美国淘金热时期的产权状况.pdf

Stanford Law School John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics Working Paper 265 June 2003 Order Without Law? Property Rights During the California Gold Rush Karen Clay Gavin Wright This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection: /paper.taf?abstract_id=420960 * Order Without Law? Property Rights During the California Gold Rush by Karen Clay and Gavin Wright June 2003 Karen Clay The Heinz School Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15217 (412) 268-4197 kclay@ Gavin Wright Department of Economics Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 (650) 723-3837 write@ * For valuable advice and comments, the authors thank Roxanne Nilan, Gregory Clark, Avner Greif, and seminar participants at Carnegie-Mellon, UC-Riverside, the University of the Pacific, and the All-UC Economic History Group. Expert research assistance was provided by Aaron Althouse, Kyle Brinkman, Petra Moser, and Mary Speck. For help with historical documents, we are grateful to Lorrayne Kennedy of the Calaveras County Archives, and to Ken Mayhan and Ray Milenna of the Tuolumne County Museum. None of these people are responsible for any remaining shortcomings. 1 Abstract The paper reconsiders the nature of mining districts and property rights during the California gold rush. According to a widely accepted view advanced by Umbeck (1977, 1981), in the absence of effective legal authority, district codes established secure pr