The Property-Contract Balance

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2016

Journal Title

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics

ISSN

0932-4569

DOI

10.1628/093245616X14500948553992

Abstract

Dari-Mattiacci, Guerriero, and Huang (2016) (henceforth DGH), construct a model in which certain goods may be stolen from their owners (O) by intermediaries (or thieves) (I) and be sold to buyers (B). In these and similar circumstances, the law (if the stolen good can be identified) may take the good from the buyer and assign it to its previous owner (henceforth pro-owner rules), or may decide to leave it where it is (henceforth pro-buyer rules). DGH study the implications of their model, and thereby conclude that the normative desirability of pro-buyer versus pro-owner rules hinges primarily on who values the good most.

Below, I provide comments regarding DGH's model and their interpretation of it. While doing so, I make frequent references to the notation and results described in DGH. This makes reading DGH a prerequisite to following my comments.

First Page

70

Last Page

74

Num Pages

5

Volume Number

172

Issue Number

1

Publisher

Mohr Siebeck

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