, people still manage to save, mostly through traditional and informal means, facilitated by strong family and community institutions. This paper argues that the government should concentrate on strengthening these institutions rather than weakening them by imposing an inappropriate, Western‐style, formal pensions system on the country.     

PLANNING THROUGH COMPULSORY COMMERCIAL CLUBS: BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICTS

Business improvement districts (BIDs) have proved successful in providing shared services for businesses within a district. They have made business areas more attractive as a result. This article analyses the origins and successes of BIDs and concludes with some further considerations for policy-makers in the development of the BID concept.     

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FOREST RIGHTS ACT IN INDIA: CRITICAL ISSUES

The Forest Rights Act 2006 was designed to provide secure property rights to the forest dwellers of India. This paper analyses the effect of the legislation and finds that it has proved largely ineffective at meeting its objectives. There is evidence to suggest that the implementation of the Act has been undermined by bureaucratic interests.     

PLANNING GAIN OR MISSED OPPORTUNITY? THE BARKER REVIEW OF LAND USE PLANNING

The Barker review of land use planning makes various recommendations, notably the introduction of Planning-gain Supplement. If implemented, this proposal will have the effect of reinstating formal betterment taxation for the first time since 1985. It is argued below that there may be better ways of siphoning off economic rent associated with land development. In addition, some suggestions are made for the more effective treatment of third-party interests.     

THE DYNAMICS OF REAL EXCHANGE RATES: A RECONSIDERATION

In this paper we offer a bootstrap‐based version of the Cox specification test for non‐nested hypothesis to discriminate between ESTAR and MSAR models. Both models are commonly used for modeling real exchange rates dynamics. We show that the test has good size and power properties in finite samples. In an application, we analyze several major real exchange rates to shed light on the question of which model describes these processes best. This allows us to draw conclusions about the driving forces of real exchange rates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

PEASANTS AGAINST PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS: A REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Land is the main – if not the only – asset for a majority of people in developing countries. The definition and allocation of rights over land are thus naturally essential aspects of individuals’ daily lives, as well as critical determinants of social and economic development. The privatization of land rights has long been seen as a necessary process, enhancing both efficiency and equity. However, privatized land rights have not always emerged endogenously, while exogenously driven programs of land privatization have not always been successful nor popular. This has raised questions about the expected benefits of land rights privatization. This paper aims at summarizing the main arguments and studies, both theoretical and empirical, on this issue, with a specific focus on the factors that can make privatization inefficient or detrimental for the most concerned individuals.     

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE: MORE EVIDENCE*

A recently published meta-analysis of the impact of strategic planning on financial performance omitted a major study of corporate planning practice in Fortune 500 manufacturing firms. This article briefly reviews that study in light of the results of the meta-analysis. Additional analysis examines performance and firm survival over a longer time period than in the original work. the overall conclusion is that a small but positive relationship between strategic planning and performance exists, and persists.     

PERFORMANCE IN PLANNING A LARGE PROJECT [1]

Performance assessment in matrix structures is particularly problematical, for matrix structures themselves represent a compromise, and performance within the structure usually requires achievement of an ‘even balance’—and there are no conventions for judging ‘evenness’. Analysis of a planning project in British Rail suggests that under conditions of ‘conservative incrementalism’, the agreement of interested parties itself constitutes evidence of successful performance in a matrix structure, as well as providing essential pre-construction monitoring. More generally, where conventional performance indicators are deficient or inadequate, analysis of the problems in the task environment provides a base against which to assess performance.     

PLANNING THROUGH INCLUSIVE DIALOGUE: NO ESCAPE FROM SOCIAL CHOICE DILEMMAS

The thrust of the theory of preference aggregation is that it is impossible to design institutions guaranteeing collective decisions that are both consistent and fair. Proponents of deliberative democracy have used this as an argument for decision-making based on dialogue rather than voting. Communicative public planning - producing plans through public participation exercises - is seen as an integral part of deliberative democracy. It is argued here, however, that the inclusive dialogue of this style of planning cannot promise escape from arbitrariness and does not necessarily deliver improved local decision-making.     

EXCHANGE RATE TARGET ZONES: A SURVEY OF THE LITERATURE

This work selectively reviews the literature on exchange rate target zones and their theoretical and empirical methodologies and examines whether they can be used to clarify to what extent this type of exchange rate regime could contribute to greater exchange rate stability. We discuss the main contributions of the first and second generations of exchange rate target zone models. In an attempt to reconcile the poor empirical performance of the Krugman model with the reality of exchange rate target zone regimes, this line of research integrates target zones with alternative underlying economic models, such as imperfect credibility, intra‐marginal interventions and sticky price models. It was thus possible to understand the correlations observed between the exchange rate, its fundamentals determinants and the interest rate differential, and to explain the fact that the statistical distribution of the exchange rate is hump shaped rather than U shaped. This implies that the initial emphasis of target zone models on nonlinearities, ‘honeymoon effect’, ‘smooth pasting’ and marginal interventions has vanished. Exchange rate target zones are better described as similar to managed floating regimes with intra‐marginal interventions, with some marginal interventions when the exchange rate reaches the edges of the floating band.     

A NEW CINDERELLA STORY: JOINT VENTURES AND THE PROPERTY RIGHTS THEORY OF THE FIRM

Joint ventures (JVs) are a common form of inter-firm collaboration and, unsurprisingly, the subject of a vast literature, extending from economics to management and business studies. Issues of control are central to the definition of JVs, and this naturally calls for an interpretation in the context of the property rights theory (PRT) of the firm. In a series of seminal papers, Grossman, Hart and Moore (GHM) offer a rigorous framework to predict the allocation of control rights. Notably, under the standard assumptions of GHM, JVs are suboptimal. However, JVs are not suboptimal in more general settings where a number of the original framework's assumptions are relaxed. In the context of PRT, this paper surveys more than 20 contributions that address the optimality of JVs under contract incompleteness. The surveyed papers question the assumptions of GHM and reveal the circumstances in which JVs outperform sole ownership. Although contributions are scattered over time and bibliographical sources, we believe sufficient material has accumulated over 25 years of economic modelling to encourage some systematization. The discussion is organized in an intuitive and non-technical way; in particular, effort is devoted to analysing each paper in detail and providing a unified framework.