Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together: Experimental Evidence of Anticommons Tragedies

Abstract

This Article conducts an experimental investigation of anticommons dilemmas. The results confirm that anticommons deadweight losses increase with the degree of complementarity and the degree of fragmentation of property. Our study further provides three novel insights into the problem of fragmentation. First, the data illustrates that individual right holders ignore the expected value of bundling and instead focus on the maximum profit he or she could realize by bundling. Second, the experiments suggest that uncertainty amplifies the anticommons pricing effect. Finally, cooperation is higher in cases wherethe value of bundling is more uncertain as opposed to scenarios where there is relative certainty of creating surplus but there is a (modest) chance of losses from bundling.

Keywords: Anticommons, property regimes, law and economics

JEL Classification: K10, K11