Bitcoin is an electronic payment system which allows for value to be transferred from one person to another using electronic coins known as bitcoins. Title to bitcoins is recorded using a distributed electronic database known as the blockchain. This paper considers the status of bitcoin as a...

Indigenous governments in Canada are increasingly authorized to adopt laws that convert communally held lands to individual fee simple. They will convert title to fee simple in order to obtain the economic benefits commonly associated with private ownership and its securitization. However,...

As a consequence of the enormous amount of gold and silver coming from the overseas territories of the Spanish empire, the Spanish scholastics identified the causal relationships which are responsible of the economic growth as private property, contracts, public budgets, fiscal policy,...

This Article offers a theory of secured credit that aims to answer fundamental questions that have long percolated in the bankruptcy and secured transactions literatures. Are security interests property rights, contract rights, or something else? Why do secured creditors enjoy a priority right...

This article develops and tests a theory of the institutions that make property rights viable, ensuring their enforcement, mobilizing the collateral value of assets and promoting growth. In contrast to contractual rights, property rights are enforced in rem, being affected only with the consent...

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...

We study a large-scale land titling reform implemented as a randomized control-trial to isolate its causal effects on litigation. The reform consisted of demarcating land parcels, registering existing customary rights, and granting additional legal protection to rightholders. We find that, ten...

In this article, the question is raised why upon the introduction of same sex marriage no one has raised the issue whether one should take for granted the automatic application of the legal marital property law that was made for heterosexual couples. The argument goes that in the heat of the...

Times of emergency call for drastic measures. These steps may include the physical takeover of privately-owned assets by the government for a certain period of time and for various purposes, aimed at addressing the state of emergency. When will such acts amount to a taking, and what compensation...

This chapter discusses intangible property and non-proprietary intangibles. It begins with a discussion of the idea of the right against interference as the basic right of property and compares it with idea of the right to the benefit of property. It discusses the idea of remedial consistency -...