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  3. Ronald Coase Institute Series on New Institutional Economics

Empirical research has confirmed that institutions are essential to understanding economic phenomena. This research has made clear the central roles played by transaction costs, property rights, contracts, and the rule of law. This series provides an outlet for broad-ranging analyses with the extensive contextual material that institutional investigations need.

  • General Editors: Mary M. Shirley, The Ronald Coase Institute, Alexandra Benham, The Ronald Coase Institute, Lee Benham, The Ronald Coase Institute

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1 results in Ronald Coase Institute Series on New Institutional Economics

Why the Rush?
  • An Institutional Economic Analysis of Homesteading and the Settlement of the West
  • Douglas W. Allen, Bryan Leonard
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    December 2025
    Print publication:
    31 December 2025
  • Establishing economic property rights is a ubiquitous human activity that is key to the creation of wealth. Why the Rush? combines economic and historical analysis to argue that the institution of homesteading, as established in the US through the Homestead Act of 1862, was a method to establish meaningful, economic property rights on the American frontier. It explains how homesteading rushed millions of people into specific areas, established a meaningful sovereignty without the use of military force and became the means by which the US Thwarted military and legal challenges. Using fine-grained data, along with a detailed theoretical analysis and exhaustive institutional content, this book makes a serious contribution to the study of economic property rights and institutions providing the definitive analysis of the economics of homesteading and its role in American economic history.