Gender Discrimination in Property Rights: Six Centuries of Commons Governance in the Alps

Starting from the Medieval period, women in the Italian Alps experienced a progressive erosion in property rights over the commons. We collected documents about the evolution of inheritance regulations on collective land issued by hundreds of villages over a period of six centuries (thirteenth-nineteenth). Based on this original dataset, we provide a long-term perspective of decentralized institutional change in which gender-biased inheritance systems emerged as a defensive measure to preserve the wealth of village insiders. This institutional change also had implications for the population growth, marriage strategies, and the protection from economic shocks.

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Property Rights in American Economic History

The Oxford Handbook of American Economic History, vol. 2 ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190882624.013.23 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 168-194

Author(s):

Gary Libecap

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Economic History ◽

Private Property ◽

The United States ◽

Equity And Efficiency ◽

Mineral Rights ◽

The Commons ◽

Efficiency Effects

This chapter examines the development of private property rights to natural resources in the United States as a bottom-up or top-down process. Long-term equity and efficiency effects are highlighted. The role of property rights in avoiding the tragedy of the commons is illustrated. The property rights examined are those to farmland, timberland, as well as grazing rights and mineral rights. Each emerged or were constrained in different ways with important long-term economic and social effects in American economic development. The role of the rectangular survey in deliminating rights to surface land to reduce tenure uncertainty and to promote land and capital markets is described in detail.

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Ascoltare il territorio

ARCHALP ◽

10.30682/aa2005a ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2020 (N. 5) ◽

Author(s):

Simone Cola

Keyword(s):

Local Community ◽

Metropolitan Areas ◽

Local Population ◽

Italian Alps ◽

Mountain Areas ◽

Winter Olympics ◽

History Of ◽

The Alps ◽

The Village

The recent history of urban development in Italy largely stems from a policy – here intended as a set of actions and strategies of administrators, entrepreneurs and experts – which has been incapable of planning transformations and, therefore, adopting a shared and far-sighted approach to development. The urban regeneration of metropolitan areas and their consequent demographic and economic development (70% of the population and 80% of GDP are concentrated in these areas) have often penalised internal areas such as the Alps and Apennines. Some peculiar experiences, including the regeneration of the village of Ostana (Cuneo), the project carried out in Contrada Bricconi (Bergamo), or even the activities of the association Dolomiti Contemporanee (Belluno) – just to mention a few interesting cases in the Italian Alps, – show that the understanding of and care for a unique territory are the pillars on which any informed political, administrative, architectural or territorial project should be based. This approach is all the more important in the framework of those events envisaging the construction of large infrastructures (such as the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina). After these events, such infrastructures are often abandoned because they are useless for the territory, economically unsustainable in the long-term, and not shared with the local community. In this perspective, the work of the association Architetti Arco Alpino (Alpine Arc Architects), whose activities range from architecture awards to photographic surveys, conferences and publications, aims to understand the complexity of mountain areas and to promote architectural quality. In this framework, they have successfully shown how the problems are often the same regardless of geographical and cultural distances. The solution to these problems is to be found primarily in the act of listening to the places and history of the local population; whether in the Alps or elsewhere, every good project based on a contemporary and conscious approach starts from there.

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Common Forest, Private Timber: Managing the Commons in the Italian Alps

Journal of Interdisciplinary History ◽

10.1162/jinh_a_01661 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 52 (1) ◽

pp. 1-26

Author(s):

Giacomo Bonan ◽

Claudio Lorenzini

Keyword(s):

Mutual Benefit ◽

Socioeconomic Conditions ◽

Italian Alps ◽

Mountain Communities ◽

Key Stakeholders ◽

The Commons ◽

Timber Trade ◽

The Common ◽

Strategic Relationships

Abstract The two key stakeholders in the commercial exploitation of the common woodlands in the eastern Italian Alps from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century were the mountain communities, which had ownership or right of use of the woodlands, and the timber merchants, who had the capital and skills to transform those woodlands into valuable commodities. A long-term perspective on the business of cutting, transporting, and marketing timber reveals the networks, strategic relationships, and complex socioeconomic conditions that emerged from the collaboration of local populations and outside interests in the timber trade for their mutual benefit.

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[A brief history about the ALPI project]

Rivista Italiana di Ornitologia ◽

10.4081/rio.2021.553 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 91 (2) ◽

pp. 5-12

Author(s):

Paolo Pedrini ◽

Fernando Spina

Keyword(s):

Bird Migration ◽

Special Focus ◽

Italian Alps ◽

Specific Composition ◽

Palearctic Species ◽

Breeding Migration ◽

Migration Strategies ◽

The Alps ◽

Ongoing Project

[Conceived by the National Ringing Centre ISPRA and MUSE (Trento, formerly MTSN), the Alps Project was launched in 1997 in order to understand the post-breeding migration strategies of birds across the Italian Alps. The project is realized thanks to the support offered by MUSE and several institutions at a local scale, not to mention the collaboration of over one hundred ringers. In more than twenty years, 40 stations located in sites of passage (alpine and pre-alpine passes) and stop-over (valley floors and slopes) have taken part in the project, leading to a dataset of 666,471 ringed individuals and 191 species (as to 2017). After a first exploratory phase (1997-2002), in which the migration was investigated in its many aspects of specific composition and spatial-temporal variation, the project has been restricted to a smaller number of stations since 2007. Those stations are characterized by working in a standardized and continuous way during the whole period (August-November) or during the migration period of the intra-Palearctic species (end of September-October). In this paper we describe the aims, protocols and organizational aspects of the project, with a special focus on monitoring trends and changes in the long-term phenology. This ongoing project (2021) is part of the ISPRA national ringing plan to monitor bird migration across the country]. [Article in Italian]

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Emergence of Endogenous Legal Institutions: Property Rights and Community Governance in the Italian Alps

The Journal of Economic History ◽

10.1017/s0022050707000071 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 67 (1) ◽

pp. 191-226 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

Marco Casari

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Resource Use ◽

Management Systems ◽

Italian Alps ◽

Resource Use Efficiency ◽

Community Governance ◽

Long Run ◽

The Alps ◽

Use Efficiency ◽

The Common

This article examines changes in institutions that protected property rights in the Alps between the thirteenth and the nineteenth century and, in particular, alternative management systems adopted for the common pastures and forests in about 200 communities. Over time, private-order institutions in the form of charters replaced informal arrangements sustained by the long-run interaction among villagers. Although costly to run, the charters accomplished several tasks that increased resource use efficiency.

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From Freezing to Investing: New Approaches to Monetary and Currency Policies

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2008-3-47-55 ◽

2008 ◽

pp. 47-55

Author(s):

A. Nekipelov ◽

Yu. Goland

Keyword(s):

Economic Policy ◽

Property Rights ◽

Main Idea ◽

State Intervention ◽

Economic Thought ◽

Human Potential ◽

Knowledge Based ◽

Russian Economy ◽

Knowledge Based Economy

The appeals to minimize state intervention in the Russian economy are counterproductive. However the excessive involvement of the state is fraught with the threat of building nomenclature capitalism. That is the main idea of the series of articles by prominent representatives of Russian economic thought who formulate their position on key elements of the long-term strategy of Russia’s development. The articles deal with such important issues as Russia’s economic policy, transition to knowledge-based economy, basic directions of monetary and structural policies, strengthening of property rights, development of human potential, foreign economic priorities of our state.

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Gran Paradiso: Erkenntnisse aus der sich natürlich regulierenden Steinbockpopulation|Gran Paradiso: Conclusions from the naturally regulated Capricorn population

Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Forstwesen ◽

10.3188/szf.2007.0349 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 158 (11) ◽

pp. 349-352

Author(s):

Grégory Amos ◽

Ambroise Marchand ◽

Anja Schneiter ◽

Annina Sorg

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Population Density ◽

National Park ◽

Optimal Management ◽

Capra Ibex ◽

Large Fluctuations ◽

The Alps ◽

Gran Paradiso ◽

Gran Paradiso National Park

The last Capricorns (Capra ibex ibex) in the Alps survived during the nineteenth century in the Aosta valley thanks to the royal hunting reservation (today Gran Paradiso national park). Capricorns from this reservation were successfully re-introduced in Switzerland after its Capricorn population had disappeared. Currently in Switzerland there are 13200 Capricorns. Every year 1000 are hunted in order to prevent a large variation and overaging of their population and the damage of pasture. In contrast, in the Gran Paradiso national park the game population regulates itself naturally for over eighty years. There are large fluctuations in the Capricorn population (2600–5000) which are most likely due to the climate, amount of snow, population density and to the interactions of these factors. The long-term surveys in the Gran Paradiso national park and the investigations of the capacity of this area are a valuable example for the optimal management of the ibexes in Switzerland.

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The Tragedy of ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’ – Hardin vs. the Property Rights Theorists

SSRN Electronic Journal ◽

10.2139/ssrn.3531981 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jonathan M. Karpoff

Keyword(s):

Property Rights ◽

Tragedy Of The Commons ◽

The Commons

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Staking out an inshore commons: Pound-netting in Gilded Age America

International Journal of Maritime History ◽

10.1177/0843871420974064 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (1) ◽

pp. 3-15

Author(s):

David Ress

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Property Rights ◽

Fish Species ◽

Gilded Age ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Important Food ◽

The Commons ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Over Exploitation ◽

Specific Part

Controversy over the expansion of pound netting in the largest US fisheries of the late nineteenth century marked an early conflict between those who considered fisheries a commons and those who sought to establish property rights in a fishery. Pound-netters physically staked out a specific part of the sea for their exclusive use, and their conception of their property rights resulted in significant overfishing of important food – and oil – fish species. Here, just as with the commons that many economists argue inevitably result in over-exploitation of a resource, regulation was rebuffed and the fisheries collapsed.

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