Property rights

Patent documents differ from journal Hterature in several ways. First of all, they are legal documents whose disclosures support one or more claims that define an area of property rights. The language in patent documents can therefore be quite convoluted "patentese" as the appHcant strives to achieve the broadest possible scope of coverage. Examples provided in patents may never have happened. Based on the appHcant s understanding of the technical... 

Copyright is a property right. Although it differs from most other forms of property in that it is intangible, it nevertheless has the essential elements of property and is governed by the principles of property ownership. 

The control and regulation of indoor air quality are influenced by individual property rights and a complicated mosaic of federal, state, and local government jurisdiction with conflicts, overlaps, and gaps in addressing these issues. Table 23-3 shows a large number of agencies and departments involved in indoor air quality control efforts at the federal level. 

This incentive problem is increased as the number of polluters and the number of land otvners increase so that it is difficult to pinpoint specific incidents of pollution and their effect on individuals. The case of air pollution from cars and multiple factories is a classic example of this information problem. In a large metropolitan area, there are millions of automobiles and many factories that could contribute to air pollution. There are also millions of individuals who could be harmed by that pollution. But it is generally difficult, if not impossible, for one individual to identify a specific problem they have experienced due to air pollution and then to pinpoint the source of that problem. Such situations, where property rights are... 

With strong incentives for businesses and other special interest groups, and weak incentives for individual voters, it is not surprising that many environmental regulations have often been less successful at preventing harm than the more traditional property rights-based approaches. Thus, while privately owned lands and resources are generally healthy and well preserved, many resources that are not owned, such as air or many waterways, are polluted. 

Many economists have therefore become disappointed in the effectiveness of traditional regulatory solutions to environmental problems. They look to market incentives such as those provided by private property rights, and market-like mechanism, where polluters must brd for or trade for the right to release potentially harmful emissions, as policy alternatives. 

Brubaker, E. (1995). Property Rights in Defence of Nature. Toronto Earthscan Publications. 

Coiiimon-pool problems characterize many resources where it is difficult to define property rights to restrain access and use. In North America, common-pool conditions in oil and natural gas production are created when firms compete for hydrocarbons in the same formation under the common-law rule of capture (which also governs fisheries and many other natural resources). 

Property rights assignment hy homesteading is based on a theory of philosopher John Locke. Locke believed as much land as a man tills, plants, improves, cultivated and can use the product of, so much is his property. Such labor, Locke continues, enclose(s) it from the common. ... 

Libecap, G. D. (1989). Contracdng for Property Rights. New York Cambridge University Press. 

---