This article develops and tests a theory of the institutions that make property rights viable, ensuring their enforcement, mobilizing the collateral value of assets, and promoting growth. In contrast to contractual rights, property rights are enforced in rem, being affected only with the consent...

We analyze empirically the allocation of rights and monetary incentives in automobile franchise contracts. All of these contracts substantially restrict the decision rights of dealers and grant manufacturers extensive rights to specify and enforce dealers' duties. The allocation of decision...

Business firms' formalization has been seen primarily as an entry barrier, which has often led to policies focused on simplifying formalities and creating minimalist company registries. This approach has been criticized on theoretical grounds for ignoring the tradeoff between ex ante...

The chapter analyzes the basis of the market economy in classical Rome, from the perspective of personal vs impersonal exchange and focusing on the role of the state in providing market-enabling institutions. It starts by reviewing the central conflict in all exchanges between those holding and...

This paper analyzes social choice with respect to the demarcation of land boundaries, distinguishing between physical and legal demarcation. In contrast with the influential “land administration” literature and the World Bank's policy guidelines, the analysis supports voluntary—instead of...

Inspired by comments made by Allen (2017), Lueck (2017), Ménard (2017) and Smith (2017), this response clarifies and deepens the analysis in Arruñada (2017a). Its main argument is that to deal with the complexity of property we must abstract secondary elements, such as the physical dimensions...

The paper identifies what value blockchain adds to the contractual and property processes, exploring its potential and analyzing the main difficulties it is facing. It argues that, contrary to naive conceptions that proclaim the end of intermediaries and state involvement, blockchain...

Under team production, those who monitor individual productivity are usually the only ones compensated with a residual that varies with the performance of the team. This pattern is efficient, as is shown by the prevalence of conventional firms, except for small teams and when specialized...

We argue that in the development of the Western legal system, cognitive departures are the main determinant of the optimal degree of judicial rule-making. Judicial discretion, seen here as the main distinguishing feature between both legal systems, is introduced in civil law jurisdictions to...

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...