This volume joins a growing literature on institutional analysis by examining how particular property rights emerge or are modified. The gains from reducing common pool losses through the structure of property rights provide important incentives for institutional change. Common pool losses span those associated with classic open access resources, where no formal property rights exist and informal arrangements pose only limited constraints on behavior, to cases where formally defined property rights already are in place, but are too incomplete to prevent wasteful production practices. Although both existing informal property rules agreed to by the relevant parties or more formal, codified rights may be sufficient to channel behavior toward socially productive use of valuable resources, these status quo equilibria can be upset by changes in relative prices. Price changes through shifts in demand or supply conditions can generate greater competitive pressures for assets and thereby reduce ownership security. Depending on its extent, greater insecurity will lower time horizons in production decisions, reduce investment, and encourage too rapid exploitation.

Although the focus of the analysis has been on the political contracting behind four efforts to devise or to change property rights to natural resources in the United States, the implications of these studies can be applied to the broader examination of property rights institutions. In each of the cases, political bargaining involved both informal negotiations among claimants to devise local rules for resource use and lobbying to influence politicians and bureaucrats in legislation, court rulings, and administrative regulations regarding property rights.