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The market is a complex organism that has rich implications and essential stipulations. From the property right perspective, the market is a series of property rights, rules, and system arrangements (an aggregation of rights), which are constructed, owned, operated, and managed by the state and from which the government can benefit. The market property right is owned by the government (state). The costs of market property right include tangible (explicit) cost, system cost, human cost, and other cost components. The study on the cost components of market property right is conducive to establishing the principle of matching investment with ownership, matching investment with income, and integrating (unifying) cost with efficiency.

To one aware of the persistence and severity of ancient and modern attacks on private property, the allegiance to private property characteristic of contemporary proponents of human rights may appear remarkable, indeed, mind‐boggling. However, I believe that philosophers committed to human rights identify private property with the human right to property because of their unwarranted confidence in the moral justifiability, and hence the moral acceptability, of private property. In company with John Locke, today's supporters of the view that persons have the human right to property believe that moral reasoning based upon the foundational beliefs of a doctrine of human rights ultimately establishes property to be a human right. Subsequently, they diligently seek morality's sanction for the appropriation, accumulation, and the use and disposal of things in the manner associated with private property. Private property is, therefore, virtually unopposed in its bid for the property chair in the exclusive human rights club. Though decried by opponents as robbery and massively unjust, in theory this form of ownership is remarkably unscathed behind a fortress of arguments. In practice, many societies currently purporting to have instantiated private property in their institutional arrangements have so mitigated property rights that the concept of private property is inapplicable. However, in combination with widespread and strong commitment to private property, the fortress of moral justification for a human right to private property is a serious obstacle to changing a society's property arrangements.

In this article Professor Perry argues that Plessy v. Ferguson and the de jure segregation it heralded has overdetermined the discourse on Jim Crow. She demonstrates through a historical analysis of activist movements, popular literature, and case law that private law, specifically property and contract, were significant aspects of Jim Crow law and culture. The failure to understand the significance of private law has limited the breadth of juridical analyses of how to respond to racial divisions and injustices. Perry therefore contends that a paradigmatic shift is necessary in scholarly analyses of the Jim Crow era, to include private law, and moreover that this shift will enrich our understandings of both historic and current inequalities.

X = multiple interpretations

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether enforceability mediates the relationship between property rights and investment in housing, using data from land formalization project in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The study was cross-sectional in design; data were collected from a sample of 210 households that benefited from the recent Addis Ababa city land and buildings formalization project. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the goodness-of-fit of the latent structures underlying the constructs. Mediation was tested using the Baron and Kenny steps, combined with bootstrapping technique. Robustness of results was checked.

The results indicate statistically significant mediation effect of contract enforcement. However, the mediation is partial, there is still a substantial direct effect of security of property rights on investment.

Any initiative to land formalization projects needs to consider contract enforcement environment, as presence and size of property rights effects largely depend on whether those rights are properly enforced.

This is the first study that conceptualizes the mediating effect of contract enforcement on the relationship between property rights and investment from an African country perspective.

This paper discusses the institutionalists' economic thought and how they saw the role of property rights in economic development. It points out that the role of various institutions in the economic performance of many developing countries cannot be ignored. One of the important institutional factors in many developing countries and transitional economies is the nature and definition of property rights. This paper therefore addresses the impact of property rights on overall economic performance of a country and more specifically on agricultural production and on the conservation and management of the environment. It is generally agreed that property rights are a claim to a benefit stream where the state provides protection from others who may interfere with the benefit stream. Well‐defined property rights are considered vital for transitional economies which are undertaking major structural changes. The recent literature on property rights in transitional economies is largely concentrated on the former socialist and communist economies of Eastern Europe, which are embracing the market economy. However, this also has significant implications for many developing countries like Fiji which can also be considered as transitional economies. For Fiji the transition is from a highly protected, inward‐looking economy towards an export‐oriented economy. Getting the property rights “right” seems to be one of the major obstacles to economic reform agendas for many of the South Pacific countries including Fiji.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the legal status of domain names from both a contractual and a property right perspective, and to consider whether domain names are to be considered as a new form of property, in particular as virtual property.

The paper approaches the topic from contractual perspective. It then examines the concept and various property law theories. This is followed by an analysis to the intangibility of domain names and the appropriate category of protection.

Domain names are creatures of contract and contract law will provide some form of protection. According to the bundle of rights theory, domain names are intangible property with limitations. Some names are very valuable but nevertheless attract no protection beyond contractual rights. These names should be clothed with property rights protection. The relevant form of property rights is still contentious issue.

The nature of rights over domain names is a key emerging issue in the area of information technology law, with little to guide lawyers and judges. There is currently no consensus on what the legal status of a domain name is and opinions vary about the nature of these rights. The paper offers an insight to the nature of rights in an attempt to further the protection and recognition of rights over domain names.

Property rights are often seen to be the cause and the solution of a wide range of social problems especially those affecting the natural environment. But, the property rights box is indeed pandoran, spawning as many questions as it answers as a function of diverse theoretical perspectives. The literature on property rights is not homogeneous so that interpretations of problems and suggestions for solutions are highly diverse. Consequently, the value of property rights theory in understanding or solving social problems can be problematic. The recent interest in property rights theory has been spawned by the focus on the “takings” issue where a particular perspective of private property rights, as a form of natural rights, has “re”‐emerged. This “new” private property rights perspective portends radical consequences for environmental management. But the theme of this paper is that this methodology adds little insight to the understanding of property rights and environmental problems.

To re‐examine the role of property management from an institutional economics perspective.

The role of property management is explored by asking why property management has emerged from the first principle. Then, an analytical framework for property management is put forward. Different dimensions of institutional arrangements, ranging from open access to communal private property or solely owned private property, are discussed in the real estate property context.

The paper shows that a unique feature of property management is its role in excluding outsiders and resolving internal conflicts among the stakeholders of communal private property.

This approach opens up a new research agenda for property management. The adoption of different institutional arrangements in property management can be explained by further studies.

The efficiency of different institutional arrangements for the governance of communal private property is situation‐specific. An endogenous assumption of institutional regime in property management practice greatly expands the flexibility of management.

This paper is the first to apply an analytical framework for interpreting the institutional arrangements in property management.

Since the arrival of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 a number of side agreements have also been negotiated that seek further rationalization of the emerging global economy. Prominent among these is the agreement on trade‐related intellectual property rights (TRIPS). Enforcement of the TRIPS agreement would involve the multilateral trade sanctions mechanism of the WTO. By contrast, proponents advocating a parallel international agreement guaranteeing adequate protections for workers – trade‐related international labor standards (TRILS) – have not met with success. This paper examines how traditional justificatory arguments for the property rights might apply to the question of workers’ rights in the international economy. It is found that such arguments apply quite well to the right of access to a “decent living”. It is then investigated how a TRILS agreement administered and enforced by the WTO's disputes settlements mechanism might advance these rights.