Property

Property Recent Publication

Recent Publications

Vol. 123 No. 4 GENDER EQUALITY: DIMENSIONS OF WOMEN’S EQUAL CITIZENSHIP. Edited by Linda C. McClain and Joanna L. Grossman. New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press. 2009. Pp....
Property Articles

Adjusting Alienability

Vol. 122 No. 5 In recent years, the right to exclude has dominated property theory, relegating alienability – another of the standard incidents of ownership – to the scholarly shadows. Law and economics has also long neglected inalienability, despite its inclusion in Calabresi and Melamed’s Cathedral. In this Article, I explore inalienability rules as tools for achieving efficiency or other ends when applied to resources that society generally views as appropriate objects of market transactions. Specifically, I focus on inalienability's capacity to alter upstream decisions by would-be resellers about whether to acquire an entitlement in the first place. By influencing these acquisition decisions, inalienability rules can buttress or substitute for other adjustments to the property bundle in addressing resource dilemmas. Of particular interest is the possibility that limits on alienability could sidestep the holdout problems that have often spurred resort to liability rules, and could do so without interfering as profoundly with the owner's autonomy interests. While alienability limits carry well-known disadvantages, they might be structured in ways that would minimize those drawbacks. Recognizing the full potential of alienability limits in addressing resource dilemmas requires applying the same level of creativity to devising inalienability rules as has previously been applied to the design of liability rules.
Contract Law Recent Case

Lewis v. Lewis

Colorado Supreme Court Holds Defendants Liable for Full Profits from the Sale of a Home by Applying Unjust Enrichment Theory to an Informal Agreement Between Close Relatives.

Vol. 122 No. 3
Property Articles

Equal Opportunity and Inheritance Taxation

Vol. 121 No. 2 Equality of opportunity is understood to be one of the bedrock principles supporting the taxation of inheritance. The familiar idea is that inherited wealth offers an unjustified head start for some individuals at the expense of others. In political theory, this principle is closely identified with the branch of liberalism known as resource equality. But the resource equality ideal has not been fully translated into the legal literature. The major legal writings on inheritance taxation use the term “equal opportunity” quite generally and often blend equal opportunity with goals that are distinct, like wealth equalization. This Article revisits the topic of inheritance taxation