P. V. Viswanath () (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research)
Abstract
The Mishna in Tractate Gittin discusses land qualities, in a context where land is used to settle monetary obligations. The law is that land of different qualities must be used to pay claimants in different situations; in particular, claimants pursuant to a tort case have the right to have their claim paid with land of the best quality. Creditors have the right to be paid with land of medium quality, while women who are owed money as part of a ketuba (marriage contract) claim may have to be satisfied with land of the lowest quality. However, the total value of the land received by each claimant is just the amount they are owed - it is independent of the quality of the land that is used to pay them. This being the case, the purpose of the legislation is unclear. In this paper, I explore the possibility that the law is designed to minimize the total amount of transactions costs.
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.
Length: 11 pages Date of creation: Mar 2007 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2007-002
Contact details of provider: Postal: Gen. A. K. Vaidya Marg, Goregaon (E), Mumbai 400065 Phone: (022) 840 0919/20/21 Fax: (022) 840 2752/2026 Email: Web page: http://www.igidr.ac.in More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Shamprasad M. Pujar).
Find related papers by JEL classification: K2 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law K4 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior N25 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Asia including Middle East Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
References listed on IDEAS 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.: