I provide a justification of intellectual property rights as a source of static efficiency gains in manufacturing, rather than dynamic benefits from greater innovation. I develop a property-rights model of a supply relationship with two dimensions of non-contractible investment. In equilibrium,...

This chapter proposes two hypotheses on the publicity requirement and the limitations of possession to provide information for legal titling. It then tests these hypotheses by examining how legal systems deal with possession in movable and immovable property, and comparing actual and documentary...

I analyze the basis of the market economy in classical Rome, from the perspective of personal-versus-impersonal exchange and focusing on the role of the state in providing market-enabling institutions. I start by reviewing the central conflict in all exchanges between those holding and those...

Adopting a simplistic view of Coase (1960), most economic analyses of property rights disregard both the key advantage that legal property rights (that is, in rem rights) provide to rightholders in terms of enhanced enforcement, and the difficulties they pose to acquirers in terms of information...

Governments and international development agencies often fail in their efforts to build and reform property and company registries. They implement misguided policies rooted in a poor understanding of the role that registries play in the modern economy. This work aims to remedy this situation by...

This Article breaks new ground toward contractual and institutional innovation in models of homeownership, equity building, and mortgage enforcement. Inspired by recent developments in the affordable housing sector and other types of public financing schemes, we suggest extending institutional...

This chapter analyzes titling institutions and the regulation of supporting conveyancing services. After examining the tradeoff of enforcement benefits and consent costs posed by property rights, it explains how different public titling systems (privacy, recording and registration) try to solve...

In this paper we carefully link knowledge flows to and from a firm’s innovation process with this firm’s investment decisions. Three types of investments are considered: investments in applied research, investments in basic research, and investments in intellectual property protection. Only...

We study a dynamic general equilibrium model where innovation takes the form of the introduction of new goods whose production requires skilled workers. Innovation is followed by a costly process of standardization, whereby these new goods are adapted to be produced using unskilled labor. Our...

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights, market integration shifts technical change in favor of rich nations. Through this channel, free trade may amplify international income differences. At the same time, integration with countries where...