Scholarly Comments on Academic Economics

Property: A Bundle of Rights? Prologue to the Property Symposium

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Abstract

This piece is the Prologue to an Econ Journal Watch symposium entitled, Property: A Bundle of Rights? This Prologue was written to prompt the invited scholars to expound their own criticisms of the bundle-of-rights view, or, as the case may be, to address criticisms out there. The Prologue is written from a staunch yet pragmatic classical liberal perspective. It frames a number of issues, provides a series of quotations, and asks a number of questions intended to prompt the symposium participants. The symposium participants include leading critics of the bundle formulation James E. Penner, Thomas W. Merrill, and Henry E. Smith; younger critics Larissa Katz, Eric R. Claeys, and Adam Mossoff; eminent defenders of the bundle formulation Stephen R. Munzer and Richard A. Epstein; and the renowned property scholar Robert C. Ellickson, who takes a middle position.