Enclosure.
Taub, Bart ; Zhao, Rui
I. INTRODUCTION
It seems that you cannot construct macroeconomic reforms on sand.
Capitalism requires the bedrock of property and other legal
institutions, yet most people outside the West have no solid property
rights--De Soto (2002).
De Soto (1989) has highlighted how tenuous property rights are in
poor countries. To buy a house or to start a business in Peru is a major
undertaking in no small part because the ownership of a piece of land
might be ill defined or because the myriad licensing requirements of a
business effectively block its legitimate formation. In rich countries,
the notion of the transfer of property is an elementary process because
the delineation of property rights is at the very core of the
state's purpose. If the consequences of poor property rights are so
grim, countries wishing to emerge from poverty would support them
without outside prodding and with far greater alacrity than they do in
practice. Why don't they? We provide an answer.
In our view, property rights internalize the portion of the return
to capital that is otherwise treated as common property. The
internalization is realized via a multilateral agreement that can be
implemented and sustained only when agents are sufficiently patient. In
a standard growth model, the degree of patience is endogenous: patience
increases as an economy get richer. Property rights are therefore the
consequence of growth as well as its cause. The development of property
rights is an endogenous process, which cannot be separated from the
process of economic development itself.
The development of property rights in our model resembles the
enclosure of public fields in England prior to the Industrial Revolution
(McCloskey 1972). We therefore term the transition to well-defined
property rights "enclosure."
We do not differentiate capital into physical capital and human
capital. For example, we view intellectual output such as inventions as
a kind of commons and the institution of patent protection as the
equivalent of enclosure. The same reasoning can apply to physical
capital: roads are potentially usable by nonowners, and property rights
enforcement can enable user fees to be collected. We thus model
ownership of capital as diffuse: capital nominally owned by a firm not
only is used directly by that firm but is also an element of the
production functions of other firms. This production technology is used
to approximately represent the fact that without clearly defined
property rights, a part of the benefits of investment is shared as
common property. Embedded in this representation are technology
spillovers as documented by Griliches (1958) and Bernstein (1988) and
externalities of human capital as advocated by Lucas (1990). In order to
emphasize the fungibility of the extent of these spillovers, we refer to
the spillover component of firms' production functions as
complementary capital.
When firms agree to pay each other the marginal value of the
complementary capital that they use, they are encouraged to accumulate
additional capital; we equate the extent of these payments with the
extent of property rights and interpret the unwillingness of firms to
make the payments as the absence of property rights. We examine whether
a multilateral agreement to make such payments can be supported in a
non-cooperative repeated game setting. Our main finding is that property
rights cannot be supported in poor economies but may eventually become
supportable as capital accumulates.
The driving force behind the result is the folk theorem. The folk
theorem establishes that cooperation can be an equilibrium outcome in a
repeated game if the players have sufficient patience. Patience plays a
role because the gains from defection are short-lived and the subsequent
losses long-lived. In the model, a period of free riding, during which a
defecting firm is paid by other firms but does not pay others, is
followed by permanent exclusion from the property rights agreement, in
which access to its complementary capital is limited. When agents are
patient, the long-run punishment is discounted less severely so that it
can dominate the short-term gains from defection and therefore deter it.
In standard repeated games, the discount rate or the degree of
patience is fixed. But during economic growth, the discount rate, which
is identical to the marginal product of capital, is not fixed: it
declines as capital accumulates. In our model, poor economies with low
capital have high marginal products of capital and therefore high
discount rates. (1) They therefore cannot sustain the cooperative
outcome. As they accumulate capital, their discount rate shrinks, and
when they cross a threshold level of capital, the discount rate reaches
the point at which cooperation is sustainable. Property rights then
form--that is, enclosure takes place.
Clearly, capital accumulation would be accelerated if the overall
marginal return on capital increases due to enclosure. Conversely,
capital accumulation supports enclosure. Because of this positive
feedback between property rights and capital accumulation, our model
predicts that rich countries, which can sustain property rights, can
sometimes grow faster than poor countries.
Tornell and Velasco (1992) and Benhabib and Rustichini (1996) also
study growth consequences when the proceeds of private investment can be
appropriated by others. In both models, the resources available for
investment are common property. The extent to which the proceeds of
investment are subject to appropriation is more extreme than in our own
model, where it is limited by the degree of spillover. Because the
outcomes of noncooperative actions are much more dire in the
Tornell-Valasco and Benhabib-Rustichini models, it is easier to sustain
cooperation.
The results in the Tornell-Valasco and Benhabib-Rustichini models
are driven by the choice of parameters. For households to refrain from
consuming and to invest, both preferences and technology matter. In the
Tornell-Velasco model, parameters capture the willingness to invest via
the subjective rate of time discount and intertemporal elasticity of
substitution, and the parameters also affect the incentive to invest via
the marginal product of capital, and they assume these parameters to be
constant. The best supportable cooperative solution therefore does not
change as capital accumulates. Benhabib and Rustichini, on the other
hand, study various combinations of parameters using simplified
examples. Depending on the combination of parameters, cooperation can
deteriorate or improve as capital accumulates. In our examples, we use
the prevailing functional form from the growth literature; we find that
cooperation improves over a country's development path.
Another literature studies the formation of property
rights-promoting institutions as the outcome of voting in an economy
with heterogeneous agents who can increase their incomes by either
investing or appropriating resources from a common pool. The voting
mechanism, expropriation technology, and the nature of heterogeneity vary. Chong and Gradstein (2004) analyze the incentives of a median
voter and index heterogeneity by how much income can be engaged in
expropriative activity. In a similar setting, Hoffand Stiglitz (2005)
use majority voting, with agents differing in their ability to
expropriate. In both papers, the development of property rights depends
on the extent of heterogeneity. Their models are structured so that
there is feedback between poor institutions and inequality, which can
then reinforce each other. This literature thus finds that good or bad
growth outcomes depend on initial conditions of inequality. In our own
model, we assume homogeneous agents, and our results do not depend on
distributional states. The transformation from bad to good institutions
is destined to occur as an economy grows over time: it is a matter of
when, not if.
Our study also supplements the existing literature on intellectual
property rights, such as Grossman and Helpman (1991a, 1991b, 1994),
Helpman (1993), and Grossman and Lai (2004). In these models, the
ability to garner monopoly profits is the only incentive for a firm to
invest in knowledge. The externality of knowledge takes the form of
costless imitation, which, if not discouraged by property rights, drives
the profits of the initial investor to zero. In this setup, there is an
optimal level of property rights protection that a benevolent government
could establish at any time by balancing the tradeoff between the loss
of consumer surplus due to monopoly power and the loss of investment
incentives due to the absence of property rights protections. We go
beyond this literature in two senses. First, in our model, the extent of
property rights is endogenous and cannot be consciously imposed by a
government. Second, our model is dynamic, and so we can say when
property rights form and characterize their extent.
The theory of property rights is also central in the new
institutional economics literature. This literature springs in part from
a thesis of Demsetz (1967) that property rights develop when a resource
becomes economically valuable. The increase in the value of a resource
could be due to discoveries, such as the discovery of the Comstock lode (Libecap 1978); government deregulation in the case of airport landing
slots (Riker and Sened 1991); or technological change, such as improving
salmon fishing productivity and precipitating the institutionalization of fishing rights (Higgs 1982). Our mechanism similarly triggers
enclosure when a resource becomes sufficiently valuable: lower
discounting increases the firm values with property rights. But more
central to our model is that the increased value simultaneously
initiates the commitment that is the foundation of property rights.
In this paper, we set out a simple demonstration of our concept. In
the next section, we set out the basic structure of our model. We then
describe the efficient growth path as a benchmark. Using shooting
methods to numerically simulate growth paths, we then demonstrate our
central result that enclosure occurs after a period of autarky. Aside
from establishing that enclosure does occur, we also establish that
investment can accelerate in preenclosure economies and continues at a
high rate once enclosure occurs. In our concluding sections, we provide
some limited empirical support for our model.
II. THE MODEL
Our model is an extension of the standard, deterministic,
neoclassical, growth model. We model households and firms separately.
Households behave in an entirely conventional way, holding equity in the
firms. The households do not make physical investment decisions and
perceive growth only through changes in the value of their equity
holdings. The endogenous discounting that drives the model occurs on the
firm side. Firms make investment decisions, and the discounting effects
of the model appear through the interest rate, which is driven by the
marginal product of capital.
Time is continuous. There is a continuum of identical households
with unit measure. The instantaneous discount rate of households is 9.
Households obtain utility from consuming the single good with
instantaneous felicity function u(c).
There is a continuum of firms, also with unit measure. Production
requires capital but no labor. We do not differentiate capital into
physical capital and human capital.
We posit a production function with two types of capital: firm
specific and complementary. (2) The firm-specific capital corresponds to
the usual expression of capital in a production function. Complementary
capital is a function of the average of all other firms' capital
and enters the production function separately. (3) Because there is a
continuum of identical firms, each individual firm has no direct impact
on the complementary capital of other firms.
For intuition about complementary capital, it is useful to think of
the capital as cattle that are used for milk production. Cattle are
typically individually owned, but their productive value includes not
only the direct harvest of milk but also their value in breeding. An
animal that is a good milk producer can be bred with an animal from a
line with disease resistance, resulting in calves that combine both
attributes: both parent animals thus provide each other with
complementary capital.
In developed economies such breeding is highly formalized, with
pedigrees carefully kept and which help establish the market value of
breeding rights for an animal, and significant payments are made for the
use of a breeding animal. There is a penumbra of rights surrounding
cattle breeding in the advanced economies: a farmer cannot make use of
his neighbor's bulls without committing trespass on well-defined
private property; there are formal courts for redress, and the ownership
of the genetic material of a cow or a bull is itself covered by property
law akin to patent and trademark law, not just the animal per se.
By contrast, in pastoralist cultures such as the Maasai of Africa,
there is no formal record keeping, and breeding is usually uncontrolled,
with cattle mating within herds or with neighboring herds at communal
watering areas and pastures; no payments are made for the use of
breeding animals. (4)
A. Notation
We denote the capital stock for firm i as [k.sup.i] and firm
i's complementary capital as [k.sup.-i] The production function for
firm i is [f.sup.i]([k.sup.i],[k.sup.-i]), net of depreciation. We
require that the production function display decreasing returns to scale
in all capital. Each firm's investment [x.sup.i] is subject to
convex adjustment costs, [phi]([x.sup.i]), where [phi](0) = 0,
[x.sup.i][phi]' ([x.sup.i]) > 0, and [phi]"([x..sup.i])
> 0. (5)
The price of output is normalized to 1. The market value of firm i
is [q.sup.i.sub.t]. The instantaneous interest rate is [r.sub.t]. Both
firms and households can borrow and lend at this rate. To simplify
notation, use [R.sup.t.sub.s] =
[[integral].sup.t.sub.s][r.sub.[tau]]d[tau] to denote the discounting
between time s and t [less than or equal to] s.
In the remainder of this section, we first set out and solve the
household's and firm's problems, conditional on an interest
rate path. We then impose market clearing and characterize equilibrium
when market clearing and a pre-specified property rights agreement is
imposed. In Section III, we then analyze the central planner's
problem. The central planner takes account of the marginal product of
complementary capital and therefore generates faster growth. Finally, in
Section IV, we explore how a property rights agreement in which payments
for complementary capital are linked to the marginal product of
complementary capital affects growth. In Section V, we turn to
calibrated numerical experiments in order to characterize the transition
from autarky to a property rights agreement.
B. The Household's Problem
Because all households are identical, we can aggregate them into a
single representative household that holds shares in all the firms and
consumes the aggregated output of all firms.
The share of firm i's stock held by the representative
household is [[alpha].sup.i]. The representative household maximizes
discounted utility in continuous time for one good:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
subject to
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
The budget constraint states that the flow of consumption and
portfolio adjustments must equal income from profit and capital gains.
Because the model is deterministic, the household's portfolio
choice decision problem can be simplified. Let [r.sup.i.sub.t] denote
the instantaneous holding return of stock for firm i, that is,
[r.sup.i.sub.t] = ([[pi].sup.i.sub.t] +
[[??].sup.i.sub.t])/[q.sup.i.t].
The household's optimal portfolio holding is the following:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
The household's problem is well defined if and only if the
holding returns are equalized and are equal to the interest rate. That
is,
[r.sup.i.sub.t] = [r.sub.t] for all i.
Therefore, from the household's perspective, the portfolio can
be aggregated into a single asset [a.sub.t], with rate of return
[r.sub.t]. The representative household's problem can then be
restated as follows:
(1) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
subject to
(2) [[??].sub.t] = [r.sub.t][a.sub.t] - [c.sub.t].
The solution to the household problem is then characterized by the
law of motion (2) and the Euler equation (3):
(3) [[??].sub.t]/[c.sub.t] = -
u'([c.sub.t])/(u"([c.sub.t])[c.sub.t])([r.sub.t] - [rho]),
which we express as the growth rate of consumption as the product
of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the interest rate
net of time preference.
C. Property Rights and the Firm's Problem
Since the capital of firm i affects the productivity of other firms
and vice versa, firms can implement a multilateral agreement to ensure
compensation for this productivity--property rights. We model this
agreement as specifying a per-unit fee [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] that is
paid to firm i by other firms for the use of firm i's capital as
complementary capital, and a per-unit fee [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] that is
paid to other firms by firm i at time t. If [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] =
[[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] = 0, then no such agreement exists at time t. We
define characteristics of agreements in the following definition:
DEFINITION 1. A property rights agreement is regular if
[[omega].sup.i.sub.t] and [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] are piecewise
continuous in t and both converge to a constant over time. A property
rights agreement is symmetric if [omega]it = [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] and
[[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] = [[omega].sup.-j.sub.t] for all i, j and
[[omega].sup.i.sub.t] = [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t.
In our analysis, we consider only regular and symmetric agreements.
If no property rights agreement exists at time t, firms may engage
in activities to deter free riding by other firms. We abstractly
represent the effect of such activity as a reduction in the available
complementary capital (6): [k.sup.-i.sub.t] = [theta]
[[integral].sub.j[not equal to]i][k.sup.j.sub.t]dj, where 0 < [theta]
< 1. Once mutual property rights are established, [k.sup.-i] =
[[integral].sub.j[not equal to]i][k.sup.j.sub.t]dj.
In the cattle husbandry setting, defection could consist of using
an animal for breeding and failing to pay for it. In advanced economies,
cattle breeding associations record and certify pedigrees, limiting this
kind of cheating. Exclusion can be effected in a concrete way: illicit
progeny cannot be certified for breeding, and if a suspicion were
established that the farmer involved knowingly provided a substandard or
illicitly bred animal, he would be excluded from membership and breeding
privileges with members' breeding stock. (7)
Let [K.sub.s] denote the capital of all firms at time s, that is,
[K.sub.s] [equivalent to] {[k.sup.i.sub.s]}i. Let [[OMEGA].sub.s]
[equivalent to][{[[omega].sup.i.sub.t],
[[omega].sup.-i.sub.t]}.sup.[infinity].sub.t=s]. denote a property
rights agreement from time s on. Given the property rights agreement
[[OMEGA].sub.s], the objective of the firm i is to choose an investment
plan [x.sup.i.sub.t] to maximize its market value.
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
subject to
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
That is, the representative firm maximizes the discounted value of
output net of investment and adjustment costs of investment, along with
net payments from complementary capital.
Let [f.sup.i.sub.l] denote the marginal product of firm i's
own capital and [f.sup.i.sub.2] the marginal contribution of its
complementary capital. Then, the solution of the firm's problem
satisfies the following differential equation.
(4) [phi]"([x.sup.i.sub.t])[[??].sup.i.subt] = (1 +
[phi]'([x.sup.i.sub.t]))[r.sub.t] -
[f.sup.i.sub.l]([k.sup.i.sub.t], [k.sup.-i.sub.t]) -
[[omega].sup.i.sub.t.]
If adjustment costs are zero, the equation reduces to the standard
equation of the marginal product of the firm's own capital and in
addition its receipts from other firms with the equilibrium interest
rate. The higher agreed payment [[omega].sub.i] induces firms to attain
a higher level of capital in the long run, an incentive that is absent
without property rights.
D. Symmetric Equilibrium
We next construct the equilibrium under the assumption that a
property rights [OMEGA] is in force, that is, [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] and
[[omega].sup.-1.sub.t] are positive and predetermined, and under the
assumption that firms act symmetrically.
In equilibrium, the goods market and the capital market must clear
and prices must be consistent with the optimization of firms and
consumers.
The goods market-clearing condition is that consumption,
investment, and the adjustment cost of investment must be financed by
output:
(5) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
The assets held by the representative household must equal the
value of the firms:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
Recalling the Euler conditions of consumers in Equation (3) and
firms in Equation (4), we have the requirement that the interest rate
satisfy the condition:
(6) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
Assume that all firms have the same production function and initial
capital. Under a symmetric property rights agreement, all firms then
choose the same investment plan, that is,
(7) [c.sub.t], + [x.sup.i.sub.t] + [phi]([x.sup.i.sub.t]) =
[f.sup.i]([k.sup.i.sub.t], [k.sup.-i.sub.t]).
The profit, [[pi].sup.i.sub.t], and market value, [q.sup.i.sub.t],
of a typical firm are:
[[pi].sup.i.sub.t] = [f.sup.i]([k.sup.i.sub.t], [k.sup.-i.sub.t]) -
[phi]([x.sup.i.sub.t]) = [c.sub.t]
[q.sup.i.sub.t] = [a.sub.t].
Combining these equations, we obtain the equilibrium condition:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII],
which implies that the interest rate facing firm i,
[r.sup.i.sub.t], is identical to [r.sub.t] for all i, ratifying the
simplification of the household's problem mentioned in the previous
section.
Totally differentiating the goods market-clearing condition,
Equation (5), yields:
(8) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
Solving this equation for b and substituting into Equation (6)
yields:
(9) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
The symmetric equilibrium is thus characterized by Equation (9) and
by:
(10) [[??].sup.i.sub.t] = [x.sup.i.sub.t],
where [c.sub.t] is determined by the market-clearing condition,
Equation (5).
If [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] converges to a constant [omega] over time,
the steady state of the economy is given by the following equations:
(11) [f.sup.i.sub.1]([k.sup.i], [k.sup.-i]) + [omega] = [rho]
(12) c = [f.sup.i]([k.sup.i], [k.sup.-i]),
where [k.sup.-i] = [k.sup.i] if [omega] > 0, otherwise
[k.sup.-i] = [theta][k.sup.i].
Imposing our symmetry assumption so that [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] =
[[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] = [omega] for all t, we can use phase diagram methods to study the qualitative features of the model. The global phase
diagram of this problem is complicated due to the presence of the
adjustment cost. One can show that the [[??].sup.i] = 0 locus intersects
with the [[??].sup.i] = 0 locus only once at the steady state, but the
locus is not necessarily monotonically decreasing. (8) As long as the
complementarity between the firm's own capital and the
complementary capital is not too high, however, the slope of
[[??].sup.i] = 0 locus is locally negative around the intersection of
the two loci, as shown in Figure 1. Therefore, the growth path has
standard behavior in the neighborhood of the steady state; in our
computed examples, this holds globally as well.
III. THE SOCIAL OPTIMUM AND AUTARKY
We next analyze the social planner's problem and autarky as a
benchmark. A social planner would force firms to internalize the
externalities associated with complementary capital and attain the
efficient neoclassical growth path.
A social planner solves the following problem: maximize the
discounted utility of the representative consumer through the choice of
consumption and investment:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
subject to
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
The symmetric solution satisfies the differential equation:
(13) [MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII],
as well as the market-clearing condition (Equation 7) and the law
of motion (Equation 10).
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
The socially optimal capital at the steady state, [k.sup.op],
satisfies [f.sup.i.sub.1]([k.sup.op], [k.sup.op]) +
[f.sup.i.sub.2]([k.sup.op], [k.sup.op]) = [rho], that is, the marginal
product of complementary capital is added to the marginal product of
firm-specific capital. Under autarky, in which firms free ride on each
other so that [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] = [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] = 0, the
steady-state capital under autarky, [k.sup.au], satisfies
[f.sup.i.sub.1]([k.sup.au], [theta][k.sup.au]) = [rho]. The socially
optimal capital level at the steady state is therefore higher than the
competitive equilibrium under autarky (as shown in Figure 2).
The social optimum can be achieved with a property rights agreement
that pays the marginal contribution of complementary capital at every
instant, that is, [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] = [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] =
[f.sup.i.sub.2]([k.sup.i], [k.sup.i]). As we later establish, it might
not be possible to attain the social optimum, but it might yet be
possible to attain an intermediate state in which there are positive but
suboptimal payments for complementary capital. We make the following
definition.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
DEFINITION 2. A complete property rights agreement pays the
marginal contribution of complementary capital at every instant, that
is, [[omega].sup.i.sub.t] = [[omega].sup.-i.sub.t] =
[f.sup.i.sub.2]([k.sup.i], [k.sup.i]). A partial property rights
agreement is such that:
[[omega].sup.i.t] = v[f.sup.i.sub.2]([k.sup.i.sub.t],
[k.sup.-i.sub.t]),
with v [member of] (0, 1).
We treat the completeness index v of property rights agreements as
a fixed constant that is determined by the maximum sustainable v at the
steady state. However, v is potentially endogenous in the sense that
lower values of v, but not a zero value, might be feasible along the
transition path to the steady state, and this would in turn affect the
locus of the transition path. Our model, in which the transition from a
zero value of v to the steady-state value occurs at a discrete moment,
must be seen as an approximation to this model.
IV. THE TRANSITION TO PROPERTY RIGHTS
Not all property rights agreements can be enforced. Firms have
incentives to compromise the property rights of other firms by reneging
on their payments to them for complementary capital. This reneging
constitutes defection in the game sense.
We assume that the detection of defection takes time. (9) Until a
defecting firm is detected, it receives payments from other firms but
does not pay other firms for the complementary capital that they
provide. After a lag of [tau], the defection is detected and the
defecting firm no longer receives payments from other firms, and at that
time, the firm is permanently excluded from the agreement. Thenceforth,
the value of its complementary capital is reduced as well because other
firms take measures to prevent its use--only the fraction [theta] of
complementary capital can then be used.
We can cast the delay in the detection of defection in terms of the
cattle husbandry example. In that context, a farmer who purchases
breeding rights from the owner of a bull for a single cow could secretly
breed the bull with extra cows, without paying the fees for the breeding
with the extra cows. Detection would occur if the progeny reflected the
unique traits of the bull or if the owner attempted to register the
calves for a pedigree; the essential point is that detection would occur
only after a lag of at least the gestation period for a calf. (10)
The gain from defection is twofold: the first is the immediate but
short-run retention of payments that were made to other firms under the
contract and the second is the possible increase of profit obtained by
either low investment or sale of the excess capital previously
accumulated. This latter gain accrues because the firm's autarkic steady-state capital is lower than the property rights contract
steady-state capital. The cost of defection is the loss of full
utilization of complementary capital as [theta] shrinks when defection
is detected, and lower long-run profits entailed by moving toward a
lower steady-state capital.
Because the set of firms is a continuum, the effect of one
firm's defection is negligible. The consequence of this assumption
is that the interest rate used by the defecting firm to calculate its
discounted payoffs from defection is still the equilibrium rate under
full cooperation, and the defecting firm therefore does not affect the
investment decision of nondefecting firms.
With the game structured in this way, we can analyze the
off-equilibrium-path payoff of a defecting firm. For each level of
capital, we consider an equilibrium path in which a property rights
agreement is in force and examine the payoff of a firm that defects. If
a representative firm prefers such a deviation, then because of symmetry
so will all firms, and the proposed equilibrium path is not sustainable
at that level of capital. However, if there is a threshold level of
capital such that no firm wishes to defect once that level is attained,
the equilibrium path is sustainable.
A. The Problem of a Defecting Firm
Given a regular and symmetric property rights agreement, where
[[omega].sub.t] > 0 for all t, a firm defecting at date s solves the
following problem:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]
subject to
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII],
where the notation [??] and [??] denotes the defection path,
distinct from the nondefection path followed by other firms.
The optimal investment plan of the defecting firm is:
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
When we calculate the value of defection, the investment path
during the initial stage of defection (t < [tau]) is pasted to the
postdetection path (t [greater than or equal to] [tau]).
B. The Transition Path
We now combine the analysis of defection with our earlier
construction of a property rights agreement to determine when property
rights agreements can be sustained.
DEFINITION 3. A property rights agreement [[OMEGA].sub.s] is
enforceable at time s with capital [K.sub.s] if
[q.sup.i.sub.s]([K.sub.s], [[OMEGA].sub.s]) [greater than or equal to]
[[??].sup.i.sub.s]([K.sub.s], [[OMEGA].sub.s]). A property, rights
agreement is enforceable starting from time s if it is enforceable for
all t [greater than or equal to] s.
Thus, an agreement is enforceable if there is no gain from
defection.
The enforceability of the contract depends on the harshness of the
punishment, which is parameterized by time lag of detection, [tau], and
ability to block free riding, [theta]. The smaller are [tau] and
[theta], the less incentive there is for a firm to defect.
The enforceability of the contract also depends on the average
current capital stock: the lower the level of capital, the higher the
equilibrium interest rate. Future losses accruing from the loss of
complementarity during the punishment phase are therefore discounted at
a higher rate when the capital stock is low, reducing the severity of
the anticipated punishment. The contractual arrangement is therefore not
supportable at low capital levels but becomes supportable as capital
reaches a threshold level.
The resulting equilibrium path is illustrated in Figure 3.
The figure shows two growth paths. The path terminating at A
corresponds to a pure autarky equilibrium in which enclosure never
occurs. The second path, terminating at B, illustrates the enclosure
process. The path has two legs. The second leg, terminating at B,
corresponds to the equilibrium path under a property rights agreement.
At low levels of capital, this path is not enforceable; the economy
starts on an autarky leg, with a property rights agreement commencing
only when capital attains [k.sup.*], the enclosure threshold. Observe
that even though there is a period of autarky, the rate of investment on
this preenclosure leg is higher than it would be under a permanent
autarky regime because enclosure is anticipated.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
V. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS
In this section, we use numerical examples to demonstrate the
enclosure process. We consider a specification of the model with power
utility, quadratic adjustment cost, and Cobb-Douglas production
function.
u(c) = [c.sup.1-[sigma]]/(1 - [sigma]) [phi](x) = [delta][chi
square] [f.sup.i]([k.sup.i, [k.sup.-i]) =
[([k.sup.i]).sup.[alpha]][([k.sup.-i]).sup.[gamma]].
Notice that there is no explicit total factor productivity (TFP)
term in the production function; the existence of complementary capital
in the production function implies a TFP term of A [equivalent to]
[([k.sup.-i]).sup.[gamma]].
We then examine partial property rights equilibria, in which we
restrict v to be a constant. We discuss the consequences of relaxing
this restriction later in this section.
The parameter values for our experiments are listed in Table 1. The
coefficient of relative risk aversion, [alpha], is .5. (11) The
subjective discount factor [rho] = .04 implies a 4% interest rate at the
steady state. The share of own capital [alpha] is .3, which is roughly
the capital share for the U.S. economy. In the baseline example, the
share of complementary capital [gamma] is low. Later on we discuss
robustness of our results with respect to this parameter. The parameters
[tau] and [theta] are chosen so that the transition path is nontrivial,
that is, so that enclosure actually occurs. (12)
A. Algorithm
Both the competitive equilibrium under a property rights agreement
and the optimal control problem of a defecting firm display the saddle
path property. The transversality conditions force the equilibrium path
and the defection path to follow saddle trajectories and converge to
their corresponding steady states.
The shooting algorithm we use finds these saddle paths. Given
initial capital [k.sub.0], the shooting algorithm begins with a
conjecture of an initial value for [x.sub.0], then follows the path
generated by the differential equation system for ([??], [??]) (9-10),
that is, under the assumption that the property rights agreement holds
and there is no defection. If capital exceeds the steady-state level,
which is known analytically, along this conjectured path for large
values of t, then we conclude that the conjecture was incorrect, the
initial guess of [x.sub.0] is adjusted, and the process repeated. The
initial guess of [x.sub.0] is iteratively adjusted in this fashion to
get the terminal capital as close to the steady state as possible.
Once the saddle path is reasonably approximated, we can compute the
paths of the interest rate [r.sub.t] and profit [[pi].sup.i.sub.t] of a
firm that abides by the property rights agreement, as well as the profit
[[??].sup.i.sub.t] of a defecting firm. When computing the saddle path
of a defecting firm, the interest rate and capital of all the other
firms remain the equilibrium values under cooperation because each firm
is negligible due to the continuum assumption. This interest rate is
then used to calculate the profit of the defecting firm.
The shooting process is challenging because the value of a
defecting firm must be calculated at every point along the saddle path.
The saddle path of a defecting firm differs from the main saddle path
and must take account of the nonconstant future path of the interest
rate; that rate is itself endogenous to the stock of capital.
We mark the enclosure threshold by the level of capital that leaves
firms indifferent between defecting and not defecting. Below that level,
we assume autarky and above it we assume that the partial property
rights agreement stays in force, with the constant v.
B. An Upper Bound on v
We determine v numerically by calculating the highest value of v
that is sustainable against defection at the steady state. The
steady-state capital [k.sup.ss] is such that under a property rights
agreement with completeness v,
[f.sup.i.sub.1]([k.sup.ss], [k.sup.ss]) +
v[f.sup.i.sub.2]([k.sup.ss], [k.sup.ss]) = [rho].
A cooperating firm has value [f.sup.i]([k.sup.ss],
[k.sup.ss])/[rho] at the steady state. The value of a defecting firm is
then computed numerically using the method described in the previous
subsection.
A property rights agreement with degree of completeness v is
sustainable at the steady state only if the value of a cooperative firm
is higher than the value of a defecting firm. Figure 4 plots the value
difference between a cooperating firm and a defecting firm for different
values of v at the steady state. The figure illustrates that the
marginal value of cooperation decreases as the degree of completeness
increases. The value of defecting increases as v increases due to the
short-run gain from avoiding the payment [[omega].sup.-i]. For larger v,
property rights agreements are therefore not sustainable, even at the
steady state. In our baseline experiments, the maximum sustainable v is
about 60%. If we interpret the contractual agreement as patent
protection, when the interest rate is 4%, v = 60% roughly corresponds to
a patent with lifespan of 23 yr--that is, close to its actual value.
(13)
[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]
C. Sustainability of Partial Property Rights along the Saddle Path
For a fixed degree of completeness v < [v.sup.max], we can
numerically determine when enclosure will occur by comparing the value
of a cooperative firm against the value of a defecting firm. Figure 5
plots the value differences for various levels of capital with v = .55.
Because of the patience effect, the incentive for cooperation is
monotonically increasing in capital.
In the early stages of economic development, capital is low, with
the interest rate consequently high. Since the gain from cooperation is
in the future while the gain from defection is immediate, the initial
high interest rate leads firms to prefer defection. Only when capital
reaches a threshold point [k.sup.*](v), and the associated interest rate
is low enough, will defection be dominated by cooperation. From that
point on, the partial property rights agreement becomes enforceable.
[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]
D. The Transition Path and Enclosure
Because an economy with low initial capital anticipates enclosure,
firms will not stay on the pure autarky-equilibrium saddle path even in
the early preenclosure stage of development. As we pointed out in Figure
3, the equilibrium path still satisfies the system (9-10) under autarky
but smoothly pastes to the saddle path of an equilibrium under a partial
property rights agreement at the point where capital reaches the
threshold value [k.sup.*](v).
Figure 6 plots this transition path for three different values of
v. One can see that the critical value [k.sup.*] increases when the
degree of completeness, v, increases. (14) In other words, as an economy
accumulates more capital, it could also sustain a more complete property
rights agreement. The more complete property rights agreement leads to
higher steady-state capital. This gradual enclosure of the marginal
contribution of complementary capital counters the force of the
diminishing marginal return on capital, rendering the growth rate and
investment rate of a more developed economy high.
[FIGURE 6 OMITTED]
In order to illustrate the effect of enclosure on growth and
investment, we compare growth rates and investment rates in an economy
that has a partial property rights agreement to one without such an
agreement (Figure 7). The dashed lines correspond to autarkic paths and
the solid lines correspond to paths in which autarky is followed by
enclosure and the property rights path. It is worth emphasizing that if
autarky prevailed permanently, a standard growth path would emerge:
investment would steadily decrease as the autarkic steady state was
approached. In the economy with a property rights agreement, the pasting
of the pre-property rights path to the property rights path results in
an increase of the growth rate and investment. There is a preenclosure
investment "frenzy"; investment takes off in Rostow's
(1956) sense before enclosure and continues at a high rate thereafter.
[FIGURE 7 OMITTED]
A more complete model would entail continuous and gradual
enclosure, with ever-increasing degrees of internalization of
complementarities. This more complete model would have the degree of
internalization determined by firms having a zero marginal incentive to
defect at all times. Thus, v will in general also be a function of the
state, increasing as the steady state is approached. Our simulations,
which show a sharp transition between the absence of a property rights
agreement and their institution, approximate a model in which the
completeness of property rights, characterized by v, increase steadily
over time. In a model with a continuously increasing v, the sharp
transition would disappear: the interest rate in particular would follow
a smoother path and would decline in the long run at a much slower rate
than it would under pure autarky or under a pure neoclassical regime;
this slower decline would far better match the empirical long-run path
of interest rates.
E. Sensitivity Analysis of [gamma]
Prescott (1998) stated that "(t)he neoclassical growth model
accounts for differences across countries only if total factor
productivity differs across countries." Our model implies that
cross-country differences in TFP are partially driven by the quantity of
capital: TFP comprises the contribution of complementary capital,
[k.sup.[gamma]]. We use this observation to figure out a reasonable
range of values for [gamma].
Let [A.sub.it] and [k.sub.it] be the measured Solow residual and
capital per worker for country i at time t, respectively. We fitted a
power curve in the form of [A.sub.it] = [A.sub.t][k.sup.[gamma].sub.it],
allowing a common component [A.sub.t], not contained in our model, as
well, with [[gamma].sub.t] as the parameter of interest.
Using data from the Penn World Table (Mark 5.6) for the years
1965-1990 for 64 countries that have data on the physical capital stock,
assuming that the parameters are fixed over time, and pooling all the
data together, we estimated value of [gamma], to be .30. Allowing for
evolution of the parameters over time and estimating [gamma] year by
year, the value of [gamma] falls between .24 and .34.
The value of .1 for [gamma] in our baseline numerical model is
smaller than the estimated value. However, all the results we presented
in the previous subsections continue to hold qualitatively for larger
values of [gamma]. (15) One regularity is that as [gamma] increases, the
upper bound of the degree of completeness of property rights v first
decreases slightly and then increases. Holding all other parameters
fixed, the increase of the power of the externality through the
increased share of complementary capital increases the unit payment
under the
property rights agreement, which increases the value of defection and
makes it harder to enforce property rights agreements with higher
completeness v. On the other hand, the increased share of complementary
capital dramatically increases the level of the steady-state capital
under the more complete property rights agreement, which works to
sustain cooperation. Initially, the first effect is strong, but
eventually, the second effect dominates (Table 2).
VI. EMPIRICAL DISCUSSION
Our model predicts that rich countries are able to sustain more
complete property rights agreements, and more complete property rights
increase subsequent growth rates. Empirically, it is extremely difficult
to compare the strength of property rights on a consistent basis across
countries. There are few attempts to develop qualitative rankings based
on legal documents, especially those about intellectual property rights.
Rapp and Rozek (1990) and Ginarte and Park (1997) are among them. Both
studies focus exclusively on patents. Ginarte and Park extended the
methodology of Rapp and Rozek significantly and developed a panel of
indexes by rating the patent laws of most countries every 5 yr from 1960
to 1990. (16) They also showed that a significant positive correlation between patent rights and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita exists.
Ginarte and Park (1997) demonstrated a positive correlation between
patent rights and income per capita. The more recent empirical study by
Djankov et al. (2004), which examines the efficiency of legal systems,
also provides some indirect evidence for our thesis. Their paper
compares the efficacy of legal systems in providing clear and practical
property rights to parties in ordinary commercial activities: eviction of tenants for nonpayment and collection of non-sufficient-funds checks.
Djankov et al. carefully surveyed law firms in more than 100 countries
in order to measure costs and durations in carrying out these court
transactions. Although their focus is on the effects of English and
French legal systems on the outcomes, their regressions also establish
that per-capita GDP is negatively related to property rights in the
sense of their definition.
Baier, Dwyer, and Tamura (2005) extend the growth accounting
literature by adding measures of human capital and developing data over
a very long term (~150 yr) in order to extract the low-frequency
component. They find that growth in TFP is smaller than in previous
estimates but is still far from zero. They note that in some regions,
TFP has actually shrunk and draw the conclusion that institutions, not
technology, drive TFP growth. That institutions drive growth is a
conclusion we also draw--although we do not go so far as to predict
negative TFP growth--and moreover, we explain why institutions are so
tightly connected with wealth.
Similarly, Alfaro, Kalemli-Ozcan, and Volosovych (2005) examine
cross-country capital flows. They find that equity inflows per capita
are much lower in poor countries than in rich countries, when elementary
theory predicts the opposite. Our model explains the pattern as stemming
from impaired property rights in poor countries. (17) They then measure
institutional quality, following the literature exemplified by La Porta
et al. (1998), finding that institutional quality explains growth better
than GDP. However, institutional quality is highly correlated with GDP,
which is again predicted by the enclosure model. They also present time
series graphs documenting the secular upward trend in institutional
quality--again, in agreement with our theory.
Godoy and Stiglitz (2006) provide further evidence of the linkage
between property rights and growth. They carry out an empirical analysis
of the outcomes of privatization in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. They
disentangle the effects of the speed of privatization from the effects
of the quality of property rights institutions on the outcomes. They
find support for the proposition that good institutions are the primary
drivers of successful privatization, rather than the speed of
privatization.
Our results rest on the impatience of economic agents in poor
countries. In the model, impatience is expressed in higher interest
rates. Is it true that poor countries have higher interest rates than
rich countries? Cross-country comparisons do show that real interest
rates and GDP per capita are negatively correlated (Figure 8), while
time series evidence is mixed. (18)
McCloskey and Nash (1984) showed that the interest rate, measured
by seasonal dynamics of the price of grain in medieval England, was high
relative to post industrial revolution interest rates. Siegel (1992)
carefully constructed the real risk-free rate series for both the United
States and the United Kingdom between 1800 and 1990. He showed that the
short rate went through wide swings historically and is highly
correlated across the two countries. Though it is true that the interest
rate mostly declined in the nineteenth century, the same cannot be said
since then. This is not surprising as interest rates are also affected
by technological progress and other factors besides capital
accumulation. Cross-country comparisons, on the other hand, could bypass
that problem by holding these extraneous effects fixed but are also
subject to error: the cross-sectional interest rates shown in Figure 8
are not perfectly comparable across countries, the maturities of the
underlining financial instruments range from 1 to 6 mo, and the spreads
between borrowing rates and lending rates differ tremendously across
countries. Nevertheless, the negative correlation is robust for
different time periods and is present whether we use borrowing rates or
lending rates.
[FIGURE 8 OMITTED]
VIII CONCLUSIONS
We view our model as meeting a challenge posed by North (1996):
There is no mystery why the field of development
has failed to develop during the five decades
since the end of the Second World War.
Neoclassical theory is simply an inappropriate
tool to analyze and prescribe policies that will
induce development. It is concerned with the
operation of markets, not with how markets
develop. How can one prescribe policies when
one doesn't understand how economies
develop? The very methods employed by neoclassical
economists have dictated the subject
matter and militated against such a development.
That theory, in the pristine form that gave
it mathematical precision and elegance, modeled
a frictionless and static world. When
applied to economic history and development,
it focused on technological development and
more recently human capital investment but
ignored the incentive structure embodied in
institutions that determined the extent of societal
investment in those factors. In the analysis of
economic performance through time it contained
two erroneous assumptions: first, that
institutions do not matter and, second, that time
does not matter.
Our model is indeed a neoclassical model that does in fact
endogenize the formation of institutions over time.
Our model is highly specialized: it is symmetric, but actual
capital is distributed highly asymmetrically, and the institution of
property rights is highly asynchronous. It is also deterministic. An
extended model with random technological changes would allow the
marginal product of capital to increase at random times; by decreasing
the marginal product, and perforce patience, this could have the effect
of sundering rather than strengthening property rights, with the
consequence that growth might be slowed, or at least that it would fail
to accelerate, to the degree predicted by elementary theory.
An extended model would entail continuous and gradual enclosure,
with ever-increasing degrees of internalization of complementarities,
and would also encompass heterogeneous initial capital across firms or
countries. This more complete model would have the degree of
internalization determined by firms having a zero marginal incentive to
defect at all times and would result in a smoother, more slowly
decreasing path of interest rates. The results in our present model
suggest that there might be extended periods in which countries of
intermediate or high wealth experience acceleration of growth, rather
than the deceleration of standard theory.
ABBREVIATIONS
GDP: Gross Domestic Product
TFP: Total Factor Productivity
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(1.) Our theory rests on the fact that interest rates and
development are negatively correlated. Some evidence of this is provided
in Section VI.
(2.) The empirical evidence for the existence of positive
externalities in technology is compelling: calculations of the rate of
return to investment in research and development show it to be
extraordinarily high, far higher than market rates (see, e.g., Griliches
[1958] and Bernstein [1988]). Technology spillovers documented by
Bernstcin and Yan (1997) and Coe, Helpman, and Hoffmaister (1997)--the
ability of poorer countries to incorporate technology from developed
economies through imitation--are apparently an engine of growth. By
contrast, our model views these spillovers as symptoms of incompletely
developed property rights.
(3.) Separately incorporating firm-specific and aggregate capital
harks back as far as the papers of Arrow (1962), with later applications
such as Romer (1986). Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1997) and Eeckhout and
Jovanovic (2002) also incorporate capital externalities in the
production function in order to study various growth anomalies.
(4.) See Janssen-Tapken et al. (2006).
(5.) Without adjustment costs, because of the continuum of firms
assumption, each firm would engage in "bang-bang" investment,
either zero or infinite. Adjustment costs guarantee a smooth growth
path.
(6.) Activity to limit the uncompensated use of complementary
capital is in reality costly, and we are suppressing the explicit
representation of this cost, and the means by which free riding is
impeded, in this version of the model. We would argue, however, that
this cost is potentially small: in the context of cattle husbandry,
breeding associations make it cheap to exclude defectors. A farmer who
illicitly bred cattle would be unable to certify the pedigrees of the
extra progeny. The record keeping for this certification, and the
provision of pedigrees, is relatively costless.
(7.) A broader example of property rights agreements is the use of
patent cross-licensing agreements. Firms operating in the same industry
often have patents that are complementary with the patents of
competitors. Defection would then entail a firm's deliberate
infringement of a patent, knowing that it will eventually be detected,
which in practice takes time. Exclusion then takes the concrete form of
exclusion from cross-licensing, or ultimately a lawsuit. In poor
countries, the lack of patent protection limits the recourse of firms;
exclusion from cross-licensing agreements is then not an option.
(8.) The slope of [[??].sup.i] = 0 locus is A/B, where
[MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSION NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
(9.) As with our abstraction of the effort to limit the
uncompensated use of complementary capital, we are abstracting away from
explicitly modeling the effort needed to monitor and respond to
defection.
(10.) And as with our discussion of patents in Footnote 7,
detection of patent infringement takes time.
(11.) Increasing the value of the coefficient of relative risk
aversion would not change the results much. Because the coefficient also
indexes the intertemporal elasticity of substitution, a higher value
would lead to slower convergence toward the steady state but would not
affect the ultimate behavior of the transition path very much, nor would
the steady state itself be affected.
(12.) As with the model of Benhabib and Rustichini, for some
parameters, a growth trap is possible, that is, enclosure never occurs
because defection is always optimal.
(13.) That is, the present value of 23 yr of a flow at an interest
rate of 4% is about 60% of the value of an infinite term for that same
flow.
(14.) This increase is not very significant in the baseline model,
but it is magnified when the value of [gamma] is increased.
(15.) The computed example becomes numerically unstable for [gamma]
values that are higher than [alpha], the share of own capital in
production.
(16.) The Ginarte-Park index is based on five components: duration
of protection, extent of coverage, membership in international patent
agreements, provisions for loss of protection, and enforcement measure.
Some components are further broken down into characteristics that they
think closely describe their effective strength. All scores are
aggregated with equal weights. The final index has a minimum possible
score of 0.0 and a maximum of 5.0.
(17.) Our extension of the enclosure model to a multi-country
setting elaborates on this point further.
(18.) There is no uncertainty in our model, and hence, discounting
and the interest rate are identical. The addition of the hazard rate for
theft and expropriation, a significant risk in low property rights
settings such as the pastoralist culture of the Maasai, might increase
discounting even more.
Taub: Professor, Department of Economics, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, 470E Wohlers Hall, Champaign, IL. Phone 217-333-4828,
Fax 217-244-6571, E-mail
[email protected]
Zhao: Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 343I Wohlers Hall, Champaign, IL. Phone
217-333-4508, Fax 217-244-6571, E-mail
[email protected]
TABLE 1
Parameter Values
Parameter Value
Risk aversion coefficient, [sigma] .5
Subjective discount rate, [rho] .04
Adjustment cost, [delta] .04
Own capital, [alpha] .3
Complementary capital, [gamma] .1
Detection time lag, [tau] 2
Ability to block free riding, [theta] .9
TABLE 2
Sensitivity Analysis of [gamma]
[gamma] .1 .2 .3 .4
v .59 .54 .60 1.00