Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T01:27:35.410Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Evolution of Individual Property Rights in Massachusetts Agriculture, 17th–19th Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Barry C. Field*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Get access

Extract

Economic studies of changes in property rights institutions have been hampered by the use of ideal types. Conceptually we usually identify a small number of discrete property rights regimes, e.g., “open-access,” “common property” and “private property,” and then try to comprehend our data in terms of these categories. But in the so-called real world ideal types are seldom encountered. Instead we usually see complex mixtures of assorted arrangements, all growing or declining or mixing or separating at different rates and in different directions. Models containing nothing but ideal-type concepts are ill-suited to the analysis of such a reality. In this paper I want to examine a case of institutional change where one institutional regime was transformed into another; not by a discrete jump from one system to another, but through a gradual process of institutional adaptation and transition.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1985 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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 Martha Kimball and Cleve Willis for comments on previous drafts of this paper.

References

Adams, Herbert B. The Germanic Origins of New England Towns, Johns Hopkins University Press, Studies in Historical and Political Science, Volume I, No. 2, 1882.Google Scholar
Akagi, Roy Hidemichi. The Town Proprietors of the New England Colonies, Philadelphia, 1924.Google Scholar
Alchian, A. A., and Demsetz, H.Production, Information Costs, and Economic Organization.” Amer. Econ. Rev. 62:5(December 1972):777795.Google Scholar
Allen, David Grayson. In English Ways: The Movement of Societies and the Transferal of English Local Law and Customs to Massachusetts Bay in the Seventeenth Century, Chapel Hill, 1981.Google Scholar
Anderson, T. L., and Hill, P. J.The Evolution of Property Rights: A Study of the American West.” J. Law and Econ. 18 (1975):163179.Google Scholar
Babson, Joseph E. History of Town of Gloucester Cape Ann, Gloucester, 1972.Google Scholar
Banks, Charles Edward. The History of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume II, Town Annals, Baltimore, 1966.Google Scholar
Bidwell, Percy Wells, and Falconer, John I. History of Agriculture in the United States, 1620–1860, New York, 1941.Google Scholar
Brooks, Charles, and Usher, James M. History of the Town of Medford, Boston, 1886.Google Scholar
Charters and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay, Boston, 1814.Google Scholar
Cheung, Steven N.S.Transactions Costs, Risk Aversion, and the Choice of Contractual Arrangements.” J. Law and Econ. 12:1(April 1969):2342.Google Scholar
Cornes, Richard, and Sandler, Todd. “On Commons and Tragedies.” Amer. Econ. Rev. 73 (1983):787792.Google Scholar
Currier, John J. History of Newbury, Massachusetts, 1635–1902, Boston, 1902.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, P., and Heal, G. M. Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources, Cambridge University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Davis, Lance, and North, Douglass. Institutional Change in American Economic Growth, Cambridge University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Demsetz, H.Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” Amer. Econ. Rev. 57 (1967):347359.Google Scholar
Di Stefano, Mark J.Fence Viewers and Division Fences in Vermont: New Expectations.” Vermont Law Review 8:2(Fall 1983):433467.Google Scholar
Records, Town of Duxbury, from 1642 to 1770, Plymouth, 1893.Google Scholar
Field, Barry C.The Optimal Commons.” Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 67 (1985):364367.Google Scholar
Field, Barry C., and Martha, A. Kimball (a). “Managing Common Property Resources: Agricultural Land in Colonial New England.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Association, Cornell University, 1984.Google Scholar
Field, Barry C., and Kimball, Martha A. (b). “Agricultural Land Institutions in Colonial New England.” Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Massachusetts, 1984.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence M. American Law, Norton, 1984.Google Scholar
Harris, Marshall. Origin of the Land Tenure System in the United States, Ames, Iowa, 1953.Google Scholar
Hayami, Yujiro, and Kikuchi, Masao. Asian Village Economy at the Crossroads, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Hudson, Alfred Sereno. The History of Sudbury, Massachusetts, Sudbury, Massachusetts, 1889.Google Scholar
Johnson, Ronald N., and Libecap, Gary D.Contracting Problems and Regulations: The Case of the Fishery.” Amer. Econ. Rev. 72:5(December 1982):10051022.Google Scholar
Konig, David Thomas. Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts: Essex County, 1629–1692, Chapel Hill, 1979.Google Scholar
Landes, William A., and Posner, Richard A.Adjudication as a Private Good.” J. Legal Studies 8 (1979):235284.Google Scholar
Lemon, James T.Spatial Order: Households in Local Communities and Regions,” in Colonial British America, Essays in the New History of the Early Modern Era, ed. Greene, Jack P. and Pole, J. R., Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984, pp. 86122.Google Scholar
Libecap, Gary D., and Wiggins, Steven N.Contractual Responses to the Common Pool: Prorationing of Crude Oil Production.” Amer. Econ. Rev. 74:1(March 1984):8798.Google Scholar
Lord, Priscilla Sawyer, and Gemage, Virginia Clegg. Marblehead The Spirit of ‘76 Lives Here, Philadelphia, 1972.Google Scholar
Town Records of Manchester, 1636-1736. Salem, Massachusetts, 1889.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Thomas, Paul. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History, New York, 1973.Google Scholar
Phalen, Harold R. History of the Town of Acton, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954.Google Scholar
Priest, George L.The Common Law Process and the Selection of Efficient Rules.” J. Legal Studies 6 (1977):6582.Google Scholar
Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England “Colony Records,” ed. Shurtleff, N., 4 Volumes, Boston, 1853.Google Scholar
Runge, C. F.Common Property Externalities: Isolation, Assurance and Resource Depletion in a Traditional Grazing Context.” Amer. J. Agr. Econ. 63:4(November 1981):595606.Google Scholar
Ruttan, Vernon W., and Hayami, Yujiro. “Toward a Theory of Induced Institutional Innovation.” J. Development Studies 20 (1984):203223.Google Scholar
Schotter, A. The Economic Theory of Social Institutions, Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Scott, Anthony. “Does Government Create Real Property Rights? Private Interests in Natural Resources.” Discussion Paper 84-26, Department of Economics, University of British Columbia, 1984.Google Scholar
Sheldon, George. A History of Deerfield, Massachusetts, New Hampshire Publishing Company, in collaboration with the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1972.Google Scholar
Watertown Records. 4 Volumes, Watertown, Massachusetts, 1894.Google Scholar
Williamson, Oliver E.The Modern Corporation: Origins, Evolution, and Attributes.” J. Econ. Lit. 19:4(December 1981):15371568.Google Scholar