IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-349-13230-0_2.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Economic Theory of Rights

In: The Economic Foundations of Government

Author

Listed:
  • Randall G. Holcombe

    (Florida State University)

Abstract

A right is a claim by a specific individual, which is honored by other individuals, that some specific treatment is due him.1 How is an individual able to make such a claim, and why are others willing to honor it? The answers to both of these questions are the same. An individual will claim a right because he believes that having the right will make him better off. Likewise, others will honor the claim because they believe they are better off honoring the claim than not honoring it. The first step in developing a theory of rights is the recognition of the fact that people honor the rights of others because those honoring the rights believe it is in their self-interest to do so.

Suggested Citation

  • Randall G. Holcombe, 1994. "The Economic Theory of Rights," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Economic Foundations of Government, chapter 2, pages 11-31, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-13230-0_2
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-13230-0_2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randall G. Holcombe, 1994. "The Economic Foundations of Government," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-13230-0, December.
    2. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995, January.
    3. Peter T. Leeson, 2007. "An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 1049-1094, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dagdeviren, Hulya & Elangovan, Arthanari & Parimalavelli, Ramanathan, 2023. "Land tenure and food security in South India," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    2. Plinio Limata, 2020. "Blockchain and Institutions (II): The Realm of Law," CERBE Working Papers wpC36, CERBE Center for Relationship Banking and Economics.
    3. repec:wvu:wpaper:09-09 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Turan Yay & Gülsün G. Yay & Tolga Aksoy, 2018. "Impact of institutions on entrepreneurship: a panel data analysis," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(1), pages 131-160, April.
    5. Cai, Meina & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer, 2020. "The politics of land property rights," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 151-167, April.
    6. 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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seals, Richard Alan & Stern, Liliana V., 2013. "Cognitive ability and the division of labor in urban ghettos: Evidence from gang activity in U.S. data," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 140-149.
    2. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2020. "Introduction: a symposium on the predatory state," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 233-242, March.
    3. Kapas Judit & Czegledi Pal, 2010. "Economic Freedom and Government: A Conceptual Framework," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 1-26, October.
    4. T. Randolph Beard & Richard Alan Seals Jr. & Michael L. Stern, 2014. "Security and Government Credibility," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2014-07, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    5. Alexander Fink, 2011. "Under what conditions may social contracts arise? Evidence from the Hanseatic League," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 173-190, June.
    6. David Skarbek, 2024. "The political economy of criminal governance," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(1), pages 1-24, July.
    7. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, July.
    8. Daniel Smith, 2014. "Heterogeneity and exchange: Safe-conducts in Medieval Spain," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 183-197, June.
    9. Bruce L. Benson, 2020. "The development and evolution of predatory-state institutions and organizations: beliefs, violence, conquest, coercion, and rent seeking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 303-329, March.
    10. Mildenberger, Carl David, 2018. "Spontaneous disorder: conflict-kindling institutions in virtual worlds," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(5), pages 787-809, October.
    11. Randall G. Holcombe, 2015. "Unanimous consent and constitutional economics," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 3, pages 35-53, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Blattman, Christopher & Lessing, Benjamin & Tobon, Santiago & Duncan, Gustavo, 2021. "Gang rule: Understanding and Countering Criminal Governance," SocArXiv 5nyqs, Center for Open Science.
    13. Jochem, Torsten & Murtazashvili, Ilia & Murtazashvili, Jennifer, 2016. "Establishing Local Government in Fragile States: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 293-310.
    14. Daniel J. Smith & George R. Crowley & J. Sebastian Leguizamon, 2021. "Long live the doge? Death as a term limit on Venetian chief executives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 333-359, September.
    15. Leeson Peter T. & Williamson Claudia R., 2009. "Anarchy and Development: An Application of the Theory of Second Best," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 2(1), pages 77-96, July.
    16. Patricia Justino, 2018. "The need to be governed: Governance and violence in conflict contexts," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 13(1), pages 5-11, April.
    17. Hassani Mahmooei, Behrooz & Vahabi, Mehrdad, 2012. "Dueling for honor and identity economics," MPRA Paper 44370, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Art Carden & Christopher Coyne, 2013. "The political economy of the Reconstruction Era’s race riots," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 57-71, October.
    19. Andersson, Krister P. & Smith, Steven M. & Alston, Lee J. & Duchelle, Amy E. & Mwangi, Esther & Larson, Anne M. & de Sassi, Claudio & Sills, Erin O. & Sunderlin, William D. & Wong, Grace Y., 2018. "Wealth and the distribution of benefits from tropical forests: Implications for REDD+," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 510-522.
    20. Indra de Soysa & Synøve Almås, 2019. "Does Ethnolinguistic Diversity Preclude Good Governance? A Comparative Study with Alternative Data, 1990‐2015," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 604-636, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-13230-0_2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.