When the law is silent, trespassers w... : law and power in implied property rights

Abstract

When it comes to property, the law does not always rule.We looked at prices emerging from on-going and hotly contested bilateral exchange of property interests in land in New Zealand high country of the South Island.Does relative value of property rights exchanged drive prices? In other words, does an economic interpretation of the law drive prices?This question has two components: who owns what rights? What is the value of those rights?Empirical economics research is used to impute the value of the property rights, and four competing interpretations of the law are tested concerning ownership of property rights in this exchange.Found that none of the stated arguments about who holds which rights (and how much they’re worth) explains the observed pattern of prices.So we turned to dynamics of the negotiation, and other ideas of political economy to offer explanations of the prices.