Economic Development and Property Rights

Abstract

The idea of economic planning for development dominates both the thinking and practice of almost all underdeveloped countries today. Their leaders seem to identify the annual increment in physical output either with the rate of improvement in social welfare or, as is often the case, with the promise of its improvement in the foreseeable future. Yet it appears that the standard of living and the rate of its improvement in countries which have limited the scope of economic planning to a declaration of their aims and objectives is at least as high as in those countries which have adopted various kinds and degrees of effective administrative planning. The purpose of this paper is to develop a line of reasoning which would suggest that economic development of a community cannot be fully understood without analysis of the effects of property rights structures on the pattern of behaviour of its members.