Essays on property rights economics: Towards an evolutionary theory of property rights and its application (Czech Republic, Botswana)

This dissertation is an exercise in development and property rights economics. The theoretical section of this dissertation discusses two competing theories of property rights: the common law theory of property rights and the legal positivist theory of property rights. In this theoretical piece, the author argues that privatization programs based on the common law theory of property rights outperformed legal positivist privatizations the former Soviet bloc.; The empirical section of the dissertation consists of two case studies. The first case study examines the Czech Republic's post-communist transition. In this case study, the author argues that, despite criticisms from academic economists and the popular media, the Czech transition has been a remarkable success. Even though critics have gone so far as to call the Czech transition a failure, the Czech Republic's post-communist economic performance is actually above Eastern European and middle-income averages. The other case study explores Botswana's growth miracle. Botswana was the fastest growing nation in the world from 1965–1995. How do we explain this growth? It cannot be natural resources, because so many other resource rich countries have failed to grow. Daron Aceomoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson argue that Botswana had the “good” British institutions of private property and the rule of law. According to their account, Botswana's colonial origins were driving her growth. This begs the question of why other former British colonies struggle to grow. When we look more closely at Botswana's development, we see that at the time of independence Botswana's leadership made rapid, decisive policy choices which were free-market in nature. Thus, Botswana's success was not the result of some kind of special position prior to independence, but, rather, the result of prudent policy choice at a crisis moment.; In the process of writing this dissertation, the author conducted a literature review of development economics and property rights economics. The dissertation is slated to be a reference and resource for intellectuals working in the fields of property rights economics and development economics.