The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers’ Rules of Capture

Authors

Bart J. Wilson, Chapman University
Taylor Jaworski, University of ArizonaFollow
Karl E. Schurter, University of Chicago
Andrew Smyth, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

1-16-2012

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Source Publication

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization

Source ISSN

8756-6222

Abstract

This article uses a laboratory experiment to probe the proposition that property emerges anarchically out of social custom. We test the hypothesis that whalers in the 18th and 19th centuries developed rules of conduct that minimized the sum of the transaction and production costs of capturing their prey, the primary implication being that different ecological conditions led to different rules of capture. Ceteris paribus, we find that simply imposing two different types of prey is insufficient to observe two different rules of capture. Another factor is essential, namely, as Samuel Pufendorf theorized over 300 years ago, that the members of the community are civil minded .

Comments

Accepted version. The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Vol. 28, No. 4 (January 16 2012) : 617-656. DOI. © 2012 Oxford University Press. Used with permission.

Andrew Smyth was affiliated with Florida State University at the time of publication.

Recommended Citation

Wilson, Bart J.; Jaworski, Taylor; Schurter, Karl E.; and Smyth, Andrew, "The Ecological and Civil Mainsprings of Property: An Experimental Economic History of Whalers’ Rules of Capture" (2012). Economics Faculty Research and Publications. 602.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_fac/602