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  3. American Economic Review
  4. June 2008
  5. Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-Distance Trade

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-Distance Trade

  • Erik O. Kimbrough
  • Vernon L. Smith
  • Bart J. Wilson
American Economic Review
vol. 98, no. 3, June 2008
(pp. 1009–39)
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Abstract

This laboratory experiment explores the extent to which impersonal exchange emerges from personal exchange with opportunities for long-distance trade. We design a three-commodity production and exchange economy in which agents in three geographically separated villages must develop multilateral exchange networks to import a good only available abroad. For treatments, we induce two distinct institutional histories to investigate how past experience with property rights affects the evolution of specialization and exchange. We find that a history of unenforced property rights hinders our subjects' ability to develop the requisite personal social arrangements to support specialization and effectively exploit impersonal long-distance trade.

Citation

Kimbrough, Erik O., Vernon L. Smith, and Bart J. Wilson. 2008. "Historical Property Rights, Sociality, and the Emergence of Impersonal Exchange in Long-Distance Trade." American Economic Review, 98 (3): 1009–39. DOI: 10.1257/aer.98.3.1009

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D51 Exchange and Production Economies
  • P14 Capitalist Systems: Property Rights