The contributions of Harold Demsetz offer key insights on how property rights and transaction costs shape economic organization. This guides our comparison of agricultural organization in two comparable regions, the Argentine Pampas and the US Midwest. In the US, land was distributed in small...

Tile drainage was first demonstrated in the United States in 1835 as a method to adapt agriculture to excessive water in soils. Subsequently, innovations in coordinated drainage enterprises, engineering, and tile manufacture led to drainage over large portions of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast....

Property rights are the most fundamental institution in any society. They determine who has decision-making authority over assets and who bears the costs and benefits of those decisions. They assign ownership, wealth, political influence, and social standing. They make markets possible; define...

In this paper we examine land reform policies and their implications for violent conflict over land and resource use in the Brazilian Amazon. We identify the protagonists (land owners and squatters), derive their incentives to use violence, and show the role of legal inconsistencies as a basis...