Many modern-day Americans think about legal rights in a dualistic fashion. "Personal rights" fall on one side of the divide, while "property rights" fall on the other, and these categories of rights often are deemed to be separate and distinct. This essay, which introduces a symposium on...

Most U.S. states passed married women's property and earnings acts between 1850 and 1920. These acts gave married women the right to own and control their separate property, and to own their market earnings. We examine the acts' effects on investment by families in girls' human capital. Standard...

There is a large body of research in economics and law suggesting that the legal origins of a country—that is, whether its legal regime is based on English common law or French, German, or Nordic civil law—profoundly impacts a range of outcomes. However, the exact relationship between legal...

Property disputes between de facto partners have been the focus of much attention in England, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In this paper, the author compares the approaches adopted in each of these countries for dealing with such disputes. The author concludes that English courts have...

This article explains the concepts applying to property transfer on death under the New Zealand Property (Relationships) Act 1976. The authors discuss the relevant provisions of the Act, along with the tensions underlying the Act, such as that between the desire of executors and administrators...

This article considers the New Zealand High Court decision of Re Russell: Public Trust v Whyman, which was concerned with the death provisions of the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (PRA). The author analyses the decision in detail, and concludes that it reveals a disturbing level confusion...

Indigenous governments in Canada are increasingly authorized to adopt laws that convert communally held lands to individual fee simple. They will convert title to fee simple in order to obtain the economic benefits commonly associated with private ownership and its securitization. However,...

Property is complex but nonetheless, decisions-makers need to make decisions relating to property all the time. This paper uses both traditional law and economics and behavioral law and economics to theoretically consider how decision-makers may make decisions with respect to property. It...

In their seminal 1972 article, "Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral," Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed proposed an analytic framework for comparing entitlements protected by property rules and liability rules. Their article has become one of the...

In his pioneering work on transaction costs, Ronald Coase presupposed a picture of property as a bundle of government-prescribed use rights. This picture is not only not essential to what Coase was trying to do, but its limitations emerge when we apply Coase’s central insights to analyze the...