Property, economics of

The contribution of economic analysis to the study of property law provide a relatively simple framework in which a variety of legal institutions find a common logic in the attempt to remedy externalities and to create proper incentives for individuals to negotiate. The risk of applying the economic logic to property law is to buy into its biases against redistribution of resources and government intervention. Such risk particularly materializes when the notion of property is extended far beyond the limits of an economic institution into domains of human relationship in which the economic logic poorly reflect the real life complexity of individual motivations and of political platforms.