IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajarec/v48y2004i3p445-462.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Donning Coase‐coloured glasses: a property rights view of natural resource economics

Author

Listed:
  • Terry L. Anderson

Abstract

Economic analysis of natural resource and environmental issues inappropriately places too much emphasis on Pigouvian externalities and too little on Coasean property rights and transaction costs. The crucial questions are who has what property rights and what are the transaction costs associated with these property rights. Asserting an externality implicitly assumes a set of property rights and hence a distribution of the social costs, but it is precisely a lack of property rights that allows decision makers to ignore social costs. By viewing natural resource and environmental problems through a Coasean lens, we better focus our attention on how property rights evolve, how they influence transaction costs, and how those transaction costs affect the potential for bargaining to minimise social costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Terry L. Anderson, 2004. "Donning Coase‐coloured glasses: a property rights view of natural resource economics," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 48(3), pages 445-462, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:48:y:2004:i:3:p:445-462
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8489.2004.00257.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8489.2004.00257.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-8489.2004.00257.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dahlman, Carl J, 1979. "The Problem of Externality," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 141-162, April.
    2. Anderson, Terry L & McChesney, Fred S, 1994. "Raid or Trade? An Economic Model of Indian-White Relations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 37(1), pages 39-74, April.
    3. Francis M. Bator, 1958. "The Anatomy of Market Failure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 72(3), pages 351-379.
    4. Lueck, Dean & Michael, Jeffrey A, 2003. "Preemptive Habitat Destruction under the Endangered Species Act," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 46(1), pages 27-60, April.
    5. Coase, R H, 1974. "The Lighthouse in Economics," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 357-376, October.
    6. Anderson, Terry L & Hill, Peter J, 1975. "The Evolution of Property Rights: A Study of the American West," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(1), pages 163-179, April.
    7. Anderson, Terry L & Hill, Peter J, 1990. "The Race for Property Rights," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 177-197, April.
    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. Yew-Kwang Ng, 2016. "Are Unrealistic Assumptions/Simplifications Acceptable? Some Methodological Issues in Economics," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 180-201, May.
    2. Ng, Yew-Kwang, 2007. "Eternal Coase and external costs: A case for bilateral taxation and amenity rights," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 641-659, September.
    3. Terry L. Anderson, 2015. "If Hayek and Coase Were Environmentalists: Linking Economics and Ecology," Economics Working Papers 15102, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    4. Ofei-Mensah, Albert & Bennett, Jeff, 2013. "Transaction costs of alternative greenhouse gas policies in the Australian transport energy sector," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 214-221.
    5. Phillip Hone & Iain Fraser, 2004. "Resource Management and Duty of Care," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 195-209.
    6. Farley, Joshua & Costanza, Robert & Flomenhoft, Gary & Kirk, Daniel, 2015. "The Vermont Common Assets Trust: An institution for sustainable, just and efficient resource allocation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 71-79.
    7. Jeff Bennett, 2005. "Australasian environmental economics: contributions, conflicts and ‘cop‐outs’," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 49(3), pages 243-261, September.
    8. Windle, Jill & Rolfe, John & Whitten, Stuart M. & Alam, Khorshed & Street, Deborah, 2005. "Using Choice Modelling to establish the supply of riparian services and the potential for a water quality trading scheme in Central Queensland," 2005 Conference (49th), February 9-11, 2005, Coff's Harbour, Australia 139298, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    9. Ortiz-Miranda, Dionisio & Hodge, Ian, 2012. "Entre la propiedad agraria y la ambiental: El debate respecto a los derechos de propiedad de la tierra," Revista Espanola de Estudios Agrosociales y Pesqueros, Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Rural y Marino (formerly Ministry of Agriculture), issue 231, pages 1-32.
    10. Douadia Bougherara & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2009. "The ‘make or buy’ decision in private environmental transactions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 79-99, February.
    11. Cheol-Joo Cho, 2011. "An Analysis of the Housing Redevelopment Process in Korea through the Lens of the Transaction Cost Framework," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(7), pages 1477-1501, May.
    12. Nogueira, Leticia & Wigger, Karin & Jolly, Suyash, 2021. "Common‐pool Resources and Governance in Sustainability Transitions," MPRA Paper 111721, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Beare, Stephen & Newby, Jonathan C., 2005. "Incomplete Markets, Excluded Goods and Natural Resource Management," 2005 Conference (49th), February 9-11, 2005, Coff's Harbour, Australia 137785, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    14. Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2021. "On a stakeholder model of corporate governance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 50(2), pages 321-343, June.
    15. Grolleau, Gilles & McCann, Laura M.J., 2012. "Designing watershed programs to pay farmers for water quality services: Case studies of Munich and New York City," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 87-94.

    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. Douadia Bougherara & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2009. "The ‘make or buy’ decision in private environmental transactions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 79-99, February.
    2. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055.
    3. 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," NBER Working Papers 15264, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Chechelski, Piotr & Grochowska, Renata & Łopaciuk, Wiesław & Ślązak, Emil & Wasilewski, Adam & Wigier, Marek, 2012. "Development est public policy support in the food economy – the example of Poland," Multiannual Program Reports 164845, Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI).
    5. Glenn Furton & Adam Martin, 2019. "Beyond market failure and government failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 197-216, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Dean, Thomas J. & McMullen, Jeffery S., 2007. "Toward a theory of sustainable entrepreneurship: Reducing environmental degradation through entrepreneurial action," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 50-76, January.
    8. J.A. den Hertog, 2010. "Review of economic theories of regulation," Working Papers 10-18, Utrecht School of Economics.
    9. Élodie Bertrand, 2006. "La thèse d'efficience du « théorème de Coase ». Quelle critique de la microéconomie ?," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(5), pages 983-1007.
    10. Dan Bogart & Gary Richardson, 2011. "Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 241-274.
    11. Déprés, Christophe & Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2005. "Analyse exploratoire de quelques stratégies de fourniture ‘non publique’ des biens ‘publics’," Cahiers d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales (CESR), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), vol. 74.
    12. Akee, Randall K. Q., 2006. "Checkerboards and Coase: Transactions Costs and Efficiency in Land Markets," IZA Discussion Papers 2438, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Christophe Depres & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2008. "Contracting for Environmental Property Rights: The Case of Vittel," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 412-434, August.
    14. Maurice Lagueux, 2010. "The residual character of externalities," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 957-973.
    15. Runge, C. Ford, 1992. "Environmental Effects Of Trade In The Agricultural Sector: A Case Study," Working Papers 14449, University of Minnesota, Center for International Food and Agricultural Policy.
    16. Cerin, Pontus, 2006. "Bringing economic opportunity into line with environmental influence: A discussion on the Coase theorem and the Porter and van der Linde hypothesis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 209-225, February.
    17. Vernon L. Smith, 2003. "Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 465-508, June.
    18. Benito Arruñada, 2012. "Property as an economic concept: reconciling legal and economic conceptions of property rights in a Coasean framework," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 59(2), pages 121-144, July.
    19. Levering, Britta & Schlömer-Laufen, Nadine, 2012. "Öffentliche Förderung von Unternehmensübernahmen: Notwendigkeit und Ausgestaltung," IfM-Materialien 219, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    20. Demsetz, Harold, 1996. "The core disagreement between Pigou, the profession, and Coase in the analyses of the externality question," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 565-579, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:ajarec:v:48:y:2004:i:3:p:445-462. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    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.