Should property owners be compensated for the effects of government regulation? According to the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution "No person shall … be deprived of … property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." But what exactly is a property right and what constitutes a taking? Seizure of land by the government may be a taking, but what about environmental or zoning regulations that place restrictions on land use? With one such taking case already before the Supreme Court, the legal battle over these questions could alter the very nature of the relationship between the rights of the individual property owner and those of society as a whole.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, looks at the IRS's abuse of the permit power and how that abuse also applies to the FDA, the EPA, and local zoning ordinances.

The fall issue of Regulation contains a provocative attempt by University of California, Berkeley law professor Peter Menell to discredit what he calls the property rights movement (prm) for its supposed “absolutist” stance on intellectual property (“Intellectual Property and the Property Rights Movement”)...

Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, discusses the Palestinian state and whether the Federal Reserve board’s printing money translates into the next act of economic ruination with Secure Freedom Radio’s Frank Gaffney.

Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the John and Jean De Nault Task Force on Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity, speaks to the long-standing conflict between the constitutional protection of property rights and the state’s desire to protect its pristine wetlands, always in short supply, from destruction by real estate development.

Richard Epstein considers the soundness of contracts and the constitutionality of taxing bonuses at a rate of 90 percent...

A native of Zambia, Dambisa Moyo holds a master's degree from Harvard, an MBA from American University and a doctorate in economics from Oxford...

IP² Working Paper No. 14014 (originally published April 1, 2014) - Ultimately, patents have value to the extent to which the product features enabled by the patents have economic value in the marketplace. Products which are enhanced by inclusion of patented features should generate incremental profits. Incremental profits can be assessed by considering demand for products with patented features and contrasting that demand to demand for the same product without the patented feature. 

Property Rights, Innovation, And Prosperity with Terry Anderson and Stephen Haber.