This paper explains the structure of the law governing servitudes on land using key ideas from the economics of information, focusing on easements and covenants and the rules governing their formation and application. We develop a model of land markets that incorporates asymmetric information...

In this essay I examine the economic history of bison-hunting societies as an application of Diamond's collapse thesis. I merge the theory of property rights with the theory of renewable resource use and argue that changes in property rights regimes, in market forces, and changes in...

This paper combines the property rights approach of Barzel with models from renewable resource and evolutionary economics to examine the domestication of wild animals. Wild animals are governed by weak property rights to stocks and individuals while domesticated animals are governed by private...

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...