You Can Recline Your Seat

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

CNN's John Sutter takes on the issue of people reclining their seats. He says there is no government regulation that would allow this to happen in a private space. But, he adds, airlines have an incentive to avoid these ambiguities. The ambiguity allows them not to be bad person whos says you can't recline or you may recline.

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.