Alston, Lee J.; Harris, Edwyna; Mueller, Bernardo --- "Property Rights, Land Settlement and Land Conflict on Frontiers: Evidence from Australia, Brazil and the US" [2011] ELECD 145; in Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law

Editor(s): Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209795

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Property Rights, Land Settlement and Land Conflict on Frontiers: Evidence from Australia, Brazil and the US

Author(s): Alston, Lee J.; Harris, Edwyna; Mueller, Bernardo

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

1 Property rights, land settlement and land conflict
on frontiers: evidence from Australia, Brazil and
the US*
Lee J. Alston, Edwyna Harris, and Bernardo Mueller


INTRODUCTION

Australia, Brazil and the US are all physically large countries and each had different
patterns of land settlement on their frontiers. In this chapter we will examine the way
in which the extant property rights in each country affected settlement and in particular
the potential and emergence of land conflict. Property rights, along with relative prices,
provide the incentive for settlement and conflict on frontier lands. Property rights can
be either formal or informal. By informal property rights we mean that the specification
and enforcement of rights is either first person or second person enforcement, and not
by a legal government or some other third party entity. First person specification and
enforcement of property rights entails self-enforcement of property rights by the claim-
ant. Second person specification of property rights may be done through social norms
established through tradition or custom, or agreed upon rules of behavior determined
by clubs or associations of various types, e.g. ranchers' associations and mining camps.
When land is relatively abundant, informal property rights may suffice to entice settle-
ment yet avoid conflict, but as land becomes scarcer and settlers more heterogeneous the
potential for conflict increases. Government specification and enforcement of property
rights generally emerges as resources become scarcer but not necessarily in time to avoid
land conflict. Furthermore, though most governments ultimately specify property rights
...