Determinants of property rights in Poland and Ukraine: the polity or politicians?
Journal: Journal of Institutional Economics
Year: 2016

Abstract North (1994) famously remarked that ‘it is the polity that defines and enforces property rights’. This paper traces the development of property rights in Poland and Ukraine and explores their divergence over the past three centuries using North's framework of economic calculation. In each country, the distribution of political power and political institutions had a profound impact on property rights. Indeed, while it was the Polish polity that defined the evolution of property rights fr