Ecological Influences on Informal Property Rights: Experimental Evidence

This paper explores the possibility that informal property right systems evolve unique features as a function of the characteristics of the resources over which they are established. We develop an experimental environment that allows us to test this hypothesis by comparing the emergence of property in (virtual) land when resource yields are either high- or low-variance and renewable or non-renewable. Previous research suggests that high-variance resources may lead to relatively insecure claims to property. Intuition suggests that this may be amplified when those resources are renewable. The experiments confirm that informal property rights adapt to resource characteristics in a manner largely consistent with these predictions.