Property as an economic concept: reconciling legal and economic conceptions of property rights in a Coasean framework

Adopting a simplistic view of Coase (J Law Econ 3:1–44, 1960), most economic analyses of property rights disregard both the key advantage that legal property rights (that is, in rem rights) provide to rightholders in terms of enhanced enforcement, and the difficulties they pose to acquirers in terms of information asymmetry about legal title. Consequently, these analyses tend to overstate the role of “private ordering” and disregard the two key elements of property law: first, the essential conflict between property (that is, in rem) enforcement and transaction costs; and, second, the institutional solutions created to overcome it, mainly contractual registries capable of making truly impersonal (that is, asset-based) trade viable when previous relevant transactions on the same assets are not verifiable by judges. This paper fills this gap by reinterpreting both elements within the Coasean framework and thus redrawing the institutional foundations of both property and corporate contracting.     

复杂产权论和有效产权论-中国地权变迁的一个分析框架

本文将中国近60年的地权变迁过程分为合作化、家庭联产承包和土地规模流转三个阶段加以回顾,考察了其中发生的产权权能细分、主体身份变化、市场范围扩展和经济绩效变动等几个特征性事实,并以一个基于Spence-Dixit-Stigliz框架的模型刻画了从传统自给性农业向现代商业化农业转型过程中的地权细分和流转交易,从而为复杂产权理论提供了一个经验证据,并揭示出产权细分是复杂产权实际实施的一个重要途径,因而不存在绝对有效的产权安排,只能在状态依存的互动过程中寻求相对有效的产权结构。     

产权信念及其对公平偏好与自利偏好的挤出

传统经济理论将产权作为经济绩效的外生变量,但是人类社会的演化路径表明产权是内生于人类族群的共同信念,它与内置于人类心智的公平偏好交互作用影响个体的决策行为。文章运用比较制度实验方法针对不同来源的产权考察其认同信念及其对公平偏好的影响。实验发现,产权不仅导致提议者对回应者和接受者有产权认同信念,也导致提议者的自利偏好和回应者的公平偏好被挤出;通过对利他偏好、策略行为和第三方评价的分离,测度了产权信念;提议者没有强烈的公平偏好动机,而是通过策略行为来最大化自身利益。     

Insecurity of property rights and social matching in the tenancy market

This paper shows that insecurity of property rights over agricultural land can have large efficiency and equity costs because of the way it affects matching in the tenancy market. A principal-agent framework is used to model the landlord's decision to rent when he takes into account the risk of losing the land to the tenant and when contract enforcement is decreasing in social distance with the tenant. These effects are quantified for the case of local land rental markets in the Dominican Republic. Results show that insecure property rights lead to matching in the tenancy market along socio-economic lines, severely limiting the size of the rental market and the choice of tenants for landlords, both with efficiency costs. Social segmentation reduces access to land for the rural poor, with high equity costs. Simulations suggest that improving tenure security would increase rental transactions by 21% and the area rented to the poor by 63%. Increased property rights security is hence beneficial not only to asset owners, but also to those with whom they might interact in the market.     

浅析知识产权保护中混合策略纳什均衡模型的应用

知识产权保护不但受制于立法的完善和执法的力度,而且取决于自觉维权的意识和守法的环境。我国企业和科研机构知识产权保护意识薄弱,缺乏维护自身合法权益的能力,尊重他人知识产权的观念尚未形成社会主流。本文运用博弈论方法,分析了一个知识产权保护博弈案例中的混合策略纳什均衡解,得出从增加知识产权主体自觉维权意识和加大侵权者成本两方面实现知识产权有效保护的结论。     

Informal sector: The credit market channel

We build a model of firms' choice between formality and informality. Complying with costly registration procedures allows the firms to benefit from key public goods, enforcement of property rights and contracts, that make the participation in the formal credit market possible. In a moral hazard framework with credit rationing, their decision is shaped by the interaction between the cost of entry into formality, and the relative efficiency of formal versus informal credit mechanisms and their related institutional arrangements. The model is consistent with existing stylized facts on the determinants of informality.     

Informal sector: The credit market channel

We build a model of firms' choice between formality and informality. Complying with costly registration procedures allows the firms to benefit from key public goods, enforcement of property rights and contracts, that make the participation in the formal credit market possible. In a moral hazard framework with credit rationing, their decision is shaped by the interaction between the cost of entry into formality, and the relative efficiency of formal versus informal credit mechanisms and their related institutional arrangements. The model is consistent with existing stylized facts on the determinants of informality.     

Property Rights, Renewable Resources and Economic Development

This paper analyzes the role of endogenous property rights in the development of an open resource-based economy. I incorporate renewable resources and endogenous decisions on property rights into a convex growth model with the formal and informal sectors. I find that along the transition path to steady state, property rights enforcement is not constant but improves with time as well as involves intermediate property rights specification (between open access and perfect property rights). International trade and labor market are driving these endogenous changes. Property rights improve with favorable terms of trade when the economy exports resource services and stronger property rights help maintain the resource stock by deterring illegal harvest. This pushes labor away from the informal harvest sector toward greater participation in the formal sector of the economy. In turn, more labor participation in the formal sector along with capital formation increase the country’s output and consumption. Overall, with an open economy and well-functioning institutions, renewable resources have a positive impact on economic growth.     

论登记对抗主义在物权变动中形成的利益冲突

物权变动登记时抗主义试图结合公示的公信力,让物权变动昭告天下.其本质上是意思主义.这就使得对抗主义在努力兼得意思主义和公示实质主义两种模式之优点的同时,也带来了两种模式联体作用所产生的矛盾效果:有对抗力的物权与无对抗力的物权同时存在于同一物.两个物权皆系依法取得,都是适格法权,理应受同等保护,然而基于标的物的不可分割性,两个物权必然相克,损害物权的静态安全和动态安全,并实际上对恶意串通予以不当激励,形成尖锐的利益冲突.应当理顺我国物权变动制度的逻辑体系,统一采用登记生效主义.     

Property Rights,Public Enforcement,and Growth

We study the link between public enforcement of property rights, innovation investments, and economic growth in an endogenous growth framework with an expanding set of product varieties. We find that a government can assure positive equilibrium growth through public employment in the enforcement of property rights, if the economic environment is sufficiently favorable to growth and/or if public enforcement is sufficiently effective. However, in terms of welfare, an equilibrium path without property‐rights protection and growth might be preferable. In this case, the enforcement of property rights involves too much reallocation of labor from production and research towards the public sector.     

On the dual nature of weak property rights

In the natural-resource literature, conventional wisdom holds that weak property rights will cause a resource to be over-exploited. This is because weak property rights are typically perceived as a problem of input exclusion – or theft of un-extracted resources. We present evidence to the effect that weak property rights often take the form of contestable outputs – or output theft – and that this has an impact on resource use. We propose a model of resource use under generally weak property rights – or weak state presence – when resource users face the dual problem of input exclusion and output appropriation. We show that introducing the possibility that outputs be contested acts as an output tax, with the added twist that resource users effectively determine the tax level. This tax has a depressive effect on input use. Whether the resource is under- or over-exploited depends on the relative severity of output appropriation and input exclusion problems. Increasing enforcement measures against theft may lead to severe resource overuse. Efficiency considerations require to account not only for direct resource input use, but also for thieves’ efforts and gains as well as the costs of enforcement against theft and trespass.     

On the dual nature of weak property rights

In the natural-resource literature, conventional wisdom holds that weak property rights will cause a resource to be over-exploited. This is because weak property rights are typically perceived as a problem of input exclusion – or theft of un-extracted resources. We present evidence to the effect that weak property rights often take the form of contestable outputs – or output theft – and that this has an impact on resource use. We propose a model of resource use under generally weak property rights – or weak state presence – when resource users face the dual problem of input exclusion and output appropriation. We show that introducing the possibility that outputs be contested acts as an output tax, with the added twist that resource users effectively determine the tax level. This tax has a depressive effect on input use. Whether the resource is under- or over-exploited depends on the relative severity of output appropriation and input exclusion problems. Increasing enforcement measures against theft may lead to severe resource overuse. Efficiency considerations require to account not only for direct resource input use, but also for thieves’ efforts and gains as well as the costs of enforcement against theft and trespass.     

企业年金计划受益人的财产风险及保护问题探讨

受益人利益及其财产保护是企业年金计划的核心目标。基于信托和委托的企业年金治理结构和运作体系。既是受益人财产制度的创新，又是受益人财产风险的根源。由于利益主体目标函数的不一致和机会主义行为。会出现产权交易申的转移保留权、既得受益权、投资决定权、制衡监管权以及风险补偿权等问题，损害了受益人的利益及财产。因此，为了保护年金计划受益的利益及财产，需要界定利益主体间的权能结构关系，强化其合意行为并控制其机会主义行为，重视其间的利益捆绑机制，在信托和委托多重代理关系中寻求利益激励与约束的均衡点。     

Ethnic divisions,contract choice,and search costs in the Guatemalan land rental market

This paper shows how ethnic diversity in a context of weak property rights enforcement can result in market segmentation. The paper analyzes how contract enforcement problems affect the joint decision of partner and contract choice by landlords in the land rental market in Guatemala. The empirical method allows partner choice to be determined not only by the characteristics and relative scarcity of the specific landowner and tenant, but also by the characteristics of other potential tenants. The results show that landowners without formal title are more likely to restrict their partners to tenants from the same ethnic group. Partner choice is found to be less important for renting with interlinked land–labor contracts.     

Willingness to Pay for Forest Property Rights and the Value of Increased Property Rights Security

This paper studies the willingness to pay (WTP) for forest property rights in Viet Nam. We do so by asking respondents to estimate the value of two different forest property rights regimes where only the level of property security differs and all other forest plot characteristics are constant. We use this information to identify the value of the property rights security. Our results reveal that a significant number of individuals are willing to pay for an additional area of forestland but that the amount offered appears to be inadequate to compensate sellers, as very few land market transactions actually take place. The results further indicate that income relates positively to WTP, irrespective of forest property regime. Wealth, age, and ethnicity also have an impact on the amount households are willing to pay. As expected, there was a significant mark-up on the more secure right. Econometric estimates of the difference between the WTP for secure and insecure property rights show that a higher level of female education, and household age decrease the difference between the two WTP measures while the difference tends to increase as income improves. This has important policy implications, as it indicates that households tend to evaluate the property rights institutions differently.     

Economic Integration in the Caribbean Community: A Problem of Institutional Adjustment

Law and the economy co-evolve. John R. Commons demonstrated this co-evolution in the transformation of the legal definition of property from physical property to intangible property or the exchange-value of anything realized through transactions. Reasonable transactions required informed participation by parties. The "fetish of liquidity" in the secondary mortgage market fostered by federal laws, favoring mortgage-backed securities, converted the transaction into intangible property. The debtor was no longer the customer of the bank but an obligor to nameless investors uninterested in his/her community. The secondary mortgage market deviated from Commons's standard for reasonable transactions because investors and home buyers were ignorant of the rights, duties, liberties, and exposures of the transactions. We examine the economic outcomes produced by these legal changes in Nevada, and the endogenous forces ignited by these practices in terms of foreclosures and failing communities.     

Governance during Social Transformations: Challenges for Africa

The governance advice that is offered to Africa usually identifies a list of ‘good governance’ goals like stable property rights, a rule of law, low corruption and government accountability as preconditions for development. These goals are difficult to implement not only because they are expensive public goods but in addition their enforcement is typically at variance with powerful interests in the political settlements of developing countries. The historical evidence and much institutional theory suggests that during their social transformations successful developing countries had a different set of ‘developmental’ or ‘growth-enhancing’ governance capabilities that enabled their states to support critical property rights transformations and assist firms in acquiring and learning to use new technology. The institutions and policies they used differed because their political and institutional starting points were different. There are therefore no blueprints for Africa or anywhere else, but certainly the good governance menu is unrealistic. Rather African countries have to experiment and develop institutional and policy solutions that work in their context and which are appropriate for transforming property rights and accelerating technology adoption.     

Entry,reputation and intellectual property rights enforcement

We examine how reputation concerns induce a multinational to partly withhold its entry into a developing country under weak intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement. Equilibrium IPR violations are shown to arise only in the presence of such concerns. Holding constant a multinational's incentive to innovate, better IPR enforcement encourages entry but reduces social welfare. The multinational's incentive to innovate may be inversely U‐shaped in the strength of IPR enforcement. If timed properly, however, stronger IPR enforcement can foster innovation without compromising social welfare. Testable implications concerning observable IPR violations are derived.     

Usury,Market Power and Poverty Traps: A Study of Rural Credit in 1930s’ China

This paper studies the cross-regional variation of interest rates in China in the 1930s. Based on county-level data from the Buck (1941) rural surveys, we examine factors that may have influenced rural interest rates in pre-1949 China. Since the quality of institutions that define property rights and facilitate contract enforcement is important for such transactions as land tenancy arrangements, we treat land tenancy rate (or percentage of owner-farmers) as a proxy for institutional quality. Contrary to the popular belief among historians and economists that usury or high interest rates caused persistent poverty, we find that while the monopoly-exploitation hypothesis has little explanatory power, a region’s institutional quality and income level are persistent and significant determinants of interest rates. Thus, poverty is a key driver of high rates of interest. Economic growth and the development of market institutions are crucial for lowering high interest rates and combating usury.     

Enforcement of Property Rights and Underdevelopment

The authors formalize the role of legal infrastructure in economic development in a general‐equilibrium model with endogenously determined property rights enforcement. The mutual importance of property rights protection and market production is illustrated by the model's multiplicity of equilibria. In one equilibrium, property rights are enforced, and market activity unhampered. In the other, property rights are not enforced, discouraging economic activity, which leaves the economy without the resources and the incentives to enforce property rights. Even identically endowed economies may therefore find themselves in very different equilibria.