Efficiency, Equity and Inalienability

Abstract

Property to the lawyer is a “bundle of rights”. Yet in writing on the law and economics of property rights only a few of the many possible “bundles” have been analyzed with any thoroughness. Recent work on the economics of property rights emphasizes the importance of a clear, well-defined set of rights to facilitate trading and accountability.1 This research emphasizes the importance of assigning rights to valuable resources to particular owners, but it has not generally gone on to raise more subtle and complex questions about whether entitlements should ever be limited by inalienability rules which restrict the entitlement’s transferability, ownership and use.