The Problem of Resource Access

61 Pages Posted: 30 Sep 2012 Last revised: 18 Apr 2014

See all articles by Lee Anne Fennell

Lee Anne Fennell

University of Chicago - Law School

Date Written: April 15, 2013

Abstract

The Coasean insight that transaction costs stand between the world as we know it and an ideal of perfect efficiency has provided generations of law and economics scholars with an analytic north star. But for legal scholars interested in the efficiency implications of property arrangements, transaction costs turn out to constitute an unhelpful category. Transaction costs are related to property rights in unstable and contested ways, and they comprise a heterogeneous set of impediments, not all of which are amenable to cost-effective reduction through law. Treating them as focal confuses the cause of our difficulties in structuring access to resources (positive transaction costs) with the solution to the problem presented by a world featuring scarce resources and positive transaction costs. A broader notion of resource access costs, appropriately subdivided, can correct problems of overinclusion, underinclusion, and insufficient specification in the transaction cost concept. The resulting analytic clarity will allow property theorists to contribute more usefully to solving resource problems.

Note: This paper previously circulated under the title "Resource Access Costs"

Keywords: Coase Theorem, Demsetz, entitlements, property rights, resources, transaction costs

JEL Classification: K10, K11

Suggested Citation

Fennell, Lee Anne, The Problem of Resource Access (April 15, 2013). Harvard Law Review, Vol. 126, p. 1471, 2013, University of Chicago Institute for Law & Economics Olin Research Paper No. 616, U of Chicago, Public Law Working Paper No. 404, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2154069

Lee Anne Fennell (Contact Author)

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-0603 (Phone)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
357
Abstract Views
2,666
Rank
152,786
PlumX Metrics