What rules govern the acquisition and use of property? In the third installment of Introduction to Common Law, Prof. Richard Epstein of NYU School of Law describes how the rules of property acquisition vary depending on the type of asset and explains the problem of the tragedy of the commons.
Prof. Epstein provides an alternative to the conventional view that property rights are arbitrarily created by the state, and therefore can be changed at will by the state; a few simple rules, he argues, are universal principles of social organization, consistent across time and culture, which form the basis of social gains.
Prof. Epstein is the inaugural Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Professor of Law Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago.
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