The Household (ebook)

Argumento de The Household (ebook)

"Ellickson's book represents a skillful use of the analytical tools of the law-and-economics movement to understand relations within the household--a complicated machine for living that involves a large number of joint decisions. . . . Ellickson's book pushes us to think more clearly about the benefits and the costs of homeownership. His book makes sense of one of the most striking facts in the homeownership literature: the extremely tight relationship between structure type and ownership. . . . Houses are most Americans' most important asset. They are the stages on which we live our lives. And so housing policy is worthy of intense attention--but until the current crisis housing policy existed in the netherworld of the more unglamorous public pursuits. Perhaps our present-day troubles will create the opportunity to produce better housing policies, or so I hope. Robert Ellickson's ideas can certainly help."--Edward Glaeser, The New Republic

"This volume is a tour de force! Ellickson takes the reader on an erudite, highly informative journey through the household in all of its many manifestations and facets. . . . The reader enjoys a catholic view of why households persist; why they are the size they are; how ownership versus rental decisions are made; what motivates adding or shedding household members; and most fascinatingly, how informal norms regulate household occupant behavior with little formal and explicit societal legislation."--D. J. Conger, Choice

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2009

"By pulling together a range of diverse topics and data, the book is thought-provoking. It is dense but readable, and Ellickson presents economic arguments in an accessible way. Reading it challenged (and energized) me to think about the unique contribution of sociological explanations."--Carrie Yodanis, Canadian Journal of Sociology

"This book is very original. Most of the similar literature on the law and economics of the family is contracts- rather than property-based, and the author displays a tremendous knowledge of the literature in a number of related fields. It is a wonderful piece of work and an excellent addition."--Margaret F. Brinig, University of Notre Dame

"This is a very good book. The approach is valuable and insightful, and brings solid economic analysis to an institution that, I am convinced, is understudied and poorly understood. I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it."--George P. Baker, Harvard Business School

"Robert C. Ellickson defines the household as a voluntary grouping of relatives or non-relatives living under the same roof. As he points out in his engaging study, this pervasive institution has received surprisingly little attention from social theorists. . . . The Household, a short, curious and enjoyable book, provides a novel way of looking at an institution from which very few of us can escape."--Lucy Worsley, Times Literary Supplement

"Through its methodological synthesis of economic with legal and sociological analysis, this text serves as an important primer on household structures in liberal societies."--Patricia McGee Crotty, Law and Politics Book Review0Preface xi
Chapter 1: how households differ from families 1
Chapter 2: household formation and
dissolution in a liberal society 10
Three Distinct Relationships that May Exist within a Household 10
Foundational Liberal Rights that Enable Individuals to Fashion Their Own Households 13
Household Surplus and Its Distribution among Members 22
Chapter 3: The predominant strategy : consorting with intimates 27
Favoring Those with Whom One Will
Have Continuing Relations 29
Limiting the Number of Persons in the Relationship 32
Favoring Homogeneity of Tastes and Stakes 32
Chapter 4: a historical overview of household forms 35
Occupants of Households: The Predominance of Small, Kin-Based Clusters 35
Owners of Dwelling Units 41
Residential Landlord-Tenant Relationships 44
Chapter 5: are the household forms that endure necessarily best? 46
Utopian Designs of Unconventional Households 46
Possible Imperfections, from a Liberal Perspective, in the Process of Household Formation 47
Is Liberalism Overly Destructive of Solidarity? 51
The Unpromising History of Experiments with Unconventional Household Forms 53
Chapter 6: choosing which of a household's participants should serve as i ts owners 60
Basic Concepts in the Theory of the Ownership of Enterprise 60
Why Suppliers of a Household's At-Risk Capital Tend to End Up Owning It 64
Chapter 7: The mixed blessings of joining with others 76
Adding Co-Occupants 76
Adding Co-Owners 85
Choosing between Owning and Renting a Home 86
Chapter 8: order without law in an ongoing household 92
The Tendency toward Welfare-Maximizing Substantive and Procedural Rules 94
Sources of Household Rules: In General 101
Rules for Co-Occupants 109
Rules for Co-Owners 120
Rules to Govern the Landlord-Tenant Relationship 123
Chapter 9: The challenge of unpacking the household 128
Appendix A: Data on Intentional Communities 137
Appendix B: Data on Co-housing Communities 145
Notes 147
Works Cited 199
Index 237