For those embarking on or engaged in property law research, this is a unique resource which includes contributions from twelve international scholars who each analyse a different research approach, addressing its value, associated methodology and the challenges involved in pursuing it.

Comparative Property Law provides a comprehensive treatment of property law from a comparative and global perspective. The contributors, who are leading experts in their fields, cover both classical and new subjects, including the transfer of property, the public-private divide in property law, water and forest laws, and the property rights of aboriginal peoples. This Handbook maps the structure and the dynamics of property law in the contemporary world and will be an invaluable reference for researchers working in all domains of property law.

Considers how research in psychology offers new perspectives on property law, and suggests avenues of reform Property law governs the acquisition, use and transfer of resources. It resolves competing claims to property, provides legal rules for transactions, affords protection to property from interference by the state, and determines remedies for injury to property rights. In seeking to accomplish these goals, the law of property is concerned with human cognition and behavior. How do we allocate property, both initially and over time, and what factors determine the perceived fairness of those distributions? What social and psychological forces underlie determinations that certain uses of property are reasonable? What remedies do property owners prefer? The Psychology of Property Law explains how assumptions about human judgement, decision-making and behavior have shaped different property rules and examines to what extent these assumptions are supported by the research. Employing key findings from psychology, the book considers whether property law’s goals could be achieved more successfully with different rules. In addition, the book highlights property laws and conflicts that offer productive areas for further behaviorally-informed research. The book critically addresses several topics from property law for which psychology has a great deal to contribute. These include ownership and possession, legal protections for residential and personal property, takings of property by the state, redistribution through property law, real estate transactions, discrimination in housing and land use, and remedies for injury to property.

Leading scholars in the field of law and economics contribute their original theoretical and empirical research to this major Handbook. Each chapter analyzes the basic architecture and important features of the institutions of property law from an economic point of view, while also providing an introduction to the issues and literature. Property rights and property systems vary along a large number of dimensions, and economics has proven very conducive to analyzing these patterns and even the nature of property itself. The contributions found here lend fresh perspectives to the current body of literature, examining topics including: initial acquisition; the commons, anticommons, and semicommons; intellectual property; public rights; abandonment and destruction; standardization of property; property and firms; marital property; bankruptcy as property; titling systems; land surveying; covenants; nuisance; the political economy of property; and takings. The contributors employ a variety of methods and perspectives, demonstrating the fruitfulness of economic modeling, empirical methods, and institutional analysis for the study of both new and familiar problems in property. Legal scholars, economists, and other social scientists interested in property will find this Handbook an often-referenced addition to their libraries.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Bringing together a diverse array of property law specialists, this timely Research Agenda explores the theoretical and doctrinal dimensions of the main subareas of property law. It examines the current tensions between the protection of existing property interests and the need to tackle societal challenges, such as digitalisation, the creation of energy communities, and the climate crisis. Multidisciplinary in scope, A Research Agenda for Property Law analyses various subfields including property theory and constitutional property law, presenting key insights into the role of property law in society. Contributing authors critically assess the internal and external challenges currently facing property law, such as the development of disruptive technologies, globalisation and the energy transition, and highlight the pressing need to accommodate them. Ultimately, it offers a way forward for future research in the coming decade to address these issues. This prescient Research Agenda is a fundamental resource for scholars and students of commercial law and property law. Its practical implications and recommendations for future research will also be beneficial to legal practitioners and policymakers at the local, national and international level.

In its essence, land law has to provide answers to two very difficult questions: who is entitled to use land, and how they are entitled to use it? Land law is therefore inherently difficult, but not impossibly so. It consists of an ordered and logical system, which aims to take the sting out of fierce disputes. This new introductory textbook reveals the system and also shows how it is possible to understand and criticize land law. The book is written in a student-friendly style and, in both its pages and companion web-site, makes use of helpful visual aids. The book places land law firmly within the wider context of property law. The introduction discusses a basic tension which runs throughout property law, and it shows how that tension is heightened where land is involved. The second part shows the response to this basic tension, setting out a basic structure which applies throughout property law, while noting how the special nature of land leads to the special features of land law. The third part of the book applies the basic structure to the individual topics making up land law courses, using the structure to reveal the conceptual coherence which lies behind the technical terms. The book is ideal reading for undergraduate law students seeking a rock-solid understanding of how land law works.