Bonds without Bondsmen: Tenant-Right in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Timothy Guinnane and Ronald I. Miller

The Journal of Economic History, 1996, vol. 56, issue 1, 113-142

Abstract: Tenant-right, or a tenant's right to sell his holding, was one of the most puzzling institutions of nineteenth-century Irish land tenure. Historians have argued that the institution reflects the tenants' assertions of a proprietary interest in the land, an assertion often backed up by threats and violence. In this article we argue that landlords respected tenant-right because they could profit from the instistution. Our model reflects comments by contemporaries and explains that tenant-right functioned as a bond aganist nonpayment of rent and was part of a rational landlord's income-maximizing strategy.

Date: 1996
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Working Paper: Bonds without Bondsmen: Tenant-Right in Nineteenth Century Ireland (1992)
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