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MIGHT MAKES RIGHTS: A THEORY OF THE FORMATION AND INITIAL DISTRIBUTION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS
Author(s) -
UMBECK JOHN
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-7295.1981.tb00602.x
Subject(s) - property rights , constraint (computer aided design) , distribution (mathematics) , property (philosophy) , economics , law and economics , process (computing) , mathematical economics , law , microeconomics , political science , mathematics , computer science , philosophy , mathematical analysis , geometry , epistemology , operating system
This paper is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the formation and initial distribution of property rights. Violence is singled out as a major constraint on this formation process. Its role is explicitly modeled in a choice theoretic framework and some of the implications are tested using data collected from contracts written during the California gold rush of 1848.