Formal private property rights (“FPPRs”) have been advocated as an important prerequisite to economic development: a legal right to property ownership motivates economic players to engage in economic activities when these activities yield property interests, and this, in turn, contributes to...

The modern state has monopolized the legitimate use of force. This concept is twofold. First, the state is empowered with enforcement rights; second, the rights of the individuals are (partly) restricted. In a simple model of property rights with appropriation and defense activity, we show that...

The modern state has monopolized the legitimate use of force. This concept is twofold. First, the state is empowered with enforcement rights; second, the rights of the individuals are (partly) restricted. In a simple model of property rights with appropriation and defense activity, we show that...

Purpose - The study extends the debate on finance versus institutions in the promotion of investment documented by Acemoglu and Johnson (2005), Ali (2013) and Asongu (2014). We assess the effects of various components of governance on private investment, notably: political, economic and...

We study a laboratory social dilemma game in which incentives to steal from others lead to the socially inefficient diversion of resources from production unless the members of a given mini-society can abide by norms of non-theft or engage in low cost collective protection of their members'...

We use adversarial corporate litigations between state owned and private owned firms in China to examine the strength of state provided formal institutions in protecting private property rights. Based on a unique hand collected data from 3,323 court rulings and 272 settlements on Chinese listed...

The modern state has monopolized the legitimate use of force. This concept is twofold. First, the state is empowered with enforcement rights; second, the rights of the individuals are (partly) restricted. In a simple model of property rights with appropriation and defense activity, we show that...

The purpose of this chapter is to re-examine the conventional wisdom regarding the impact of increased levels of secure property rights on the level of income per capita across the world. Rather than focus on increasing the level of security for property rights, economic development involves...