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Category Archive for 'Property Rights'

Just minutes after posting on Ostrom’s work on governing the commons, the US Congress in typical dangerous bipartisan fashion votes to ensure the continued depletion of fisheries and ocean resource stocks. The amendment was offered by Steve Southerland (R) with the help of Barney Frank (D) and others. What a disaster. I was going to […]

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As you surely know, I believe that a strong system of property rights protections is the foundation of a prosperous and free society. Property rights emerge from human custom when there is an economic incentive for them to be defined and defended. Harold Demsetz has a great article discussing this process, but it is not […]

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I really enjoy watching Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel. The show tracks a half-dozen major fishing boats as they journey around the Bering Sea exploring for crab during various seasons. The upcoming “Opie” season is among the most treacherous – there are only short time-spans when the crab-fishing season runs (we should blog that […]

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Capitalism and Deforestation

How often have you heard the claim that global capitalism is responsible for destroying the world’s forests? I encounter it often. For example, suppose a rich Wall Street executive wishes to rebuild his office and sheath the entire thing in elaborate mahogany paneling? What happens? His desire is transmitted to designers, who transmit it to […]

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The concept of human rights is a particularly appealing one for folks on the left. Invoking human rights in an argument is sort of like insinuating that your opponents don’t think human beings matter. It’s a neat rhetorical trick, and it’s tiring. If a progressive, for example argues for nationalized health care, and I push […]

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Among the avalanche of policies that has been enacted in the name of igniting a green economic revolution (taxes, subsidies, loan guarantees, tariffs, …) include mandates for use of particular technologies. Good economists will understand the basic problem with mandates (they are a classic input standard, which is theoretically and empirically inferior to output standard […]

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Kelo Update

6 years later and still a dumping ground.

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Courts have long recognized the rights of incumbent property owners against people “coming to the nuisance.” For example, if I run a hog farm in North Carolina, and have done so for decades (without harming anyone), then it is very unlikely I would be responsible for smell or water or air damages if someone decided […]

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You Be the Judge

I really try to do my best to read Progressive blogs and to stay away from getting near anything resembling an ad-hominem. With that in mind, I reprint in full today’s post from Scott Sumner, who is always well worth reading (of course, after reading him you will realize how utterly bad your macro education […]

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Generally, the institution of private property is extremely effective at protecting many environmental resources. Consider resource conservation. Since resources are costly to obtain, and private property owners benefit from good stewardship of resources and suffer from poor stewardship (typically via the profit and loss mechanism), materials tend to be used effectively and new sources of […]

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