A Contractarian Theory of Property Rights and Crime
研究在没有政府的世界里，通过社会契约建立财产权和刑事司法系统如何让所有人在事前获益，即使有人事后受罚，并刻画了最优的财产权执行水平。
As was noted long ago, war-like distributional squabbles which divert resources from socially productive uses will persist in a world without government. In this paper, we show that all agents can gain ex ante from the institution of a social contract which establishes property rights and levies a tax in order to finance a criminal justice system where punishment is threatened for violations of property rights. These ex ante gains hold even for individuals who may be harshly punished ex post. The optimal social contract (i.e. the optimal level of enforcement of property rights) is also characterized.