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Limitations on the customizability of property rights (the numerus clausus principle) are a puzzling feature of the common law conception of property. An economic rationale, built upon 1) the pivotal role that rules of exclusion play in fostering user innovation, and 2) the role that psychological ownership plays in preventing recontracting around governance rules, is offered to explain the modern persistence of the doctrine. Application of the numerus clausus principle limits the proliferation of governance rules in the economy (governance), replacing them with rules of exclusion (exclusion). Exclusion unifies rights of use and possession in assets, while governance separates, to a greater or lesser degree, possession from use rights. Full user, sale and the policy against restraints on alienation are the paradigmatic examples of exclusion; while governance is exemplified by servitudes and contractually-burdened assets. Exclusion plays a critical role in user innovation because it allows the possessors of assets to unilaterally seek out new uses of those assets. Whenever the law replaces governance with exclusion, user innovation is more likely to occur because the possessors of assets can apply their unique, rival and nontransferable human capital inputs to tangible assets, generating outputs (the new uses) that move resources to their higher-value uses. This is how all innovation, both high-tech and low-tech, occurs. In addition to negatively impacting user innovation, governance hinders recontracting because both possession and legal entitlements (rights of use in an asset) give rise to feelings of psychological ownership, and individuals will not recontract over uses that they feel they already ‘own’. The user innovation theory’s focus on search, innovation and human capital explains why the numerus clausus principle remains most robust in the areas of personal and intellectual property (where users generate a significant amount of innovation), and why it has been somewhat attenuated in the area of real property (where we restrict search in order to facilitate coordination of land uses). It also explains why the law enforces the principle even when the cost of providing notice of governance rules is low.

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Strong private property rights to land are recognised as fundamental to the economic growth of a country's legal system. Legal reform of inadequate and inefficient property rights laws is therefore essential. My thesis aims to address the lack of legal reform of the laws governing property rights to land in Nigeria. It does this by critically examining the Land Use Act set up as the primary body of legislation governing property rights in Nigeria.The thesis seeks to offer meaningful insights by proposing an institutional analysis of the limitations to reform of existing laws governing property rights to land in Nigeria. Several approaches of new institutionalism are explored in analysing identified constraints which exist within formal and informal institutions. Explanations of the absence of legal reform are addressed through themes examining formal and informal institutional structures which limit reform. Analyses of institutional structures highlight the significant role played by institutions in the etablishment and development of property right laws in Nigeria. An in-depth look at Nigerian private property laws and legally recognised interests on land exposes fundamental limitations to private property rights protection of individuals within the Nigerian state. The thesis provides valuable insights and addresses institutional limitations through consideration of strategies which would enable and assist legal reform of Nigeria's property rights laws. The study concludes by exploring three aspects. First, it offers reform proposals and analyses the functionality of the proposed reform suggestions. Second, it highlights principles of policy-making redesign within formal institutions. Finally, it offers strategies to assist reform within informal instituional structures.In short, the thesis focuses on enabling legal reform of Nigerian property rights laws to ensure the amendment, modification or excision of bad, inefficient laws in order to offer better protection of individuals' property rights to land.