CONTRACTING FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS

Abstract

Property rights critically affect economic behavior and performance as well as determining who will be the economic actors and what will be the distribution of wealth in a society. LIbeap discusses the complexities of property rights formation and change. He examines the problems encountered in negotiations among claimants and the political and economic considerations that influence property rights arrangements. He uses esamples such as the histories of mineral rights, rights to range and timberland, and fishery and crude oil production rights in the US. He concludes that, in addition to an analysis of distributional outcomes, an examination of the details of the political bargaining underlying property rights contracts is essential to understanding why rights emerge as they do.