Property Rights and Economic Development

This chapter develops a unified analytical framework, drawing on and extending the existing literatureon the subject, for studying the role of property rights in economic development. Itaddresses two fundamental and related questions concerning the relationship between propertyrights and economic activity. (i) What are the mechanisms through which property rightsaffect economic activity? (ii) What are the determinants of property rights? In answering these,it surveys some of the main empirical and theoretical ideas from the extensive literature onthe topic.[...]