Governments frequently establish institutions to govern the transition in property rights when they acquire territory or experience radical changes in political regimes. By examining a specific example the United States' acquisition of California from Mexico in 1848, this article investigates general questions about these institutions and institutional choice. The article fmds that the specific institution that Congress chose for California best balanced the interests of the federal government, American owners of land grants, and American squatters and settlers. Further, despite the lobbying, litigation, and delay associated with the institution, the institution was more efficient than prior institutions.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Volume (Year): 59 (1999) Issue (Month): 01 (March) Pages: 122-142 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
Contact details of provider: Postal: The Edinburgh Building, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 2RU UK Fax: +44 (0)1223 325150 Email: Web page: http://journals.cambridge.org/jid_JEH
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Mike Eden).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)