The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier.

• Author: Alston, Lee J.
• Position: Book Review

The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier By Terry L. Anderson and Peter J. Hill Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004. Pp. xii, 263. $24.95 cloth.

As the title suggests, Terry Anderson and P. J. Hill's new book is not about the exploits of Butch Cassidy, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, or John Wayne. Rather, it is an analytical narrative about the property rights established in the North American West to allocate land and other exploitable assets, such as beavers, gold, silver, and water. I use the term analytical narrative because even though the book has a clear theory underlying its analysis, it does not present the kind of analysis that composes the daily diet of academic economists--there is neither a single equation nor any econometrics to lull the reader to sleep. The book's informal style, however, should not cause the potential reader to suppose that its analysis is shallow. Anderson and Hill present a compelling history based a great deal of their own research as well as that of others who have studied property rights in the West. They also include considerable evidence in graphs, tables, and quotations from contemporary observers as well as from historians. Their approach will enable them to reach both academics and nonacademics.

The book consists of eleven chapters: 1, an entertaining introduction; 2, the framework used to analyze property-rights arrangements; 3, Native Americans' property rights prior to the arrival of Europeans; 4, the U.S. government's shifting policies toward Native Americans and Native American lands; 5, property rights over the beaver and buffalo; 6, property rights over gold and silver; 7, property rights of assets used in wagon trains; 8, property rights of cattle drives and range rights; 9, property rights in land; 10, water rights; and 11, implications for new frontiers. The only conspicuous absences with regard to property rights over resources are full accounts concerning timber and fisheries. This omission was apparently made for good reason, however: the authors stick to the subject areas they know best.

The underlying basis of the analytical framework is that well-defined and well-enforced property rights reduce the dissipation of value entailed by competition over property rights and their associated income streams. Because Anderson and Hill focus on a frontier, which is not an equilibrium situation, they develop hypotheses concerning the tendencies toward equilibrium...