We build a simple formal model of governance. Investments and control rights over assets and labor are fully contractible, but final production decisions are ex ante uncontractible, and ex post negotiations are inefficient. If sunk costs are low, suppliers own assets and trade takes the form of...

Since China's implementation of the reform and opening-up policy in 1978, Inner Mongolia's pastoral areas have faced challenges such as population outflow, aging, and the emptying of villages. To address these issues, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government promoted the "Collective...

This Brief examines the challenges in implementing laws protecting women's land rights in Sub-Saharan Africa. While some progress has been made in enacting legal protections, remaining discriminatory legislation, weak enforcement mechanisms, and conflicting rules and norms, notably, those...

Direct evidence on variations in work incentives across different property rights systems remains scarce. This paper examines absenteeism among individuals employed in worker cooperatives - firms that are ultimately controlled by their workforce. By leveraging employment data matched with sick...

In 2020 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revisited a spectrum allocation decision it made in 1999. The Agency found that frequencies set aside for specific technologies used by vehicles - Intelligent Transportation Services (ITS) - had been left largely unused. It crafted new rules,...

We synthesize research on conflict as a fundamental economic phenomenon, arguing that the implications of the "dark side of self-interest" have received insufficient attention in economics. We define conflict as interactions where parties choose costly inputs that are adversarially combined...

The creation mandate is a call for humankind to be responsible stewards of the resources God entrusts to us as we endeavor to meet the needs of each human being and to live in shalom. The earth is endowed with finite resources, but humanity has unlimited wants, which means that trade-offs must...

Land is the major source of income for most African households, particularly those engaged in agriculture. In the region, property rights over land are largely governed by informal customary systems. These systems, while deeply rooted in tradition, may not always provide sufficient security of...

This paper examines whether granting property inheritance rights to women improves their participation in politics as election candidates in India. In patriarchal societies like India, conservative gender norms often discourage women from active political engagement, reinforced by social...

This paper applies a mental model approach to study the role of tenure security in farmers’ decisionmaking on agricultural investment in Uganda. We investigate the role that both perceived tenure security and formal land rights, measured by the possession of land certificates, play. Our focus...

Status-seeking exists in all societies but different societies value status differently. How does the importance of social status affect the mode of status-seeking? I consider a game in which status can be achieved through productive effort that increases wealth or through a contest in which...

The theory of interventionism argues that government interventions are inherently destabilizing, which in turn helps explain the growth of government. I argue that the theory of interventionism is also useful for explaining the process of economic growth. At first, an intervention reduces living...

I measure the effect of contract changes on selected fishery resources in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). I apply the difference-in-difference approach to commercial fishery panel data. My cross-sectional units use the red snapper and grouper-tilefish fisheries in the GoM as treatment groups and the...

This paper investigates the formation of production and trading networks in economies with general interdependencies and complex property rights. We argue that the right to exclude, a core tenet of property, grants asset owners local monopoly power that is amplified by an economy's endogenous...

Recent studies show that significant historical events, particularly the slave trade, had an impact on contemporary African economies. The transmission mechanisms, however, are not well established. The purpose of the present paper is to consider two such transmission mechanisms, notably...

The article examines the peculiarities of the exercise of freedom of contract and freedom of entrepreneurial activity by state-owned enterprises in the USSR under the conditions of the state monopoly in the production of property goods, planned regulation of production and administrative-command...