In this paper you should apply the basic understanding of property law you learned in class to an area of property that interests you. You can choose any topic or area that relates to property law, as long as it is not something we have explicitly studied in class. The first part of your paper should be a brief summary of the topic and relevant issues.
Once you choose a topic, you should then construct a basic economic model of the situation that we can potentially use to determine the socially efficient outcome. The primary goals of property law are to assign property rights to the property party, facilitate the efficient exchange of property, and to force transfers of property when it is economically efficient to do so. Thus, the first step in your economic analysis should be to determine whether you are analyzing an instance of assignment of property rights or transfer of property. In either case you should determine the parties that are involved and the economic incentive of each party.
After clearly defining the issue you which to examine you should begin to apply an economic analysis to the situation. This may include determining the proper assignment of property rights, the presence of transaction costs, selecting a property rule or a liability rule, determining an economically appropriate use of eminent domain, or economics justifies paying compensation in a case of regulatory taking. Note that this list of potential means of analysis is not complete and the appropriate elements of analysis depend on the specific nature of your topic.
The final step is to formulate this analysis into a simple economic model. The final form of your economic model will vary depending on the situation you are analyzing, but may look similar to one of several economic models we constructed regarding property law.
Sample Solution
