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...

This chapter explores the connection between the rule of law and economic performance. First, we analyze the role of interjurisdictional competition, and how the rule of law emerged as a by-product of this competitive process, initially in Western Europe. Second, we discuss the role of...

This chapter explores the role of the rule of law in a market economy. The emergence of the rule of law is a precondition of not only political and economic liberty, but also economic growth and overall human progress. The presence, or lack thereof, of the rule of law determines whether human...

Partial takings allow the government to expropriate the parts of an asset it needs, leaving the owner the remainder. Both vital and common, partial takings present unique challenges to the standard rules of eminent domain. Partial takings may result in the creation of suboptimal, and even...

In environments where the legal system and market disciplinary forces are weak to enforce contracts, vertical integration is a means to overcome transaction difficulties. Yet, these weak institution environments are also characterised by high government interventions and even corruption....

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 concept of polycentricity was developed with two (related) goals in mind: (1) as a descriptive tool for understanding emergent social-institutional-political orders, especially emergent orders that lack a price system as a coordination device; and (2) as a normative policy tool for enabling...

Property institutions should ideally provide economic actors with certainty that their local choices about investment will not be unsettled by shifting political economic equilibria. We argue that for this to occur, political autonomy, administrative and enforcement capacity, political...

Economic geographers have long defined themselves in opposition to the abstract theoretical universe of economics, rather emphasizing the specificity of economic activities in the “real world.” To a large extent, this emphasis also characterizes the subfield of financial geography, which has...

Freedom of movement is one of the great issues of our time. Expanding opportunities for both international and internal migration can greatly expand freedom and opportunity for hundreds of millions of people. The same goes for expanding freedom of choice in the private sector. “Voting with...