Rules, players, powers, and equilibria. What are we talking about when studying property as an institution?

Abstract

The aim of this text is to clarify the content and scope of the concept of property as an institution, in order to facilitate its precise use in historical analysis. To do this, first, the meaning of the concept of institution is examined, confronting its definition as regulative-rules (North), as constitutive-rules (Searle), and as equilibria (Greif). Then, two approaches to the concept of property are presented: the one that understands it as a binary link between a subject and an object, and the other one that interprets it as a relation between subjects in relation to an object in specific contexts. After a characterization of the different ways to approach the dynamics of institutional change, from the points of view of rational choice and evolutionary economics, a tentative analytical proposal is offered, centered on the formula ‘rules in nested equilibria’