Homo Economicus and the Economics of Property Rights

• Published in: Review of Radical Political Economics
• Main Authors: Milonakis, Dimitris, Meramveliotakis, Giorgos
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2012
• Subjects: montagnais
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0486613412447055; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0486613412447055; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0486613412447055

This article challenges some fundamental propositions of property rights theory by revealing the inability of new institutional economics to fully grasp the notion of property, as reflected in its narrow and problematic definition of property rights. The concept of property relations is proposed as better suited to capture the social and institutional aspects of property. By reconsidering the case of the Montagnais, originally used by Alchian and Demsetz for illustrative purposes, and drawing on the works of Polanyi and McManus, we show that the historical explanation of the emergence of (private) property rights provided by Alchian and Demsetz is flawed. JEL Codes: D02, D23, P14