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Armen Alchian's output may be sparse and informal, but it has been among the most influential. Although he was at the Rand Corporation and UCLA for most of his career, Alchian's approach to economics has been closely associated with the "Chicago School".  The reason for this judgement rests on his virtuoso use of Neoclassical price theory in some rather complicated corners of economics, thus making him one of the founding father of New Institutional economics.

In his famous 1950 contribution to the "maximization debate" in the theory of the firm, Alchian introduced the "survival" principle of evolution into analyzing market structure: perhaps not all firms consciously maximize profits; but the competitive price mechanism and the market will weed out those who do not.  Although at any time we may have non-profit-maximizers, in the long run, as the process of evolution continues, only profit-maximizers will survive. Thus, the assumption of profit-maximization in economic theory, Alchian argued, was a valid generalization even if it did not correspond to fact at any point in time. This argument is clearly more acute than the simpler one offered by Milton  Friedman, and served as an important precedent for "evolutionary" economics.

Alchian's critique of Keynes's theory of investment (1955) is a classic in investment theory while his work on unemployment (1969) was one of the first to consider the natural rate of unemployment arising from "job search". His 1972 work with Harold Demsetz on property rights was a generalization of Coase's work. Finally, his famous 1964 textbook with W.R. Allen is an exemplary treatment in the Chicago vein - preserving and extending the Neoclassical market paradigm to handle all sorts of economic problems and describing purported "market failures" not as failures as such but as "market outcomes" in the face of transactions costs and information problems.

Major Works of Armen A. Alchian

"Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory", 1950, JPE
"The Rate of Interest, Fisher's Rate of Return Over Cost and Keynes's Internal Rate of Return", 1955, AER
"Private Property and the Relative Cost of Tenure", 1958, in Bradley, editor, Public Stake in Union Power.
"Costs and Outputs", 1959, in Abramovitz, editor, Allocation of Economic Resources
"Redistribution of Wealth through Inflation", with R. Kessel, 1959, Science.
"The Meaning and Validity of the Inflation-Induced Lag of Wages", with R.A. Kessel, 1960, AER
"Competition Monopoly and the Pursuit of Pecuniary Gain", with R.A.Kessel, 1962, in Aspects of Labor Economics
"The Effects of Inflation", with R.A. Kessel, 1962, JPE.
"Reliability of Progress Curves in Airframe Production", 1963, Econometrica
University Economics, with W.R. Allen, 1964.
Exchange and Production, 1964.
"Some Economics of Property Rights", 1965, Il Politico.
"Economic and Social Impact of Free Tuition", 1968, New Individualist Review.
"Cost", 1968, IESS
"Information Costs, Pricing and Resource Unemployment", 1969, Western EJ
"Corporate Management and Property Rights", 1969, in Manne, editor, Economic Policy and the Regulation of Corporate Securities.
"Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization", with H. Demsetz, 1972, AER
"On a Correct Measure of Inflation", with B. Klein, 1973, JMCB.
"Why Money?", 1977, JMCB
Economic Forces at Work, 1978
"Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents and the Competitive Contracting Process", with B. Klein and R.G. Crawford, 1978, J Law Econ

Property Rights
产权
    私有产权  产权是一种通过社会强制而实现的对某种经济物品的多种用途进行选择的权利。属于个人的产权即为私有产权，它可以转让——以换取对其他物品同样的权利。私有产权的有效性取决于对其强制实现的可能性及为之付出的代价，这种强制有赖于政府的力量、日常社会行动以及通行的伦理和道德规范。简言之，没有经过你的许可或没有给你补偿，任何人都不能合法地使用或影响那些产权归你所有的物品的物质性状。在假设的私有产权完备的条件下，我利用我的资源而采取任何行动，都不可能影响任何其他人的私有财产的实际归属。例如，你对你的计算机的私有产权限制了我和其他每一个人对它的可允许行为，而我的私有产权则限制了你和其他每一个人对我所拥有的一切东西的可允许行为。这里需要强调的是：一个物品不受他人行动影响的是指其物质性状和实际用途，而不是它的交换价值。
    私有产权是给予人们对物品那些必然发生矛盾的各种用途进行选择的权利。这种权利并不是对物品可能用途施以人为的或强加的限制，而是对这些用途进行选择的排它性权利。如果限制我在我的土地上种植玉米，那将是一种强加的或人为的限制，它否定了一些并没有转让给其他人的权利。人为的或不必要的限制不是私有产权赖以存在的基础。之所以如此，还由于这些限制一般只是针对某些人而实行的，在对其他人没有必要限制的活动中，如果不对这些人加以限制，他们就会取得一种“合法的垄断”。
    根据私有产权，任何双方同意的契约条款都是允许的，它们并不是都必须得到政府强制力的支持。当契约条款是属法律所禁止的，则私有产权就要遭到否定。例如，每天工作lO小时以上的契约，不管支付的工资有多高，都会被认为是非法的。或者，当商品售价超过了出于政治方面考虑而划定的某种界限时，也可能是非法的。这些限制减少了私有财产、市场交换和契约作为调节生产与消费以及解决利益冲突的手段的力量。
    经济理论与私有产权  通过成功地对私有产权进行分析论证，人们对在一种私有财产制(即资本主义制度或“自由企业”制度)下引导和协调经济资源使用的方法做了说明。这种分析依据的是某些凸性偏好和两种约束：生产的可能性和私有财产交换的约束，用句圣经的话说：莫要巧取豪夺。或准确地说，这是一种物品交换价值的保存。
    根据著名的比较利益原理，在一个知识扩散的社会里，要使生产专业化的分散协调得以顺利进行，人们就必须得到有保障的可转让的私有产权，即以双方同意的价格，用较低的交易成本对生产资源和可交易产品进行转让的权利。这样一种协调扩散信息的制度，能增加高价值产品的可获性，并能使得这些产品的生产成本下降。一种产权私有并将进行交易的物品，其产权的量是用价值来衡量的；同样数量的物品，作为私人财产与作为非私人财产(如政府财产)，其产权量是不相等的。几乎没有什么疑问，私有产权较强要比私有产权较弱更有价值，这就是说，如果拥有某种物品的一个卖主与两个拥有相同物品的人进行交换，他对私有产权较弱的人的要价会高于对私有产权较强的人的要价。
    企业、公司专用资源和产权结构 私有产权不仅对于加强生产专业化是极端重要的，而且私有产权的可分割、可分离、可转让的属性，能使合作组织参与现代股份公司的生产活动。这种鲜为人知而又极其重要的合作生产过程，严重依赖私有产权要素的分割和分离。然而，这种方法却经常被误解，即认为它不当地限制了私有产权的效率并削弱了私有产权的社会可接受性。为了看清这种认识的荒谬，必须明白企业的性质，特别是股份公司形式的企业的性质，因为这种组织形式的企业在经济中占有很大比重。这种通常被视为具有产出功能的“黑箱”的“企业”，是一种以契约方式把各个合作者的资源集中起来的组织。提高了生产力的这些来源各异的资源称之为“协作”的生产力，在这里，产出已经不是各个参与合作者贡献的投入各自产出的总和；相反，它是由这个合作的集团所生产的一个不可分割的难以归因于个别合作者的价值。因此，在由几项归属各异的资源联合生产某种产品的情况下，人们已经无法指出其中每一资源单独的最终产出价值是多少；相反，人们能够指出或度量的是每一投入的边际产品价值。
    在存在比较利益和贸易条件下的专业化生产，是以一种分散的方式由市场价格和现货交易所引导的，在这种情况下，称之为企业的协作生产力依赖于在那些以各自的资源向该企业的投入集团进行投资的所有者们之间签定的长期、强制性契约。特别是，有些投入是专门用于这种协作的，在企业中，与其他投入资源相比，这类投入的可替代性是很低的。这种投入被称之为“企业专用资源”。在企业中，企业专用投入资源多为共同所有，或者是，在那些各式各样的互为专用资源的所有者们之间采用契约形式，以限定它们将来只能为作为一个整体的这个所有者的集团利益服务，而不是为任何单个所有者的利益服务。这些契约性的限制，为的是限制单个所有者的机会主义和“道德危害”，他们都想在公司专用资源的混合性准租金占有某一份额。为了阐述上的简便，可以这样说，只有在极端的情况下，其他通用性资源易地他用才不会丧失其价值。因此，一个公司就是由限制性契约所维系的企业专用投入资源和通用投入资源组合而成的、生产某种不可分割的最终产品价值的一个集团。结果，这种协作活动和运营将被置于那些公司专用资源所有者们的严密控制和监督之下，这些人与公司的成败最为休戚与共。实际上，他们一般都被看成是公司的“所有者”、“雇主”或“老板”’虽然在现实中，公司是由不同人所拥有的资源的一个合作性集合体。
    公司专用资源可以由人以外的生产要素构成。而法律、建筑设计、医务这些专业性公司，则是由那些在其他行业就将降低其价值的人们所组成的。这些公司也使用人以外的通用资本，如建筑和设备。这种定义为“雇佣”的合同，依赖于资源的专用性和通用性，而不是依赖于资源的人的属性或非人的属性，也不依赖于谁较为富有。顺便说一下，由于在专业性公司中通用资源所有人的利益小于专用资源所有人，所以“工业民主”的安排是少有的。
    私有产权下的股份公司和专业化在一个股份公司中，股东们拥有的资源，其价值专门体现于这—公司。为使用这些产权要素而实行专业化的这种事的复杂性，以及与此相连的种种契约性限制，使得一些人认为：股份公司的资源使用决策与后果的承担往往是相互隔离(即分离)的，如控制权与所有权的分离，并因此而削弱了一种私有产权制度以更高的市场使用价值配置资源的能力。例如，有人认为：股权的分散使得资源的管理控制与资源的所有权分离，以至于使管理者可以不充分考虑市场价值和分散的股东们的利益而行事。亚当·斯密(Adam Smith)就是首先提出这一见解的人之—。暂且不论这种见解在实践经验方面的正确性如何，就这种见解的逻辑分析而言，它依据的是对股份公司内私有产权结构以及竞争性市场性质的错误认识。其实，在这种市场中，控制权与所有权往往可以限制那些管理者们的行动。各个管理者所寻求的，与那些在争夺控制权的竞争中成功地生存下来的人所寻求的，是大相径庭的两码事。
    股份公司的一个优越之处，是它能为大规模经营集聚充足财富作为公司专用资源。如果代表所有权的股份是可以转让的私有财产，因而消除了人们在消费时间的安排上对公司专用资源投资收益时间格局的依赖，那么，就能够实现集资。如果股份只负有限的责任，从而使每个股东都能免于对其他股东的全部财富负责，那么，就能够实现股份转让。由此而产生了股份的不具名性质，使得人们并不关心其他股东究竞是谁，从而使股份有了更好的市场可转让性。
    当企业专用资源决策权与这些资源的市场价值实现结果的自愿分离，附加到股份的可转让性上时，就可以使有些人专门从事管理、经营决策，这些实行控制的能人不必承担全部价值实现结果的风险，从而可以实现有利的生产专业化以及合作生产力的协调。专业化并非必然仅限于进行不同最终产品的生产，它同样适用于各种生产性的投入和人的才能。产权要素所具有的自愿的可分割性和可转让性，可以实现两种有益的专业化(有时称作“分离”)：(1)行使有关资源使用的决策权；(2)承担市场或交换价值实现的结果。前者往往被称为“控制权”，后者则被称为“所有权”。产权要素的可分离性可以使人们得益于以下专业化：有的人专门选择与监督资源的使用，有的人专门评价资源使用的成果，有的人则专门承担随之而来的资源未来的用途和价值方面的风险。由于资源的使用不同，其结果的预期概率分布也不相同，而且由于不同结果对于考察以前决策的敏感程度不同，所以，这种产权要素的可分离性和可转让性，可以使人们在拥有和行使这些可分割权利方面实行专业化，进而获得种种收益。
    由此可见，现代股份公司依赖于增加股份可转让性的有限责任制，并依赖于私有产权要素的可分割性,以便通过在指导生产协作活动和人才使用方面实现大规模专业化而取得种种收益。这种“分离”作为控制和调整的方法，可以使人们在行使私有产权方面实行有效率的富于生产性的专业化，而不是破坏或削弱了私有产权的效率。
    政府产权  人们可以设想：在一个民主社会中，政府产权与股份分散的公司产权相似，而且也应该产生类似的结果。如果每一个选民所拥有的选举权份额与他在这个社区所占的财富份额相等，并且如果一个人能够像他在不同公司之间转移财富那样在各国政府之间转移财富，那么，这种假设可能会是正确的。如果存在这种情况，例如，一个人能够在几个不同国家的政府管辖下买、卖土地(在那种具体的国家，土地资产实际上占了政府所掌握的财产价值的大部分)，而且能够在每个国家中以与这种土地价值份额成比例地使用选举权，那么，政府财产实际就接近于私人财产。然而人们很难认真地看待这种可能性。政府的、公共的或公有的财产权利的性质，无疑依赖于政府的类型。由于这些问题是非常含糊和难以界定的，所以，规范地推断每一类政府资源配置和行为后果的种种尝试一直受到阻碍。
    非存在产权  并非所有的资源都能由私有产权实行令人满意的控制。空气、水、电磁辐射、噪音和自然景观就是一些例子。水从我的土地上流到你的地里。声音和阳光从我的土地上转到你的土地上。除私有产权之外的其他一些资源控制形式，是为了使例如政治或社会集团做出决策和采取行动，虽然这些其他形式往往是为了某种意识形态或政治的目的而服务的，甚至在那些已经存在着私有产权的地方也是如此。
    如果这些其他资源控制形式向每个使用者开放，允许他们自由进入，平等地分享，并获取平均收益，那么，就会出现对资源的过度使用。额外使用资源将会使实际增加的总价值低于增加的成本，这表明，社会产品价值并没有最大化。之所以会发生这种情况，是由于边际收益低于每个资源使用者的平均收益，对此，每个资源使用者都负有责任。所以，对资源的使用达到了这种水平：平均收益降至边际成本，随之是边际收益低于边际成本。经常用来说明这种情况的例子如：公共道路或公园的过分拥挤，自由出入的公共捕鱼区的过度捕捞。典型的“公有财产”意味着：公有苹果树上的苹果，从来等不到长熟就会被人们打光，这是以下命题的一个极端的例子，这个命题是：私有产权之外的其他产权形式，减弱了资源使用与市场上体现的价值之间的一致性。可供选择的另一种情况是，如果公有产权意味着负有责任的资源使用者能够阻挡更多的人使用资源，那么，资源就将利用不足，因为他们使自己的个人收益最大化了，但那只是平均收益，而不是边际收益。这将造成只有较少的人使用资源。虽然更多的资源使用者或更多地使用资源将会使那些负有责任的资源使用者的平均收益价值下降，因而有碍于形成一个较高的资源使用率，但是，额外使用资源而形成的总收益价值的增加部分，将超过额外使用资源的成本。例如，公立的低学费大学，为了使在校学生的教育质量达到最佳—使那些已被允许入校的学生平均收益最大化，便要限制入学人数。有些工会(如卡车司机联合会)也有类似的情况。
    由渔民在没有所有者的湖里过量捕捞的例子所引起的一个常见的错误推论是，那些能与顾客自由接触的独立卖主将会“蜂拥而至”，以各种各样的产品和广告宣传来吸引买主，而由其他卖主承担了由此造成的一些无形成本。假如有这种情况，例如，波尔—马尔香烟公司从卡姆尔香烟公司那儿吸引过来一些顾客，卡姆尔的损失是该公司专用资源价值的减少，而不是它丧失的销售额。该公司的通用资源将不再用于生产卡姆尔香烟，而是移作他用，并没有形成社会损失。但是，由于波尔—马尔公司的产品更好，更便宜，卡姆尔公司的专用资源将会降低价值。把波尔—马尔公司所增加的净收入，加上顾客从低价优质香烟所获得的转移收益，它们的总和也不足以抵补卡姆尔公司的损失。卡姆尔公司的损失并不是由于新来了竞争者这一事态本身所造成的，而是由于它对自己早期投资的价值做了错误的预测。这里假定，不应通过抑制出乎预料的前景改善而为错误的预测打掩护。这种情况与过度捕捞的例子不同，在那个例子里，顾客和鱼不一样，他们在付出什么和买进什么这种事上有财产权利。如果每一条鱼都有一个独立的所有者，或者鱼自己就是所有者，那么，除非一个人交付了足够的费用，否则，是不会允许他捕鱼的，过量捕捞也就不会发生了。倒不一定所有的鱼都必须归一个人所有，只要每一条鱼(或潜在的顾客)归那些可以有权拒绝购买的人所有就足够了。(当然，除非这个湖有了主人，否则，即使鱼是有了主人的，湖面还是会因为捕鱼人太多而拥挤不堪，每个捕鱼人只能在很小的区域里捕鱼。)
    顾客拥有决定交易与否的权利，这是在过度捕鱼、过度拥挤的事例中被人忽视了的特征。由于人们捕鱼或捕鲸的权利(或鱼和鲸鱼自己的权利)并不需要去购买，在那种顾客拥有的权利就是彼此竞争着的卖主们正在寻求的权利的地方，过度捕捞并不意味着必然有过度购买。此外，顾客们也可能会像鱼一样被抓住，在那种情况下，卖主的竞争包括两个方面：(1)确立对顾客的产权，(2)支配那些权利。卖主们为开始确立这些权利而进行的代价高昂的竞争，可以通过确立顾客自己的产权而很容易地加以避免，实际情况也正是如此。如果以富于想象力的眼光来看待前面所论述的情况，就可以用人来代替“鱼”，用街道来代替湖面，出租汽车司机正在为招徕顾客而四处奔忙。在这种情况下，为使用无主而又有价值的街道而开展的竞争中，耗费过多成本的事就不会发生了。
    共有产权  显然，“共有”组织形式是为了谋取组织成员们平均收益的最大化。或者在吸收新成员的同时，为原有成员保存比新成员们大得多的集团价值。共有私有财产是人们很少分析过的一种产权形式，它与别的私有产权不同，它不具备产权利益的匿名可转让性。一个共有组织的成员，只有取得其他各成员或他们的代理人同意，才能将共有组织的权益转让给他人。兄弟会及各种社会俱乐部或乡村俱乐部，都是共有组织的实例。这类活动一般并非组织完善，并且，它们的服务是收费的，例如饭馆、健身房等。共有组织内的专用资源是其成员本身，他们互相作用，并创造他们的社会效用。新成员会以两种方式对原有成员的已实现效用产生影响：社会共存性及组织密度加大。在共有组织之外的一个独立的所有者所关心的，是该组织的最大价值，而不是该组织成员的最大价值，因此，他会强烈要求吸收更多的成员，尽管这会增加共有组织的社会总价值，但同时会减少原有成员的人均价值。这个例子说明了，由于吸收了新成员，是在单位投入的平均收益方面出现了前面已经分析过的差异，而不是在总收益方面出现了那种差异；这些新成员会比不被吸收进该组织的干得更好，不过，原有成员的平均价值要减少。另外，假如对该俱乐部外部的产权所有者实行入会自由，新成员会对原有成员因组织人员扩大而在个人(平均)价值方面受到的损失给予补偿的能力将会受到抑制。当以入会的会费形式提供的金钱补偿落到了组织外部的资产所有者之手，并且其价值超过了该组织成员的个人平均效用和共有组织的总效用损失时，新成员将被接纳入会，外部的资产所有者也会得到实惠，而共有组织的原有成员却损失了他们的人际联谊所形成的混合性准租金。(从税收方面看，难于理解为什么在储蓄、信贷和保险领域会有共有组织出现。)
    侵权行为，有条件的和不确定的产权在原则上私有产权是存在的，但是人们完全可以觉察到，它并非盲目而不妥协地反对一切可能的“侵占者”。例如会出现这种情况：某人所认定的私有产权，并没有排斥一个“侵入者”去使用它。在某些意外或紧急情况下，事前未经允许就使用他人私有财产就是一个例子，这种行为往往被称为“侵权行为”。还有另一种可能性：由于产权的界定模糊，使得人们无法确定某项产权是否受到侵犯，或者该产权是否已为所谓的“侵占者”所有了。例如，我在我的土地上种的树恰好挡住了你从你的土地上观看风景的视线。问题在于，你是否拥有经我的土地无遮无挡地观看风景的权利。如果这种观景(或视线)权利有明确的定义和规定，我们就可以就保障你观景还是允许我栽树的问题讨价还价了，谈判的结果依赖于什么办法对我们俩人更有价值，并且要向能证明自己拥有这种权利的一方付款。再比如，当我在湖中划船时，为了躲避一场突如其来的暴风雨，保住我的船和性命，没有事前经过你的同意，我就使用了你的码头。在这种场合，是我对你的产权有所侵犯呢，还是你的产权中并不包含这种权利——当别人的人身处危境时也不得使用它?如果这种紧急情况下的行为被认为是适当的，那么，码头的使用权就并非加你所认为的那样完全归你所有。在栽树与观景发生矛盾的例子里，事前的谈判能够避免侵权行为(一开始我们就把对权利归属持有不同意见的情况除外)；但在紧急使用码头这个例子中，事前的谈判显然是行不通的。如果事前谈判是不经济的，而且那种紧急情况下的使用是对该资源最有价值的使用，那么，这种紧急使用的权利就不仅应当，而且是确实存在的。可以提出给财产所有人以补偿的要求，也可不提这种要求。基于这样一种法律原则的这个原则，看来是一目了然的，并符合有效经济行为的诸原则。这里只是提醒人们注意基于该原则的经济效益。
    阿梅恩·A·艾尔奇安(Armen A.A1chian)著
    王林 译 国鹰 校
    参阅：CIub；Coase Theorem; Common Law; Common Property Rights; Economic 0rganization and Transaction Costs; Fisheries；Law and Economics。

Property Rights
by Armen A. Alchian

One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that "property" rights too often take precedence over "human" rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage—property rights are human rights.

The definition, allocation, and protection of property rights is one of the most complex and difficult set of issues that any society has to resolve, but it is one that must be resolved in some fashion. For the most part social critics of "property" rights do not want to abolish those rights. Rather, they want to transfer them from private ownership to government ownership. Some transfers to public ownership (or control, which is similar) make an economy more effective. Others make it less effective. The worst outcome by far occurs when property rights really are abolished (see The Tragedy of the Commons).

A property right is the exclusive authority to determine how a resource is used, whether that resource is owned by government or by individuals. Society approves the uses selected by the holder of the property right with governmental administered force and with social ostracism. If the resource is owned by the government, the agent who determines its use has to operate under a set of rules determined, in the United States, by Congress or by executive agencies it has charged with that role.

Private property rights have two other attributes in addition to determining the use of a resource. One is the exclusive right to the services of the resource. Thus, for example, the owner of an apartment with complete property rights to the apartment has the right to determine whether to rent it out and, if so, which tenant to rent to; to live in it himself; or to use it in any other peaceful way. That is the right to determine the use. If the owner rents out the apartment, he also has the right to all the rental income from the property. That is the right to the services of the resources (the rent).

Finally, a private property right includes the right to delegate, rent, or sell any portion of the rights by exchange or gift at whatever price the owner determines (provided someone is willing to pay that price). If I am not allowed to buy some rights from you and you therefore are not allowed to sell rights to me, private property rights are reduced. Thus, the three basic elements of private property are (1) exclusivity of rights to the choice of use of a resource, (2) exclusivity of rights to the services of a resource, and (3) rights to exchange the resource at mutually agreeable terms.

The U.S. Supreme Court has vacillated about this third aspect of property rights. But no matter what words the justices use to rationalize recent decisions, the fact is that such limitations as price controls and restrictions on the right to sell at mutually agreeable terms are reductions of private property rights. Many economists (myself included) believe that most such restrictions on property rights are detrimental to society. Here are some of the reasons why.

Under a private property system the market values of property reflect the preferences and demands of the rest of society. No matter who the owner is, the use of the resource is influenced by what the rest of the public thinks is the most valuable use. The reason is that an owner who chooses some other use must forsake that highest-valued use—and the price that others would pay him for the resource or for the use of it. This creates an interesting paradox: although property is called "private," private decisions are based on public, or social, evaluation.

The fundamental purpose of property rights, and their fundamental accomplishment, is that they eliminate destructive competition for control of economic resources. Well-defined and well-protected property rights replace competition by violence with competition by peaceful means.

The extent and degree of private property rights fundamentally affect the ways people compete for control of resources. With more complete private property rights, market exchange values become more influential. The personal status and personal attributes of people competing for a resource matter less because their influence can be offset by adjusting the price. In other words, more complete property rights make discrimination more costly. Consider the case of a black woman who wants to rent an apartment from a white landlord. She is better able to do so when the landlord has the right to set the rent at whatever level he wants. Even if the landlord would prefer a white tenant, the black woman can offset her disadvantage by offering a higher rent. A landlord who takes the white tenant at a lower rent anyway pays for discriminating.

But if the government imposes rent controls that keep the rent below the free-market level, the price that the landlord pays to discriminate falls, possibly to zero. The rent control does not magically reduce the demand for apartments. Instead, it reduces every potential tenant's ability to compete by offering more money. The landlord, now unable to receive the full money price, will discriminate in favor of tenants whose personal characteristics—such as age, sex, ethnicity, and religion—he favors. Now the black woman seeking an apartment cannot offset the disadvantage of her skin color by offering to pay a higher rent.

Competition for apartments is not eliminated by rent controls. What changes is the "coinage" of competition. The restriction on private property rights reduces competition based on monetary exchanges for goods and services and increases competition based on personal characteristics. More generally, weakening private property rights increases the role of personal characteristics in inducing sellers to discriminate among competing buyers and buyers to discriminate among sellers.

The two extremes in weakened private property rights are socialism and "commonly owned" resources. Under socialism, government agents—those whom the government assigns—exercise control over resources. The rights of these agents to make decisions about the property they control are highly restricted. People who think they can put the resources to more valuable uses cannot do so by purchasing the rights because the rights are not for sale at any price. Because socialist managers do not gain when the values of the resources they manage increase, and do not lose when the values fall, they have little incentive to heed changes in market-revealed values. The uses of resources are therefore more influenced by the personal characteristics and features of the officials who control them. Consider, in this case, the socialist manager of a collective farm. By working every night for one week, he could make 1 million rubles of additional profit for the farm by arranging to transport the farm's wheat to Moscow before it rots. But if neither the manager nor those who work on the farm are entitled to keep even a portion of this additional profit, the manager is more likely than the manager of a capitalist farm to go home early and let the crops rot.

Similarly, common ownership of resources—whether in what was formerly the Soviet Union or in the United States—gives no one a strong incentive to preserve the resource. A fishery that no one owns, for example, will be overfished. The reason is that a fisherman who throws back small fish to wait until they grow is unlikely to get any benefit from his waiting. Instead, some other fisherman will catch the fish. The same holds true for other common resources whether they be herds of buffalo, oil in the ground, or clean air. All will be overused.

Indeed a main reason for the spectacular failure of recent economic reforms in the Soviet Union is that resources were shifted from ownership by government to de facto common ownership. How? By making the Soviet government's revenues de facto into a common resource. Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, who advised the Soviet government, has pointed out that when Soviet managers of socialist enterprises were allowed to open their own businesses but still were left as managers of the government's businesses, they siphoned out the profits of the government's business into their private corporations. Thousands of managers doing this caused a large budget deficit for the Soviet government. In this case the resource that no manager had an incentive to conserve was the Soviet government's revenues. Similarly, improperly set premiums for U.S. deposit insurance give banks and S&Ls an incentive to make excessively risky loans and to treat the deposit-insurance fund as a "common" resource.

Private property rights to a resource need not be held by a single person. They can be shared, with each person sharing in a specified fraction of the market value while decisions about uses are made in whatever process the sharing group deems desirable. A major example of such shared property rights is the corporation. In a limited-liability corporation, shares are specified and the rights to decide how to use the corporation's resources are delegated to its management. Each shareholder has the unrestrained right to sell his or her share. Limited liability insulates each shareholder's wealth from the liabilities of other shareholders, and thereby facilitates anonymous sale and purchase of shares.

In other types of enterprises, especially where each member's wealth will become uniquely dependent on each other member's behavior, property rights in the group endeavour are usually salable only if existing members approve of the buyer. This is typical for what are often called joint ventures, "mutuals," and partnerships.

While more complete property rights are preferable to less complete rights, any system of property rights entails considerable complexity and many issues that are difficult to resolve. If I operate a factory that emits smoke, foul smells, or airborne acids over your land, am I using your land without your permission? This is difficult to answer.

The cost of establishing private property rights—so that I could pay you a mutually agreeable price to pollute your air—may be too expensive. Air, underground water, and electromagnetic radiations, for example, are expensive to monitor and control. Therefore, a person does not effectively have enforceable private property rights to the quality and condition of some parcel of air. The inability to cost-effectively monitor and police uses of your resources means "your" property rights over "your" land are not as extensive and strong as they are over some other resources, like furniture, shoes, or automobiles. When private property rights are unavailable or too costly to establish and enforce, substitute means of control are sought. Government authority, expressed by government agents, is one very common such means. Hence the creation of environmental laws.

Depending upon circumstances certain actions may be considered invasions of privacy, trespass, or torts. If I seek refuge and safety for my boat at your dock during a sudden severe storm on a lake, have I invaded "your" property rights, or do your rights not include the right to prevent that use? The complexities and varieties of circumstances render impossible a bright-line definition of a person's set of property rights with respect to resources.

Similarly, the set of resources over which property rights may be held is not well defined and demarcated. Ideas, melodies, and procedures, for example, are almost costless to replicate explicitly (near-zero cost of production) and implicitly (no forsaken other uses of the inputs). As a result, they typically are not protected as private property except for a fixed term of years under a patent or copyright.

Private property rights are not absolute. The rule against the "dead hand" or the rule against perpetuities is an example. I cannot specify how resources that I own will be used in the indefinitely distant future. Under our legal system, I can only specify the use for a limited number of years after my death or the deaths of currently living people. I cannot insulate a resource's use from the influence of market values of all future generations. Society recognizes market prices as measures of the relative desirability of resource uses. Only to the extent that rights are salable are those values most fully revealed.

Accompanying and conflicting with the desire for secure private property rights for one's self is the desire to acquire more wealth by "taking" from others. This is done by military conquest and by forcible reallocation of rights to resources (also known as stealing). But such coercion is antithetical to—rather than characteristic of—a system of private property rights. Forcible reallocation means that the existing rights have not been adequately protected.

Private property rights do not conflict with human rights. They are human rights. Private property rights are the rights of humans to use specified goods and to exchange them. Any restraint on private property rights shifts the balance of power from impersonal attributes toward personal attributes and toward behavior that political authorities approve. That is a fundamental reason for preference of a system of strong private property rights: private property rights protect individual liberty.


About the Author
Armen A. Alchian is an emeritus professor of economics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Most of his major scientific contributions are in the economics of property rights. (See also: Biography: Armen Alchian.)


Further Reading

Alchian, Armen. "Some Economics of Property Rights." Il Politico 30 (1965): 816-29.

Alchian, Armen, and Harold Demsetz. "The Property Rights Paradigm." Journal of Economic History (1973): 174-83.

Demsetz, Harold. "When Does the Rule of Liability Matter?" Journal of Legal Studies 1 (January 1972): 13-28.

Siegan, B. Economic Liberties and the Constitution. 1980.

Interview with Jeffrey Sachs. Omni, June 1991: 98.

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认真地阅读完了。一个人是否有通过别人的土地无任何挡风景的东西看风景的权利。确实不是经济学解释的清楚的。可能是法学的问题了。我住的物资学院，天天有飞机侵扰的事情，也没有人过来租用我的产权啊。也是BARGING POWER的问题。曾经问丁丁是否大学生工作后少有农民工的工资问题，经济学可以解释清楚。其提到博弈力量。确实如此。