Course info
SEES0113: The Economics of Property Rights (21/22)
Economics of Property Rights is an elective course for MA students. It is a
course building on the law & economics strand of modern economic research.
The purpose of the course is to analyze the link between property rights
arrangements and economic development. It discusses how and why property
rights develop as well as why they may weaken and disappear. The importance
of clearly defined property rights has emerged in contemporary analysis as
one of the most frequently cited prerequisites for growth and development.
But determining what “clearly defined” exactly means and how clear is
clear in various local contexts is tricky. Moreover, the optimal legal
arrangement of the rights of ownership may change not only in connection
with political developments but also in response to technology. Modern
history has witnessed some spectacular changes in property rights, among
them the demise (after several millennia!) of formal property rights in
human beings or the increasing complexity in protecting intellectual
property rights. Modern history has also seen some serious challenges not
just to individual kinds of ownership but also to the whole concept of
property rights in general. This course covers a wide array of relevant
topics: the legal preconditions of the development of modern finance,
property rights in marriage and rules of inheritance, interaction of
technology and property rights, the invention of modern corporation and the
agency problem, re-establishment of formal property rights in
post-Communist countries, property rights and the environment, land
ownership and others. While this is an economics course, the topic by
necessity will require some excursions into history and into law.
Course contacts
Tutor
RB
LU
Course Administrator
KS
AW