Go West Young Man: Self-Selection and Endogenous Property Rights.
If, as Hume argues, property is a self-referring custom of a group of people, then property rights depend on how that group forms and orders itself. In this article we investigate how people construct a convention for property in an experiment in which groups of self-selected individuals can migrate...
| Published in: | Southern Economic Journal Vol. 79; no. 4; pp. 886 - 905 |
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| Main Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
Apr2013
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| Summary: | If, as Hume argues, property is a self-referring custom of a group of people, then property rights depend on how that group forms and orders itself. In this article we investigate how people construct a convention for property in an experiment in which groups of self-selected individuals can migrate between three geographically separate regions. To test a hypothesis of Demsetz's, we vary across two treatments the external benefits of migrating. We find that self-selection has a powerful effect on establishing conventions of property and begetting increases in wealth through exchange and specialization. We also find support for the Demsetz hypothesis. |
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