Property Rights Assignment: Conflict and the Implementability of Rules

The paper studies the assignment of property rights. By assignment I mean a social mechanism that transfers a valuable resource from an “unowned” state to an “owned” state (for example, a first-possession rule). I argue that any assignment mechanism faces an implementation constraint with one exception, namely the assignment by conflict. I characterize this constraint and show that under some conditions population growth facilitates rule-based assignments because appropriation by conflict becomes more costly. In other cases, however, this effect is reversed. The model may give some insights regarding the emergence and the disappearance of the open-field system in medieval Europe which, paradoxically, both have been attributed to population growth. This paper is dedicated to Horst Hegmann. For helpful and insightful comments in discussions and on the paper I thank Roderick Hay, Horst Hegmann, Christopher Kingston, Guy Kirsch, Krishna Ladha, Marc Law, Anton Miglo, Douglass North, and John Nye. I also thank the editor Amihai Glazer and two anonymous referees for their comments. The usual disclaimer applies.