A market economy and civil society require specification and certification of property rights. Where property rights are recognized, allowable transactions are also institutionally specified. In this paper we describe and analyze the earliest documented transfer of property rights to land, in...

Rent seeking is often studied with reference to a contemporaneous rent evaluated at a point in time. We study the social cost of rent seeking when rents endure over time, but may have to be re-contested because of imperfect rent protection, or may disappear because of deregulation. The present...