Think You Understand Property Rights?
Note: If you’re interested in book club, there are more details below.
Critics of economics repeatedly make the same mistake: they think the economy is a separate entity with its own well-being. You can recognize this fallacy when people shout, “Stop focusing on the economy. Focus on people!” But the economy is a collection of people, which makes economic development part of human progress.
It is easiest to see the connection when we look at health indicators. Richer countries are more likely to have improved sanitation, higher life expectancy, and lower child mortality. But there are other ways that economic development enables human progress.
How do we measure human flourishing? That is, how do we measure whether you’re living your best life? Certainly there is no single way to measure this, but one idea recently came to mind. If people are allowed to fully explore their potential on any path, then we should see athletes from that country at the Olympics. After all, there’s no reason why Haiti can’t have the best table tennis athlete in the world, unless she can’t play table tennis because she’s too worried about feeding her family.
To explore this hypothesis, I collected data on all athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics and compared it to the GDP per capita of their sending country. It isn’t a perfect correlation, but almost every rich country has a handful of athletes, and none of the poorest countries have significant representation. Unsurprisingly, the same goes for medals.
This is just one example, but I hope it illustrates the point. If we want more people living fulfilling lives, we need to focus on economic development.
Property Rights + Book Club
Speaking of economic development, many people will say the biggest barrier to development is insecure property rights. Why invest in companies or savings accounts if that investment will just be stolen? That’s why this session of the Market Power Book Club is focused on property and poverty.
Today I’m publishing the first video from book club. We read Mine! How the Hidden Rules of Ownership Control Our Lives. The video gives you a preview of what’s in the book, plus a few comments from the authors. That’s right, members of the book club got to participate in an interview with the authors!
The current version of book club is closed, but we’ll be opening another session at the new year. The best way to learn about registration is to pay attention to these weekly emails.
Anyway, go check out the video and see how property rights changed the way I see intersections.
Haiti
Why not round out the theme of economic development with a comment on Haiti. I have an article today at Broadstreet, a historical political economy blog. The article discusses how the assassination of Haiti’s president last month fits right in with its tumultuous political history.
You might have seen that Haiti was hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake. Fortunately, it hit an area with low population density. But it still was pretty destructive. The before and after pictures are devastating.
