Property rights (economics)

Property rights are constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned, which have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Resources can be owned by (and hence be the property of) individuals, associations, collectives, or governments. Property rights can be viewed as an attribute of an economic good. This attribute has three broad components, and is often referred to as a bundle of rights in the United States: the right to use the good the right to earn income from the good the right to transfer the good to others, alter it, abandon it, or destroy it (the right to ownership cessation) The fields of economics and law do not have a general consensus on conceptions of property rights. Various property types are used in law but the terminology can be seen in economic reports. Sometimes in economics, property types are simply described as private or public/common in reference to private goods (excludable and rivalrous goods like a phone), as well as public goods (non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods, like air), respectively. Below is a list of the several property types defined and their relation to the economic concepts of excludability (the ability to limit the consumption of the good) and rivalry (a person's consumption of the good reduces the ability of another to consume it). Property rights can be categorized with excludability and rivalry. Excludability describes the characteristic regarding whether a good can be withheld from certain consumers. In terms of the same good, rivalry describes its accessibility to competing consumers. The combination of excludability and rivalry as parameters is reflected through various types of property rights. Open-access property is owned by nobody (res nullius). It is non-excludable, as excluding people is either impossible or prohibitively costly, and can be rivalrous or non-rivalrous. Open-access property is not managed by anyone, and access to it is not controlled.

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