Libecap, Gary D.; Lueck, Dean --- "Land Demarcation Systems" [2011] ELECD 157; in Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry (eds), "Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Economics of Property Law

Editor(s): Ayotte, Kenneth; Smith, E. Henry

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847209795

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: Land Demarcation Systems

Author(s): Libecap, Gary D.; Lueck, Dean

Number of pages: 39

Extract:

13 Land demarcation systems
Gary D. Libecap and Dean Lueck*


I. INTRODUCTION

Land demarcation systems are ancient human artifacts and are fundamental to property
law, use, and markets. In this chapter we develop an economic framework for examin-
ing systems of land demarcation and examine the economic history of demarcation
in the United States and elsewhere. Land demarcation is one of the earliest actions of
organized human groups. Territories to hunting and gathering sites have been marked
and defended among the most primitive peoples (Bailey 1992). The earliest agricultural
societies defined rights to plots of land for farming (Ellickson 1993). In modern societies
rights are designated for residential and commercial use in dense urban areas, for farm-
land in highly mechanized large-scale fields, for landscapes allocated primarily as wildlife
refuges or wilderness parks, and for such related resources as minerals and water. Yet,
despite the somewhat obvious point that a system of demarcating rights to land will be
important in determining its utilization and value, the literatures in economics and in law
have not addressed these issues in any depth.
In this chapter we examine the economic structure and function of land demarcation
systems. We direct attention to the two systems that have dominated land demarca-
tion: metes and bounds (MB) and the rectangular system (RS). Under MB land claim-
ants define property boundaries in order to capture valuable land and to minimize the
individual costs of definition and enforcement. Individual surveys do not occur before
settlement, and they ...