We examine Harold Demsetz's (1967) prediction that property rights would emerge and be refined once the benefits of doing so exceeded the costs. We follow the gradual development of property rights to subsurface oil and gas deposits in the United States through private and political negotiations...

We examine the potential inability of voluntary unitization to remedy common property losses associated with oil field development. Unlike the traditional literature, we show that if the field contains two (or more) substances that differ in kind (like oil and gas), then it is possible that...

Collective action to remedy the losses of open access to common-pool resources often is late and incomplete, extending rent dissipation. Examples include persistent over-exploitation of oil fields and ocean fisheries, despite general agreement that production constraints are needed. Transaction...