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Property Rights, Public Enforcement, and Growth
Author(s) -
Irmen Andreas,
Kuehnel Johanna
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the scandinavian journal of economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.725
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1467-9442
pISSN - 0347-0520
DOI - 10.1111/sjoe.12058
Subject(s) - enforcement , endogenous growth theory , property rights , economics , government (linguistics) , public economics , welfare , public good , law and economics , business , microeconomics , market economy , human capital , law , political science , linguistics , philosophy
We study the link between public enforcement of property rights, innovation investments, and economic growth in an endogenous growth framework with an expanding set of product varieties. We find that a government can assure positive equilibrium growth through public employment in the enforcement of property rights, if the economic environment is sufficiently favorable to growth and/or if public enforcement is sufficiently effective. However, in terms of welfare, an equilibrium path without property‐rights protection and growth might be preferable. In this case, the enforcement of property rights involves too much reallocation of labor from production and research towards the public sector.