Abstract
When a transaction is concluded in the marketplace, two bundles of property rights are exchanged. A bundle of rights often attaches to a physical commodity or service, but it is the value of the rights that determines the value of what is exchanged. Questions addressed to the emergence and mix of the components of the bundle of rights are prior to those commonly asked by economists. Economists usually take the bundle of property rights as a datum and ask for an explanation of the forces determining the price and the number of units of a good to which these rights attach.
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© 1974 American Economic Association
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Demsetz, H. (1974). Toward a Theory of Property Rights. In: Gopalakrishnan, C. (eds) Classic Papers in Natural Resource Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523210_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523210_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-41750-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-52321-0
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