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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 present work is a collection of essays. The first one is new, written for the collection. Then follows 7 separate essays of varying age. They are named * On the classifications of property rights * A property rights perspective on institutional change in the welfare state * On the nature of...

In the past decade, the legal and economic literature on blockchain technology and its applications has flourished. This new technology holds great promise for enhancing the efficiency of contracting. Building on the classic Coase theorem, blockchain as a decentralised mechanism of...

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...

Water is critical not only to economic progress and sustainable development but most importantly, to human survival. Yet, the way water is valued suggests an inexhaustible supply, when the opposite is true. This paper examines if water rights in the Philippines are underpriced and looks at how...

There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...