Commons Sense
Common Property Rights, Efficiency, and Institutional Change
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10103601 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gregory Clark (0000-0001-6972-4478, University of California, Davis, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 73-102 |
| Publication date | 1998-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Economic History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0507 • E-ISSN: 1471-6372 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0022050700019896 |
| OpenAlex | W2127649497 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 37 |
| References cited | 33 |
Common property rights were widespread in English agriculture for at least 600 years. Since privatizing common fields allegedly produced huge profits in the eighteenth century, common land owners seemingly squandered 15 percent of potential income for generations. Ingenious explanations have been produced for this market failure. This article argues for a simple, brutal resolution. Common fields survived because enclosure was generally unprofitable before 1750, when changing relative prices made private property rights marginally more efficient. Then people responded quickly to modest profits. The rich gains from enclosure existed only in the imaginings of wild-eyed eighteenth century agrarian reformers
Agrarian society · Agriculture · Archaeology · Business · Common ownership · Common property · Commons · Economics · Enclosure · Geography · Landlord · Law and economics · Market economy · Political science · Property (philosophy · Property rights · Engineering · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Philosophy
Economic structure and agricultural productivity in Europe, 1300-1800
Exploring Long-term Landscape Changes in a Rural Catchment in Southern England, from the Mid-nineteenth Century to the Present, and Their Implications for Future Land Management
Welfare reform, 1834
Responsibility, trust and gender in the economic decision-making of peasant households
Deal with it! The emergence and reversal of an agro-ecological crisis, Southern Sweden in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Renting The Revolution
The long march of history
"Los impases de los "derechos de propiedad
Droits de propriété et croissance
Peasants and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Agricultural Transformation of Sweden
Parliamentary Enclosure and the Emergence of an English Agricultural Proletariat
In Defense of “Commons Sense”
Emergence of Endogenous Legal Institutions
Adoption, Inheritance, and Wealth Inequality in Pre-industrial Japan and Western Europe
The Prudent Village
Progress and poverty in early modern Europe
Two parallel systems
From Unanimity to Proportionality
The Encounters of Economic History and Legal History
Exclusion, Inclusion, and Enclosure
Land tenure and investment incentives
Charities, Rents, and Enclosure
Common Lands and Economic Development in Spain
Local Institutions and Rural Development in European History
Peasants and Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth-Century Agricultural Transformation of Sweden
Goths and Vandals” or “Civilized” Farmers? Common Lands and Agricultural Productivity in Early-Twentieth-Century Spain
The Profits of Power
Common Rights to Land in England, 1475–1839
The bull is half the herd’
Open fields, risk, and land divisibility
The efficiency gains from site value taxes
Land rights in historical Vietnam
Does Welfare Spending Crowd out Charitable Activity? Evidence from Historical England under the Poor Laws
Enclosure
Turnpike trusts and property income
Did the Commons Make Medieval and Early Modern Rural Societies More Equitable? A Survey of Evidence from acrossWesternEurope, 1300-1800
Social and Environmental Filters to Market Incentives
Agricultural Revolution 1750-1880
Enclosure and the Yeoman
The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe
The Agricultural Revolution
English Landed Society in the Nineteenth Century
The contentious tithe
A domesday of English enclosure acts and awards
Common Field and Enclosure in England, 1450-1850
Common field and enclosure in England 1450–1850
The Enclosure of Open Fields
The cost of capital and medieval agricultural technique
Land Hunger
English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century
The Efficiency and Distributional Consequences of Eighteenth Century Enclosures
An Atlas and Index of the Tithe Files of Mid-Nineteenth-Century England and Wales
Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women
The Persistence of Open-Field Farming in Nineteenth-Century France
The Agricultural Revolution in South Lincolnshire
The Contentious Tithe
English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century
The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movements
Enclosure and Labour Supply in the Industrial Revolution
English Parliamentary Enclosure
Cost, Finance, and Parliamentary Enclosure
Studies in Capital Formation in the United Kingdom, 1750-1820
The price of freehold land and the interest rate in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
The Common Fields of England
Institutions and Agriculture in Old Regime France
| Unique citing works | 37 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,32 |
| Citation span | 1998 - 2024 (27) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 37 |