Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/102622 
Year of Publication: 
2012
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2012-18
Publisher: 
Brown University, Department of Economics, Providence, RI
Abstract: 
We study experimentally the protection of property in five widely distinct countries - Austria, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea and the United States. Our main results are that the security of property varies with experimental institutions, and that our subject pools exhibit significantly different behaviors that correlate with country-level property security, trust and quality of government. Subjects from countries with higher levels of trust or perceptions of safety are more prone to abstain initially from theft and devote more resources to production, and subjects from countries with higher quality political institutions are more supportive of protecting property through compulsory taxation. This highlights the relevance of socio-political factors in determining countries' success in addressing collective action problems including safeguarding property rights.
Subjects: 
Property Rights
Theft
Efficiency
Experiment
Socio-Political Factors
JEL: 
C91
C92
D03
H41
P14
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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