published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Master / Master of Science in Real Estate and Construction

The institution of property rights, as an important category of constraints or restrictions on human behaviour, provides rules of competition, and delineates the social and legal relationship between a resource owner and the others throughout the world. Forms of ownership rights to resources affect the efficiency of their use. The consensus is that in a real world with significant transactions costs and scarce resources, private property right systems lead to more efficient resource allocation than the others do. Previous studies about economic implications of non-exclusive resources have focused on the problems of resource misallocations. A few studies also worked on the effects that alternate property rights structures have on the prices and variations in prices of non-exclusive resources. However, the economic analysis of property rights attribute of natural resources used as building materials, such as natural sand and wood, is still an unexplored research area. The objective of the whole research is to empirically verify Angello and Donnelley's (1975) property rights thesis, as reinterpreted by Lai (1993a) and Lai and Yu (1995), that the variations in prices of non-exclusive resources are much greater than those under more exclusive ownership; and to identify, alternatively, the factors that might have affected ownership rights, inferred from changes in the variations in prices of the resources. In this thesis, published historical data of natural sand, Total declared costs of new buildings completed, Gross & Usable floor area, Gross value of construction work, and published government data of prices for selected buildings materials, namely Portland cement, sand, hardwood, and plywood, were used. The prices of captured and cultured shrimps, which are collected from super market and street market by the author, were also checked and used. These resources are subject to different degrees of access restrictions and, hence, are good candidates for testing the hypotheses. Basically, the hypotheses formulated in this research are strongly supported. The main findings are that the variations in prices of non-exclusive resources are greater than those of exclusive resources; for the same resource, the price ratios of exclusive resource and non-exclusive resource would fall over time. This is an original contribution to the theory of property rights. The originality of this dissertation lies in its exploration of the economic relationship between property rights ownership and selected building materials, as well as in the application of variances to the research of building materials. This is a novel contribution to research on Hong Kong’s sustainable development as she heavily relies on the real estate market for economic development. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Surveying / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leave 210-230) and index.

Thesis (M.Hous.M.)--University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-87). Also available in print.

Thesis (J.C.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-72).

1.1\xThis thesis studies land expropriation disputes from the angle of property right, exploring its origins from the relationships between township (town) government and villagers, village collective and villagers, and different villagers, focusing on peasants' resisting low land expropriation compensation instead of their fighting against land expropriation. Specifically, this research will discuss three questions. What is the nature of property right? How had the landed property rights been regulated and adjudicated? How do women gain and loss their land rights and interests?;1.2\xIn terms of the nature of property right, two kinds of idea are widely spread in academic circle; the first follows a materialist-legalist viewpoint and considers property rights as a bundle of rights, whereas the second adopts a constructivist perspective and considers property rights as a network of social relations. With defected land institutions and peasants' complicated social life, both of the two ideas cannot provide a suitable explanation for some new phenomena in land expropriation disputes, leaving a gap between property right theory and practice. Building on the foundation of Zhang Xiaojun's (2007) idea of "multiple property rights" and drawing upon Pierre Bourdieu's discussion of capitals, this research will propose the idea of "composite property rights" to systematize the discussion. This concept examines the transformation of symbolic, social, and cultural capital into economic capital, and in turn the transformation of economic capital into property rights. In so doing, I hope to provide a better framework for understanding the mechanisms through which various capitals can be mobilized to "realize" the landed property rights.;1.3\xSince this research regards composite property rights as the nature of property right, the answer of the second research question then transfers into: what are the characteristics of the practical logic of composite property rights? Basing the rationale of resistance on peasants' local perception of land rights, peasants explore an action strategy, boundary-treading resistance. This concept reveals their tactics on three different relationships. First, as to the relation with the state, the peasants' resistance treads on state laws and land institution by taking advantage of their capitals. Second, in terms of the relation with local government and developers, their strategies rely on probing counterparty's loopholes, treading on boundaries of administrative enforcement of policy. Third, in regard to the relation among villagers or familial relationship, their behaviors challenges the village rules and traditions, treading on the boundaries of traditional moral principles.;1.4\xIn order to use the two concepts, this research specifically analyzes women's striving for land rights and interests. After building a framework of membership, this research transfers the third research question into a specific one: since rural land is owned by rural collective economic organization, how can an individual become its member? In sum, women's tactics include (1) taking full advantage of village collective's self-contradictory decision which admits their huji but refuses their cuji, (2) revoking their previous promise, and (3) exploring the loophole of household register management. During their striving for membership, they utilize their various capitals: (1) they use money as deposit to get villagers meeting's support, or gift to gain cadre's favor, to move in/back their huji, (2) with their relatives' help, they can get information and other support.;1.5\xBy attaching all kinds of capitals to the property right transformation from economic capital to economic property right, peasants' resources can be transformed into capitals; and these capitals enter their citizen life, alleviating their pauperization. At the same time, boundary-treading resistance characterizes land-lost peasants as peasant-citizens who keenly take petty advantage of others and merely try to be smart, so their resistance has a long way to catch up with safeguarding rights of citizen.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-177). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 426-447) and index.