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Property Rights (Micro)


Busy Bees cartoon (11/2/2011)

Honey bees tell an interesting story of how businesses settle payments for spillover costs and benefits among them.

Keywords: bees, Coase Theorem, external benefits, fable

Coasian Bargaining & Property Rights (10/5/2017)

Efficient assignment of property rights could achieve efficient adverse impact without negotiation cost and Coasian bargaining.

Keywords: adverse impact, Coase, Coasian bargaining, externality, negotiation cost, pollution, property right

Condom Economics (3/7/2007)

The externality and time horizon of costs and benefits bedevil college distribution of condoms.

Keywords: casual sex, condom, external benefit, external cost, honor system, opportunity cost, pregnancy, private benefit, private cost, sexually transmitted diseases, short-term vs long term, subsidy, vending machines

Congestion Pricing (1/10/2007)

Road tolls that vary directly with congestion have reduced peak-hour traffic volume in Singapore and Stockholm by forcing commuters to internalize congestion cost.

Keywords: commons resource, commuting, congestion pricing, external cost, externality, Singapore, Stockholm, toll, traffic

Dying for Money? (12/7/2000)

Compensated physician-assisted death could reduce end-of-life health care expenditures and reduce pain and suffering.

Keywords: asymmetric information, benefit conversion, cash payment, de facto property right, death benefit, entitlement, health care, Medicare, moral hazard, payment in kind, physician-assisted death, suicide

Enforce It or Lose It (12/21/2001)

Dutch property owners hire free antisquatters to prevent squatters from occuping vacant buildings.

Keywords: Amsterdam, antisquatting, enforcement cost, fence, Netherlands, property right, referral agency, squatter

External Benefit and External Cost (11/2/2011)

External cost and external benefit exist because some property rights have not been clearly defined and enforced. Their existence leads to misallocation of resources.

Keywords: Coase Theorem, external benefit, external cost, externality, property rights

External Benefit and External Cost (transcript) (3/27/2007)

The existence of external cost and external benefit leads to misallocation of resources.

Keywords: Coase Theorem, external benefit, external cost, externality, internalization, resource allocation

Fished Out! (2/9/2001)

By assigning fishing quotas to individual fisherman, Iceland has solved the problem of over-exploitation typically associated with open access to common-pool resources.

Keywords: common-pool resources, Iceland, Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), negative externalities, open access fishery, over-extraction, over-fishing, property rights, returns to capital, tragedy of the commons

Licensing Textbooks (1/14/2006)

Unbundling the intellectual content from the physical embodiment of textbooks might lower the prices of textbooks.

Keywords: intellectual property, licensing, obsolescence, revision cycle, textbook pricing, unbundling, used books

Making Animal Conservation Pay (6/29/1999)

People will conserve wildlife if they have a financial stake in it.

Keywords: animal, conservation, elephants, endangered species, environmentalism, free-market, Greenland, hunting rights, Kenya, property right, salmon, wildlife, wolf, wolves, Zimbabwe

Metered Consumption (3/7/2007)

Resource conservation depends on who pays and the time horizon of costs vs benefits.

Keywords: energy conservation metering, energy efficiency, external cost, fixed cost, insulation, internal cost, landlord, life cycle cost, long-term benefit, marginal cost, private cost, property right, short-term cost, social cost, tenants, water

Owners, Keepers? (12/8/2000)

Stronger property rights may reduce overexploitation of natural resources that require little upfront capital investment, but may lead to faster exploitation of resources that require substantial upfront capital investment.

Keywords: access rights, Amazon, capital-intensive, deforestation, extraction, forestry, labor-intensive, natural resources, oil drilling, ownership risk, property rights

Patently Deadly (3/7/2002)

Granting patents to biotechnology discoveries encourages inventions but could delay the introduction of competing products.

Keywords: Abbott, barrier of entry, Bio-Rad, blood transfusion, HIV test, HIV-1, HIV-2, infection, license, NIH, patents, property right

Property Rights and Externality (7/7/2006)

Transferable and enforceable property rights encourage investment and high-valued uses.

Keywords: barbed wire, cattle ranching, commons, enforcement cost, external benefit, external cost, externality, ownership, Property rights, spillovers, transferability

Right Makes Might (2/27/2001)

The right to transfer private property has led to windfall gain to right owners and better allocation of scarce resources, such as water and power.

Keywords: aluminum, Aurora, cheap electricity, northwest, power shortage, private property, property rights, resale, right to transfer, Rocky Ford Ditch, water rights, windfall gain

Rivalry and Excludability in Goods (8/15/2006)

Goods can be classified by their consumption rivalry and ability to exclude non-payers.

Keywords: advertisement, apple, Commons good, enforcement cost, excludability, indirect funding, low-congestion good, private good, property right, public good, radio, rivalry, school, tax

Scoop Your Poop (11/2/2011)

Enforceable property rights reduce external costs.

Keywords: enforcement costs, external costs, fence, property rights

Scrapped Art (3/7/2007)

High prices of copper have led to theft of bronze sculptures for material recycling.

Keywords: Aztec gold, copper, material recycling, oil, plastic crates, plastic resin, property right, scrap metal, theft

Shovelers Keepers? (6/7/2004)

Uncertain property rights will lead to either underinvestment or unnecessary disputes.

Keywords: claim, commons goods, parking space, private goods, property rights, snow

Spillovers Are Not Always Externalities (6/22/2006)

External costs or benefits exist only if property rights have not been clearly defined and/or when the negotiation or enforcement cost exceeds damage.

Keywords: airport, compensation, externality, golf course, internalize, property rights, shopping malls, spillovers

Squatters' Rights (1/23/1999)

Squatters move in when cost of accessing and hoarding scarce resources are low. They profit from charging others for the use of hoarded resources.

Keywords: 888, cybersquatters, entrepreneurship, property rights, squatters, toilet squatters, toll free numbers

The Dust Bowl - Natural or Man-made Disaster? (12/21/2001)

High transaction costs, whether natural or artificial, could delay the transfer of property rights from lower-value use to higher-value use.

Keywords: consolidation, disaster, diversification, Dust Bowl, farm size, Great Plains states, Homestead Act, livestock, property right, transaction cost

The Patent Fence (2/26/2005)

Most business process patents serve only to slow down business progress without encouraging more inventions.

Keywords: Amazon.com, business process, copyright, innovation, open-source, patent

The Right to Pollute? (10/20/1999)

Pollution credits convert the atmosphere from a commons into private property. They can reduce pollution if the pollution cap is lower than the unrestricted total and lower the costs of reducing pollution if credits can be sold from low-cost avoiders and high-cost avoiders.

Keywords: allowances, Clean Air Act, commons, emissions, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, greenhouse gases, nitrogen oxide, pollution, pollution credits, private property, quotas, sulfur dioxide, trading, utilities.

The Sharing Economy (3/11/2014)

The peer-to-peer rental and sharing economy could lead to more efficient allocation of scarce resources and a cleaner economy.

Keywords: access, AirBnB, capital goods, Coase, insurance, liability, Lyft, ownership, peer-to-peer rental, regulation, RelayRides, shareable goods, sharing economy, transaction cost, Zipcar

The Soviet Union - Super Power or Paper Tiger? (4/14/2000)

The dismal transition of the centrally planned Soviet economy to a market economy results from the collapse of an effective government with an encompassing interest and the non-existence of secure property rights.

Keywords: central planners, communism, consumption, democracy, encompassing interest, enterprise managers, investment, market information, privatization, property rights, special interests, state enterprises, surplus

The Tragedy of the Anticommons (8/13/1999)

When too many individuals have the right of exclusion to a scarce resource, and no one has an effective privilege of use, under-utilization may occur.

Keywords: anticommons, bundle, commons, exclusion, holding out, inclusion, Kobe, land, property rights, tragedy, transaction costs

The Tragedy of the Popsicle Commons (2/15/2001)

Over-exploitation of commons resources could be avoided if the rights to commonly owned resources are assigned to individual owners.

Keywords: common property, common-pool resources, fishery depletion, Popsicles, private property, privatizing, tragedy of the commons

Tragedy of the Commons (11/2/2011)

Unlimited entry could easily lead to over-exploitation of commons resources.

Keywords: AP, average product, commons, marginal product, MP, over-exploitation, tragedy

Tragedy of the commons (transcript) (3/27/2007)

Narrated lecture on over-exploitation of commons resources due to unlimited entry.

Keywords: average product, commons, externality, free entry, marginal product, property rights, total product

Water Disputes in California (4/14/2000)

Ambiguous property rights and high transaction costs may scuttle beneficial exchanges.

Keywords: agriculture, Colorado River, farming, Imperial Valley, property rights, transaction costs, water

What Makes Rights? (12/21/2001)

Temporary property rights created out of sympathy or a preference for insiders over outsiders might become politically entrenched.

Keywords: assistance, capitalization, Coke, compensation, delayed adjustment, disaster, factoring, lobby, Pepsi, presumed right, property right, steel, swing states, swing vote, sympathy, trade protection, vested interests

Windfall Profit (9/7/2005)

Unexpected market gain resulting from uncontrolled circumstances might serve as incentives to correctly allocate scarce resources.

Keywords: aluminum, California, contract, electricity, Kaiser Aluminum, opportunity cost, property rights, water, windfall profit

Yellow Cabs, Red Tape (6/22/2006)

Transferable fixed-supply permanent taxi licenses result in high taxi fare and poor service with only normal return to current license owners.

Keywords: capitalization, dissipation, economic rent, medallion, transferable taxi licenses

Your Customers Are My Customers (11/2/2011)

When it comes to external benefits, appearance could be deceptive.

Keywords: common ownership, external benefits, hamburger, ice cream, social costs, Steven Cheung