Why can some governments credibly commit to the rule of law and protection of property rights while others cannot? A potential answer involves deep historical traditions of institutions that constrain rulers. We explore whether experiences with representative assemblies in medieval/early modern...

This study is a section from the Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA), commissioned by the European Commission, on the impacts of the Investment Chapter in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The Investment Chapter in CETA could encourage economic benefits...

Are there contemporary development effects of African resistance to European domination? This question is the primary issue addressed by this inquiry. We establish that African resistance has had adverse effects on post-colonial African development and discuss possible channels of such...

This study analyzes how prevailing institutional arrangements i.e., property rights, contracting rights, political institutions, and corporate governance practices affect privatized firms' performance, capital markets development, and economic growth. Most of the studies surveyed show that...

What threatens the property rights of business owners? And what makes these rights secure? This book transcends the conventional diagnosis of the issue in modern developing countries by moving beyond expropriation by the state ruler or by petty bureaucratic corruption. It identifies 'agent...

Free international migration has enormous benefits. But many argue that governments can legitimately restrict migration in order to protect the supposed “self-determination” of natives. Some claims of this type are based on group rights theories, which hold that members of a particular...

The modern conceptualisation of the absolute property right has been observed in the Two Treatises of Government by Locke. In the Commentaries of the Laws of England, Blackstone too had remarked on the characteristics of private property right. The paper critically appraises the compatibility of...

Brazil holds a large proportion of all indigenous land in the world, much of it in the Amazon. The rights of indigenous people to their land has been formally recognized since colonial times and was significantly strengthened in the 1988 Constitution, providing the legal basis for several...

Common property arrangements have long been considered inefficient and short lived, since they encourage high-productivity individuals to leave and shirking among those who stay. In contrast, kibbutzim | voluntary common property settlements in Israel | have lasted almost a century. Recently,...

In its current form, fair use doctrine provides a personal defense that applies narrowly to the specific use by the specific user. The landmark case of Google v. Oracle, currently pending before the Supreme Court, illustrates why this is problematic. Even if the Court were to rule that...