Property rights (economics)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration:Liberty Leading the People (1831, detail) by Eugène Delacroix.
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Property rights are a controversial, theoretical construct in economics for determining how a resource is used, and who owns that resource—government, collective bodies, or individuals. Property rights can be viewed as an attribute of an economic good. This attribute has four broad components and is often referred to as a bundle of rights:
- the right to use the good
- the right to earn income from the good
- the right to transfer the good to others
- the right to enforcement of property rights.
In economics, property usually refers to ownership (rights to the proceeds of output generated) and control over a resource or good.
The concept of property rights as used by economists and legal scholars (see property for the legal concept) are related but distinct. The distinction is largely seen in the economists' focus on the ability of an individual or collective to control the use of the good. For example, a thief who has stolen a good would not be considered to have legal (de jure) property right to the good, but would be considered to have economic (de facto) property right to the good.Template:Citation needed
See also
- Alienation (property law)
- Social ownership
- Common ownership
- Private property
- Public ownership
- State ownership
- Common resource pool or open-access
Related Terms and Disciplines
- Bundle of rights
- Legal theory of Property rights
- Law and Economics
- Transaction Costs
Economists working on property rights issues
- Armen Alchian
- Yoram Barzel
- Ronald Coase
- Steven N. S. Cheung
- Harold Demsetz
- Walter Block
- Hernando de Soto Polar
- Daniel Bromley
