A Model of Rights and Government

Randall Holcombe

Chapter 4 in The Economic Foundations of Government, 1994, pp 54-71 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract According to the economic theory of rights, individuals have rights to the extent that they are able to bargain for them. In the real world, significant rights might sometimes be bargained for on an individual basis. When does the teenager have the right to take the family car? Rights of family members within the family setting are clearly subject to negotiation, but the same is true outside of the family setting. What often is referred to as corruption is the outcome of an exchange process that accords some individuals more rights than others.1 Even in societies that espouse equal rights as a public policy, factors such as corruption and special interest legislation create a setting where some people have more rights, or more securely enforced rights, than others.2 Differential rights can be created by individual bargaining, but can also be the result of group action, where one group is able to impose a rights structure that gives them advantages over others.

Keywords: Social Contract; Opportunistic Behavior; Cooperative System; Caste System; Constitutional Rule (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-13230-0_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-13230-0_4

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