Fundamental to Economic Prosperity

Poverty can be caused by many factors, but property rights are fundamental to the economic prosperity, for which the peoples of all societies yearn.

 

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Daniel Benjamin

 

 

 

Secure property rights are central to economic prosperity. It was the emergence of secure property rights that laid the foundation for the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent explosion of per capita incomes. Around the world today, it is variations in the security of property rights that play a central role in explaining differences in prosperity across nations.

 

 

 

 

This report covers a study of the economic organization of farming in Ghana, where land is largely controlled by political leaders, and where individual property rights are both ambiguous and negotiable.

 

Many factors play a role in poverty, whether it is in West Africa or elsewhere. The factors identified by the authors of this paper cannot account for all of the deprivation we see in Ghana, but the paper fits nicely into a growing literature that makes one point abundantly clear: Without secure property rights, prosperity is a pipe dream.

 

Read the full report here.

from: PERC Reports, Volume 27, No.2, Summer 2009.
“Property Rights and Prosperity”
by Daniel Benjamin
 

Filed under: Property Rights

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