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Semicommon Property Rights and Scattering in the Open Fields

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  • Smith, Henry E

Abstract

A semicommons exists where property rights are not only a mix of common and private rights, but both are significant and can interact. The major example of a semicommons is the medieval open-field system in which peasants owned scattered strips of land for grain growing but used the land collectively for grazing. The ownership structure allowed operation on a large scale for grazing and harnessed private incentives for grain growing. But a semicommons potentially leads to problems of strategic behavior that go beyond the familiar incentives to overuse a commons. In order to raise the costs of such behavior devices such as the scattering of strips may be used to mix up entitlements. Generally, boundary placement and norms are substitute methods of addressing strategic behavior in a semicommons. Among these solutions, scattering functions as a sanction for activities associated with strategic behavior. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith, Henry E, 2000. "Semicommon Property Rights and Scattering in the Open Fields," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 131-169, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:v:29:y:2000:i:1:p:131-69
    DOI: 10.1086/468066
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    1. > Microeconomics > Transaction Cost Economics

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    1. Edwyna Harris, 2011. "The Impact of Institutional Path Dependence on Water Market Efficiency in Victoria, Australia," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 25(15), pages 4069-4080, December.
    2. Lee J. Alston & Edwyna Harris & Bernardo Mueller, 2009. "De Facto and De Jure Property Rights: Land Settlement and Land Conflict on the Australian, Brazilian and U.S. Frontiers," CEPR Discussion Papers 607, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    3. Lueck, Dean & Miceli, Thomas J., 2007. "Property Law," Handbook of Law and Economics, in: A. Mitchell Polinsky & Steven Shavell (ed.), Handbook of Law and Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 183-257, Elsevier.
      • Dean Lueck & Thomas J. Miceli, 2004. "Property Law," Working papers 2004-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    4. Ginevra Balletto & Alessandra Milesi & Nicolò Fenu & Giuseppe Borruso & Luigi Mundula, 2020. "Military Training Areas as Semicommons: The Territorial Valorization of Quirra (Sardinia) from Easements to Ecosystem Services," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Magnan, Nicholas, 2015. "Property rights enforcement and no-till adoption in crop-livestock systems," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 76-83.
    6. Madison, Michael J & Frischmann, Brett M. & Strandburg, Katherine J., 2017. "Governing Knowledge Commons -- Introduction & Chapter 1," LawArXiv af3ud, Center for Open Science.
    7. Jongwook Kim & Joseph T. Mahoney, 2002. "Resource-based and property rights perspectives on value creation: the case of oil field unitization," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(4-5), pages 225-245.
    8. Habibullah Magsi & André Torre, 2012. "Social Network Legitimacy and Property Right Loopholes: Evidences from an Infrastructural Water Project in Pakistan," Journal of Infrastructure Development, India Development Foundation, vol. 4(2), pages 59-76, December.
    9. Giuseppe Bellantuono, 2014. "The regulatory anticommons of green infrastructures," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 325-354, April.
    10. Philip C. Brown, 2021. "Sharing the Pain: Apportioning Natural Hazards Exposure in Early Modern Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-18, January.
    11. Bryan Leonard & Gary D. Libecap, 2016. "Collective Action by Contract: Prior Appropriation and the Development of Irrigation in the Western United States," NBER Working Papers 22185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Madison, Michael J & Frischmann, Brett M. & Strandburg, Katherine J., 2017. "Knowledge Commons," LawArXiv ftqyw, Center for Open Science.
    13. Bernardo Mueller & Lee Alston & Edwyna Harris, 2011. "De Facto And De Jure Property Rights:Land Settlement And Land Conflict On The Brazilian Frontier In The 19thcentury," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 060, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    14. Bertacchini Enrico & De Mot Jef P.B. & Depoorter Ben, 2009. "Never Two Without Three: Commons, Anticommons and Semicommons," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 163-176, April.

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