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The origins of private property rights: states or customary organizations?

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  • MURTAZASHVILI, ILIA
  • MURTAZASHVILI, JENNIFER

Abstract

Political theories of property rights are less optimistic than self-governance perspectives regarding the ability of non-state organizations to supply private property institutions. Despite offering different answers to the question of where property rights come from, these diverse perspectives share a concern with organizational capacity, constraints, and legitimacy as explanations why organizations are able to supply private property rights. We use these shared concerns as a point of departure to investigate formal and informal private property rights in rural Afghanistan. We find that informal private property rights are more effective than formal private property rights because customary organizations fare better than the state on the dimensions of capacity, constraints, and legitimacy. More generally, these ‘political’ features of formal and informal organizations explain why self-governance works, as well as provide insight into the challenges confronting efforts in fragile states to establish formal private property institutions.

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  • Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer, 2016. "The origins of private property rights: states or customary organizations?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 105-128, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jinsec:v:12:y:2016:i:01:p:105-128_00
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    4. Coyne,Christopher J., 2020. "Defense, Peace, and War Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108724036, September.
    5. Arruñada, Benito, 2017. "Property as sequential exchange: the forgotten limits of private contract," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 753-783, December.
    6. Vining, Aidan R. & Moore, Mark A., 2017. "Potash ownership and extraction: Between a rock and a hard place in Saskatchewan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 71-80.
    7. Anthony E. Boardman & David H. Greenberg & Aidan R. Vining & David L. Weimer, 2022. "Standing in Cost‐Benefit Analysis: Where, Who, What (Counts)?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(4), pages 1157-1176, September.
    8. Buckley, R.C. & Guitart, D. & Shakeela, A., 2017. "Contested surf tourism resources in the Maldives," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 185-199.
    9. Lin, Wanlin & Lin, George C.S., 2023. "Strategizing actors and agents in the functioning of informal property Rights: The tragicomedy of the extralegal housing market in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    10. Lin, Wanlin & Wang, Peng & Yuan, Minjun, 2023. "Governing the knowledge commons: Hybrid relational–contractual governance in china’s mining industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
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    13. Ilia Murtazashvili & Jennifer Murtazashvili, 2019. "The political economy of legal titling," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 251-268, September.

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