IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v74y2010i3p206-229.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exchange, theft, and the social formation of property

Author

Listed:
  • Kimbrough, Erik O.
  • Smith, Vernon L.
  • Wilson, Bart J.

Abstract

We design a laboratory experiment to explore whether and how property endogenously arises in a specialization and exchange environment where "theft" is costless. Additional treatments make available optional private protection mechanisms. We find that although an absence of exogenous enforcement does not hamper property's emergence in all cases, the private options tend to worsen outcomes on average. Property emerges when subjects self-organize groups, understand potential gains from trade, convince group members that all benefit by avoiding theft, and display credible commitment to cooperation in their actions. In other words, as Hume argued in 1740, property is a convention.

Suggested Citation

  • Kimbrough, Erik O. & Smith, Vernon L. & Wilson, Bart J., 2010. "Exchange, theft, and the social formation of property," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 74(3), pages 206-229, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:74:y:2010:i:3:p:206-229
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-2681(10)00054-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoffman Elizabeth & McCabe Kevin & Shachat Keith & Smith Vernon, 1994. "Preferences, Property Rights, and Anonymity in Bargaining Games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 346-380, November.
    2. Burnham, Terence & McCabe, Kevin & Smith, Vernon L., 2000. "Friend-or-foe intentionality priming in an extensive form trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 57-73, September.
    3. Smith, Adam, 1759. "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number smith1759.
    4. Sean Crockett & VernonL. Smith & BartJ. Wilson, 2009. "Exchange and Specialisation as a Discovery Process," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(539), pages 1162-1188, July.
    5. Alchian, Armen A. & Demsetz, Harold, 1973. "The Property Right Paradigm," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(01), pages 16-27, March.
    6. Hume, David, 1739. "A Treatise of Human Nature (I) Of the Understanding," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 1, number hume1739.
    7. Hume, David, 1740. "A Treatise of Human Nature (III) Of Morals," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 3, number hume1740.
    8. Erik O. Kimbrough & Vernon L. Smith & Bart J. Wilson, 2008. "Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-Distance Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 1009-1039, June.
    9. Hume, David, 1739. "A Treatise of Human Nature (II) Of the Passions," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, volume 2, number hume1739a.
    10. repec:cup:apsrev:v:86:y:1992:i:02:p:404-417_08 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Peyton Young, H., 1998. "Social norms and economic welfare1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 821-830, May.
    12. Powell, Benjamin & Wilson, Bart J., 2008. "An experimental investigation of Hobbesian jungles," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 669-686, June.
    13. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(04), pages 803-832, December.
    14. Umbeck, John, 1977. "The California gold rush: A study of emerging property rights," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 197-226, July.
    15. Kimbrough, Erik O., 2011. "Heuristic learning and the discovery of specialization and exchange," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 491-511, April.
    16. Hayek, F. A., 1978. "Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226320861, August.
    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. Joy Buchanan & Bart Wilson, 2014. "An experiment on protecting intellectual property," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(4), pages 691-716, December.
    2. Andrew Young, 2015. "From Caesar to Tacitus: changes in early Germanic governance circa 50 BC-50 AD," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 357-378, September.
    3. Meier, Stephan & Stephenson, Matthew, 2015. "Culture of Trust and Division of Labor," IZA Discussion Papers 8974, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    4. Camera, Gabriele & Gioffré, Alessandro, 2014. "Game-theoretic foundations of monetary equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 51-63.
    5. Marco Faillo & Matteo Rizzolli & Stephan Tontrup, 2016. "Thou shalt not steal (from hard-working people)An experiment on respect for property claims," Econometica Working Papers wp58, Econometica.
    6. Bart J. Wilson & Taylor Jaworski & Karl E. Schurter & Andrew Smyth, 2012. "The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers' Rules of Capture," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 28(4), pages 617-656, October.
    7. Kimbrough, Erik O. & Wilson, Bart J., 2013. "Insiders, outsiders, and the adaptability of informal rules to ecological shocks," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 29-40.
    8. Ahn, T.K. & Balafoutas, Loukas & Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Campos-Ortiz, Francisco & Putterman, Louis & Sutter, Matthias, 2016. "Securing property rights: A dilemma experiment in Austria, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea and the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 115-124.
    9. Erik O. Kimbrough & Roman M. Sheremeta, 2012. "Why Can’t We Be Friends? Entitlements, bargaining, and conflict," Working Papers 12-16, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    10. repec:eee:jeborg:v:149:y:2018:i:c:p:413-433 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. T.K Ahn & Loukas Balafoutas & Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Francisco Campos Ortiz & Louis Putterman & Matthias Sutter, 2016. "Trust and Communication in a Property Rights Dilemma," Working Papers 2016-5, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Bart Wilson, 2015. "Further towards a theory of the emergence of property," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 163(1), pages 201-222, April.
    13. repec:eee:joepsy:v:63:y:2017:i:c:p:199-215 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Campos-Ortiz, Francisco & Putterman, Louis & Ahn, T.K. & Balafoutas, Loukas & Batsaikhan, Mongoljin & Sutter, Matthias, 2012. "Security of Property as a Public Good: Institutions, Socio-Political Environment and Experimental Behavior in Five Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 6982, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

    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:eee:jeborg:v:74:y:2010:i:3:p:206-229. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.