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Formalization, Possession, And Ownership, Thomas W. Merrill Jan 2017

Formalization, Possession, And Ownership, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

This paper is a comment on the work of Hernando de Soto, who has done so much to highlight the importance of property rights, especially in the context of what I will call migrant communities within developing countries. These are the shantytowns of Peru, the favelas of Brazil, and the bidonvilles of Haiti. De Soto characterizes these communities as “extralegal zones.” They consist, in his words, of “modest homes cramped together on city perimeters, a myriad of workshops in their midst, armies of vendors hawking their wares on the streets, and countless crisscrossing minibus lines.” I am interested in de …


Property And Sovereignty, Information And Audience, Thomas W. Merrill Jan 2017

Property And Sovereignty, Information And Audience, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Morris Cohen’s classic essay, Property and Sovereignty, correctly discerned that political sovereignty and private property are alternative forms of government. Where it failed was in suggesting that the choice between these modes of governance is a matter of dialing one up and the other down. The relationship between political sovereignty and property is complex, and varies depending on the audience of property we have in view. With respect to some audiences – strangers and transactors – those who favor a strong system of property will want to enlist a generous measure of assistance from the political sovereign. With respect to …


Stock Market Futurism, Merritt B. Fox, Gabriel Rauterberg Jan 2017

Stock Market Futurism, Merritt B. Fox, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. stock market is undergoing extraordinary upheaval. The approval of the application of the Investors Exchange (IEX) to become the nation’s newest stock exchange, including its famous “speed bump,” was one of the SEC’s most controversial decisions in decades. Other exchanges have proposed a raft of new innovations in its wake. This evolving equity market is a critical piece of national infrastructure, but the regulatory scheme for its institutions is increasingly frayed. In particular, current regulation draws sharp distinctions among different kinds of markets for trading stocks, treating stock exchanges as self-regulatory organizations immune from private civil litigation, while …