How to Create - Or Destroy - Wealth in Real Property

28 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2008

See all articles by Richard A. Epstein

Richard A. Epstein

New York University School of Law; Stanford University - Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace; University of Chicago - Law School

Abstract

Current legal conceptions of property differ in the private and the public law. The former develops a comprehensive conception that gives full protection for each element in the bundle of rights - possession, use and disposition - which allows parties to enter into complex transactions that increase wealth for the parties without prejudicing outsiders. Constitutional doctrine gives strong protection to exclusion, but weak protection to use and disposition, and thus invites a complex range of government strategies that reduce property value, without creating any offsetting gain in third parties.

Keywords: first possession, Lockean theory, nuisance, spatial externalities, temporal externalities, trespass, unconstitutional condition, zoning

Suggested Citation

Epstein, Richard A., How to Create - Or Destroy - Wealth in Real Property. Alabama Law Review, Vol. 741, No. 4, 2007, U of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 384, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1087142

Richard A. Epstein (Contact Author)

New York University School of Law ( email )

40 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012-1099
United States
(212) 992-8858 (Phone)
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Stanford University - Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace

Stanford, CA 94305-6010
United States

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-9563 (Phone)
773-702-0730 (Fax)

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