LAW 349 - Commons, Anti-Commons

Commons, Anti-Commons & Impenetrable Commons This short course will begin by examining the problems presented in effectively managing the use of common resources such as fisheries. Next the course will cover the anti-commons: situations in which excessively splintered property rights prevent the assembly of property interests into socially useful bundles. The course will conclude by considering a novel category of impenetrable commons: situations in which interconnected property rights become literally undecipherable as the number of interested parties grows. The motivating case is the complex web of credits and debits between financial firms exposed by the economic crisis of 2008. For each of these three phenomena, we will begin with theory, consider a number of real world examples, and conclude by considering a range of possible solutions. Students will write 2 to 3 page reaction papers to each day’s readings.