We empirically quantify the sensitivity of investments to uncertain property rights by drawing upon the Northern Pacific's massive land grant and the ensuing political and legal battle that generated significant uncertainty to title. To overcome the empirical challenge that property rights and...

The public trust doctrine is an ancient doctrine of public property law that governs sovereign stewardship of natural resources. The doctrine both promote public access to trust resources and requires sovereign protection of them for the benefit of the public, including future generations. The...

This short paper written for a symposium issue of the Property Law Review on "Research Methods in Property Law," provides a concise introduction to the ways in which property rights (and duties) structure economic relations and, in turn, are influenced by economic considerations. Among the...

This article discusses and analyzes the sources and methods used by Leon Duguit in constructing the social-obligation or social-function norm of property as set out in an influential series of lectures in Buenos Aires published in 1912. The work of Henri Hayem has been underappreciated in the...

Housing of limited property rights, including so-called "small-property-rights housing" in the countryside (SLPR housing) and affordable housing program in the city (ALPR housing), is an important feature of China's housing policy. This paper presents an integrated analysis of ALPR and SLPR...

The institutional and ecological structure of Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” appears deceptively simple: the open-access pasture eventually will be overexploited and degraded unless (i) it is privatized, (ii) the government regulates access and use, or (iii) the users themselves impose...

This Article considers the future interaction of environmental regulation and private property rights, with an emphasis on climate change issues. It concludes that environmental issues not satisfactorily resolved at the federal level will lead to more state and local regulation that impinges on...

This Article identifies, justifies, and explains the parameters of a largely ignored but important category of cases - what is here called “preventive adjudication.” In this category of cases, courts offer opinions without any “command” to the parties, and these opinions are meant to...

In "The Tragedy of the Commons," Garrett Hardin argues that those who can use a resource for free consume more of it than they would if they had to pay for it. Public resources eventually collapse because people overuse them. Hardin’s widely accepted argument seems correct as far as it goes,...

Indian agricultural system has faced serious problems of environmental and ecosystem degradation since colonial periods. Attempts of technology transfer in green revolution for food security resulted in increased production of rice, wheat etc. in selected regions, nevertheless it has resulted...