This essay argues that, rather than being a constitutional bulwark against environmental regulation, certain kinds of property rights can actually ease constitutional barriers created by current Supreme Court doctrine. These environmental property rights (EPRs) are either rights to prevent...

The Supreme Court decisions in Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill on the constitutionality of physician-assisted suicide leave much to be desired. Although this topic has been beaten to death in the literature, the vast majority of commentators have either missed the main point entirely...

Investments in reforestation and reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) have the potential to mitigate greenhouse gas accumulation; sustain ecosystem services that support human and ecological communities; and generate sustainable livelihoods for poor, forest-dependent...

Public policy often regards pollution and other measures of poor environmental quality as public bads that result from market failure and require government intervention through regulatory policies and more stringent environmental standards. In this article, I argue that pollution and...

Social and cultural determinants of economic institutions and outcomes have come to the forefront of economic research. We introduce religiosity, measured as the share for which religion is important in daily life, to explain institutional quality in the form of property rights and the rule of...

Among economists, the view that precisely defined and reliably enforced property rights are generally conducive to economic growth has been quasi-unanimous. But recently, some authors have argued that the relationship is more complex than previously acknowledged: property rights reforms might,...

This paper contrasts the determinants of entrepreneurial entry and high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) surveys for 42 countries over the period 1998-2005, we analyse how institutional environment and entrepreneurial characteristics affect...

Using self-made billionaire entrepreneurs in China as a proxy for large entrepreneurs, we examine the impact of institutional environment quality on the longevity of such entrepreneurs. While property rights institutions and contracting institutions are important in explaining macroeconomic...