PROPERTY IN LAND

Because human beings live on the surface of the earth, systems of law and custom which regulate property in land, and so establish the foundation of virtually all human activity, have sparked often fierce and monolithic ideological commentary. Professor Ellickson explores various fundamental issues of land ownership regimes and concludes that a more flexible understanding is needed. The Article's efficiency thesis is that close-knit groups tend to create, through law and custom, a cost-minimizing land regime that adaptively responds to changes in risk, technology, demand, and other economic conditions. In so doing, the group mixes private, group, and open access lands. According to the private property thesis, a close-knit group commonly employs a system of parcelized ownership for sites suitable for dwelling, agriculture, or other intensive uses. Drawing upon both the rational-actor model employed by many social scientists and a diverse body of historical evidence on the evolution of land institutions, Professor Ellickson demonstrates that land rules are not a shapeless jumble, but instead form an unauthored strategy which allocates a resource with extremely complex attributes.