Marginal Cost Pricing and Eminent Domain

There are three separate strands of literature in economics that are related to the efficiency of takings under eminent domain: one addresses the question of optimal compensation for properties that are taken, a second inquires how governments might learn the values of properties that they consider taking, while a third analyzes solutions to the problem of land assembly. This essay reviews these strands of literature and argues that the principle of marginal cost pricing can be used as a unifying principle for integrating them