Law, Endowments, and Property Rights

Abstract

While scholars have hypothesized about the sources of variation in property rights for over 2500years, it is only very recently that researchers have begun to test these theories empirically. Thispaper reviews both the theory and empirical evidence supporting and refuting the law andendowment views of property rights. The law view holds that historically determined differences innational legal traditions continue to shape cross-country differences in property rights. Theendowment view argues that during European colonization, differences in climate, crops, theindigenous population, and the disease environment influenced long-run property rights.