Property Law

Yun-chien Chang is the Jack G. Clarke Professor in East Asian Law, Cornell Law School. Professor Chang works on property law, comparative law, economic analysis of law, and empirical legal studies and has published more than 10 books and 100 articles and book chapters in English and Chinese. Professor Chang is an Associate Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of Property, President of the Asian Law and Economics Association (2023–2024), and a director of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies.

• Introduction; Part I. Foundation: 1. Property Law around the World: An Empirical Overview; 2. Economic Framework; 3. Limited Number of Limited Property Rights: Less is More; 4. Transfer of Ownership: Transaction Cost v. Information Cost; Part II. Immovable Property: 5. Acquisitive Prescription: Hardly Justified in Modern, Developed Countries; 6. Building Encroachment: In Search of an Efficiency Justification; 7. Co-ownership Partition: Proposing a New Auction-based Design; 8. Managing Co-ownership: Tragedy of the Common-Ownership? 9. Access to Landlocked Land: Hybrid Entitlement Protection; Part III. Movable Property: 10. Good-faith Purchaser: Proposing Fractional Ownership and Internal Auction; 11. Finders, Keepers: A Minority Rule; 12. The Specificatio Doctrine: Do What the Romans Did; 13. The Accessio Doctrine: No Sign of Convergence.

'With its unprecedented wealth of data on property laws in jurisdictions around the world, this book is a methodological tour de force. The innovative economic analysis draws on an often surprising comparative picture, and the comparative work is informed by a sophisticated theoretical vision. Chang has produced a landmark in both comparative law and the law and economics of property.' Henry Smith, Fessenden Professor of Law, Harvard Law School