Very interesting discussion here by Glen Whitman of DeSoto's assessment of the type of property rights needed for developing and advanced economies. The central idea is that polycentric systems of property rights have their limits, because they lack the uniformity and consistency needed to facilitate the development of capital markets.

This goes back to my earlier point related to IP, which is sometimes attacked as not having arisen from case law; historically, case law systems do tend to get codified, and the codes then take on a life of their own. This certainly has its drawbacks, susceptibility to rent-seeking being one of them. But are we entirely sure that codification is therefore an entirely bad thing? That it is avoidable in aging civilizations?

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 8:28 AM | Economics, Game Theory & Public Choice, Liberty and IP, Physical Property

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