Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T12:34:38.414Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How should we model property? Thinking with my critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2017

BENITO ARRUÑADA
BENITO ARRUÑADA*
Affiliation:
Pompeu Fabra University and Barcelona GSE, Barcelona, Spain
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Inspired by comments made by Allen (2017), Lueck (2017), Ménard (2017) and Smith (2017), this response clarifies and deepens the analysis in Arruñada (2017a). Its main argument is that to deal with the complexity of property we must abstract secondary elements, such as the physical dimensions of some types of assets, and focus on the interaction between transactions. This sequential-exchange framework captures the main problem of property in the current environment of impersonal markets. It also provides criteria to compare private and public ordering, as well as to organize public solutions that enable new forms of private ordering. The analysis applies the lessons in Coase (1960) to property by not only comparing realities but also maintaining his separate definition of property rights and transaction costs. However, it replaces his contractual, single-exchange, framework for one in which contracts interact, causing exchange externalities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 815 - 827
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Thanks to Douglas W. Allen, Mircea Epure, Dean Lueck, Claude Ménard, Nicolás Nogueroles, Cándido Paz-Ares, Henry E. Smith and Giorgio Zanarone for their comments. This work received support from the Spanish Government through grant ECO2014-57131-R.

References

Allen, D. W. (2000), ‘Transaction costs’, in Bouckaert, B. and de Geest, G. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, vol. 1, Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar, 893–926.Google Scholar
Allen, D. (2017), ‘Property as sequential exchange: definition and language issues’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137417000091.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (1996), ‘The economics of notaries’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (1), 5–37.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2002), ‘A Transaction cost view of title insurance and its role in different legal systems’, Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, 27 (4), 582–601.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2003), ‘Property enforcement as organized consent’, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 19 (2), 401–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2007), ‘Market and institutional determinants in the regulation of conveyancers’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 23 (2), 93–116.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2010a), Formalización de empresas: Costes frente a eficiencia institucional, Thomson Reuters, Cizur Menor.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2010b), ‘Institutional support of the firm: a theory of business registries’, Journal of Legal Analysis, 2 (2), 525–76.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2011), ‘Mandatory accounting disclosure by small private companies’, European Journal of Law and Economics, 32 (3), 377–413.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2012), Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange: Theory and Policy of Contractual Registries, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2015), ‘The titling role of possession’, in Chang, Y.-C. (ed.), The Law and Economics of Possession, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 207–33.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2016), ‘How Rome enabled impersonal markets’, Explorations in Economic History, 61, 68–84.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2017a), ‘Property as sequential exchange: the forgotten limits of private contract’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137416000473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2017b), ‘Blockchain's struggle to deliver impersonal exchange’, Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arruñada, B. (2017c), ‘The economics of land demarcation’, contribution to the 18th Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, Washington DC, 21 March.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. and Manzanares, C. A. (2016), ‘The tradeoff between ex ante and ex post transaction costs: evidence from legal opinions’, Berkeley Business Law Journal, 13 (1), 217–55.Google Scholar
Arruñada, B. and Hansen, S. (2015), ‘Organizing public good provision: lessons from managerial accounting’, International Review of Law and Economics, 42, 185–91.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1960), ‘The Problem of Social Cost’, Journal of Law and Economics, 3 (1), 1–44.Google Scholar
Coase, R. H. (1999), ‘Speech to ISNIE: The Task of the Society’, opening address to the Annual Conference of the International Society of New Institutional Economics, Washington DC, September 17, available at https://www.coase.org/coasespeech.htm (accessed 10 October 2014).Google Scholar
Dnes, A. and Lueck, D. (2009), ‘Asymmetric information and the law of servitudes governing land’, Journal of Legal Studies, 38 (1), 89–120 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansmann, H. and Mattei, U. (1998), ‘The functions of trust law: a comparative legal and economic analysis’, New York University Law Review, 73, 434–79.Google Scholar
Harris, R. (2000), Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720–1844, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Libecap, G. D. and Lueck, D. (2011), ‘The demarcation of land and the role of coordinating property institutions’, Journal of Political Economy 119 (3): 426–67.Google Scholar
Lueck, D. (2017), ‘Property institutions and the limits of Coase’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137417000194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ménard, C. (2017), ‘What approach to property rights?’ Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137417000145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrill, T. W. and Smith, H. E. (2000), ‘Optimal standardization in the law of property: the numerus clausus principle’, Yale Law Journal 110 (1), 1–70.Google Scholar
Merrill, T. W. and Smith, H. E. (2011), ‘Making Coasean property more Coasean’, Journal of Law and Economics, 54 (4), S77–S104.Google Scholar
Ostrom, E. (1990), Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, H. E. (2011), ‘Standardization in property law’, in Ayotte, K. and Smith, H. E. (eds), Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar, 148–73.Google Scholar
Smith, H. (2017) ‘Property as complex interaction’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137417000157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar