A simple, ecologically rational rule for settling found property disputes

Who has property in a found item X, which is contained in Y? The finder of X or the person who has property in Y? The common law says it depends. It depends upon whether the owner of Y knew about X, or whether X was lost or mislaid, or how small the weight of X is relative to Y (as compared to its v...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of economic behavior & organization Vol. 178; pp. 660 - 671
Main Author Wilson, Bart J.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier B.V 01.10.2020
Subjects
Common law
Durfee v Jones
Experimental economics
Found property
Lost property
Property rights
Experimental economics
Durfee v Jones
Found property
Property rights
Common law
K11
Lost property
C92
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Summary:Who has property in a found item X, which is contained in Y? The finder of X or the person who has property in Y? The common law says it depends. It depends upon whether the owner of Y knew about X, or whether X was lost or mislaid, or how small the weight of X is relative to Y (as compared to its value), or whether the finder was an employee of the owner of Y, to name just a few. Wilson (2020) hypothesizes that humans universally cognize property as being contained in a thing. A testable implication of the hypothesis reveals a simpler, clearer rule for settling found property disputes in the common law: if A has property in Y and X is in Y, then A has property in X, even if B finds X. Using a 2 × 2 design, I report the results of a three-dimensional virtual world experiment to test how incentivized panels of participants award a found item to one of two actual parties who have an all-or-nothing financial stake in the panel's decision. The results of the experiment strongly support the hypothesis, even, unexpectedly, under counterfactual conditions.
ISSN:0167-2681
1879-1751
DOI:10.1016/j.jebo.2020.08.008