Making and Breaking Property Rights: Coalitions, Veto Players, and the Institutional Foundation of Markets

This paper analyzes why some governments protect property rights while others do not. Although institutional constraints may affect government incentives to protect property rights, the paper emphasizes that different political institutions have dissimilar effects. Coalition institutions that make governments accountable to large groups in society are particularly important, whereas division of powers between veto players is hypothesized to have more ambiguous effects on property rights. Empirical analyses of panel data support the proposition that coalition institutions matter for property-rights protection, whereas veto-player institutions have no particular effect.