According to Anderson and Hill, the key to the successful and, by and large, peaceful enforcement of contracts, as well as the generally peaceful exploitation of what at the outset were common access resources, was the emergence of a set of rules, both formal and informal, that assigned property rights to agents operating in this new economy. ![]() ![]() Hill, was not nearly as “wild” as has been depicted by some historians and by Hollywood. Nevertheless, the West, as described by Terry Anderson and P J. frontier during the nineteenth century took place in an environment where government was largely absent. The use of common property resources also may require an authority, whether a government entity or a substitute, to help ensure that the exploitation of the resource does become a “tragedy of the commons.”Įconomic activity on the U.S. Government is often the agent that enforces contracts, but where government is weak or non-existent, other enforcement mechanisms may emerge. Implicit in economic transactions is the understanding that the parties will fulfill the terms of the exchange to which they have agreed. Lewis, Department of Economics, Queen’s University. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Hill, The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier. The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier Author(s):
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