Checkerboards and Coase: The Effect of Property Institutions on Efficiency in Housing Markets

Randall Akee

Journal of Law and Economics, 2009, vol. 52, issue 2, 395-410

Abstract: In the late 1800s, Palm Springs, California, was evenly divided into 1-mile-square blocks-like a checkerboard-and property rights were assigned in alternating blocks to the Agua Caliente tribe and a non-Indian landowner by the U.S. federal government. The quasi-experimental nature of land assignment holds land quality constant across the two types of landowners. Sales, mortgaging, and leasing restrictions on the Agua Caliente Reservation land created large transaction costs to development on those lands; consequently, there was very little housing investment. The non-Indian blocks, which were extensively developed, provide a benchmark for efficient outcomes for the Agua Caliente lands. Once the restrictions on Agua Caliente lands were relaxed in 1959, the number of homes and real estate values converged to those of non-Indian-owned lands as predicted by the Coase theorem. (c) 2009 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/592718 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:52:y:2009:i:2:p:395-410

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Law and Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().