Property Law
Comparative, Empirical, and Economic Analyses

Use hand-coded data on nearly 300 dimensions on the substance of property law in 156 jurisdictions in the world.

Yun-chien Chang (Author)

9781009236591, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 June 2023

400 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.9 cm, 0.79 kg

'Systems of property law differ, but as this book shows they differ not so much as one would think. This book offers a very impressive comparative overview of property law across the globe by coding legal systems. In doing so Chang offers deep insights into the general structure of property law and categories of approaches to problems.' Bram Akkermans, Professor of Property Law, Maastricht University

The first book of its kind, Property Law: Comparative, Empirical, and Economic Analyses, uses a unique hand-coded data set on nearly 300 dimensions on the substance of property law in 156 jurisdictions to describe the convergence and divergence of key property doctrines around the world. This book quantitatively analyzes property institutions and uses machine learning methods to categorize jurisdictions into ten legal families, challenging the existing paradigms in economics and law. Using other cross-country data, the author empirically tests theories about property law and comparative law. Using economic efficiency as both a positive and a normative criterion, each chapter evaluates which jurisdictions have the most efficient property doctrines, concluding that the common law is not more efficient than the civil law. Unlike prior studies on empirical comparative law, this book provides detailed citations to laws in each jurisdiction. Data and documentation are publicly available on the author's website.

Introduction
Part I. Foundation: 1. Property Law around the World: An Empirical Overview
2. Economic Framework
3. Limited Number of Limited Property Rights: Less is More
4. Transfer of Ownership: Transaction Cost v. Information Cost
Part II. Immovable Property: 5. Acquisitive Prescription: Hardly Justified in Modern, Developed Countries
6. Building Encroachment: In Search of an Efficiency Justification
7. Co-ownership Partition: Proposing a New Auction-based Design
8. Managing Co-ownership: Tragedy of the Common-Ownership? 9. Access to Landlocked Land: Hybrid Entitlement Protection
Part III. Movable Property: 10. Good-faith Purchaser: Proposing Fractional Ownership and Internal Auction
11. Finders, Keepers: A Minority Rule
12. The Specificatio Doctrine: Do What the Romans Did
13. The Accessio Doctrine: No Sign of Convergence.

Subject Areas: Property law [LNS], Private / Civil law: general works [LNB], Comparative law [LAM]