Journal ArticleDOI
Anarchy, self-governance, and legal titling
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In this paper, the authors apply the concept of "efficient anarchy" to legal titling in rural Afghanistan, and show that anarchy of land governance is a better option than legal Titling.Abstract:
Scholars and policymakers prescribe legal titling to improve prospects for economic development and political order However, a public choice literature exists that has long recognized that self-governance often works well and that the state may not be able to improve upon local economic institutions at reasonable cost Although the implication that legal titling should proceed with caution is seemingly straightforward, the literature on legal titling does not take anarchy seriously as a policy option In addition, there is a public choice literature that presumes the state is the most important source of property rights This essay fills this gap in the property rights literature by applying the concept of “efficient anarchy” to legal titling in Afghanistan Original fieldwork evidence from rural Afghanistan suggests that anarchy of land governance is a better option than legal titling The essay concludes by opening up the black box of state building by explaining why it often makes sense to sequence improvements in political capacity and political constraints prior to investing in legal titlingread more
Citations
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Chiefs: Economic Development and Elite Control of Civil Society in Sierra Leone
TL;DR: In this article, the effect of constraints on chiefs' power on economic outcomes, citizens' attitudes, and social capital was studied in Sierra Leone, where a paramount chief must come from a ruling family originally recognized by British colonial authorities.
Book
Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan
TL;DR: Murtazashvili et al. as mentioned in this paper used hundreds of interviews and observations from dozens of villages across Afghanistan, and statistical analysis of nationally representative surveys, to demonstrate that such authority enhances citizen support for democracy, enabling the rule of law by providing citizens with a bulwark of defence against predatory state officials.
Journal ArticleDOI
The origins of private property rights: states or customary organizations?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate formal and informal private property rights in rural Afghanistan and find that informal private properties are more effective than formal property rights because customary organizations fare better than the state on the dimensions of capacity, constraints, and legitimacy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Wealth-destroying private property rights
Peter T. Leeson,Colin Harris +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a theory of wealth-destroying private property rights and applied this theory to understand wealth destroying land privatization in Kajiado, Kenya, where the decision to privatize depends on whether privatizing an asset confers net gains or imposes net losses on property decision makers.
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Wealth-destroying states
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors extend the contract theory of the state by showing how the behavior of rulers depends on political stability, political constraints, self-governance, and foreign intervention, and use evidence from Afghanistan to illustrate how political instability and the absence of meaningful political constraints enables the predatory state.
References
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Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action
TL;DR: In this paper, an institutional approach to the study of self-organization and self-governance in CPR situations is presented, along with a framework for analysis of selforganizing and selfgoverning CPRs.
Book
Understanding Institutional Diversity
TL;DR: Ostronr as discussed by the authors develops a syntax for institutions by starting from the first principles of deontic logic and makes elegant distinctions between often-confused concepts, such as a strategy determines who achieves what outcomes under which conditions; a norm is a strategy specified with what is permitted, obliged, or forbidden; and a rule is a norm specified with the consequences of not following the norm.
Book
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
TL;DR: The Mystery of Capital as discussed by the authors is one of the most influential books in the history of the world, and it has already led the cognoscenti to put him in the pantheon of great progressive intellectuals of our age.
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Structure and Change in Economic History
TL;DR: The Structure and Change in Economic History as mentioned in this paper investigates the question of property rights in the context of economic systems, and outlines an economic theory of the state and the ideologies that undergird various modes of economic organization.
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Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England
TL;DR: In this article, the authors study the evolution of the constitutional arrangements in seventeenth-century England following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and argue that the new institutions allowed the government to commit credibly to upholding property rights.