Boundaries and property rights: The transformation of a common-pool resource

• This article examines how a common-property regime evolved within the context of property rights reforms, using empirical data from a Swedish parish over three centuries, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth. By adopting a transaction-cost approach, I argue that the standard depiction of how collective rights were transformed into individual rights has been oversimplified. One of the features that made the common-property regime successful was the interplay between de jure and de facto property rights. The land consolidation reforms of the early nineteenth century were costly for almost all landowners in the region, and required the adaptation of a well-established common-property regime to individually owned forestland.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Statsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Political Science (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Ekonomisk historia (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economic History (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)