What the Cost So Helpfully Pointed Us To

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Cost: We don't live in a perfect worlda where people would just work it out. The cost very much taught us about learning about the structure of bargaining that arises in different circumstances like when you might have spite, and what you do in that context. And there's going to be costs and benefits on for private transactions and costand benefits for regulation.

Law professors Michael Heller and James Salzman talk about their book, Mine! with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Heller and Salzman argue that ownership is trickier and more complicated than it looks. While we tend to think of something as either mine or not mine, there's often ambiguity and a continuum about who owns what. Salzman and Heller explore a wide and surprising range of property rights from everyday life. The conversation includes a discussion of the insights of Ronald Coase on the assignment of property rights when rights conflict.