Golden Rules

Download or read book Golden Rules written by Mark Kanazawa and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-07-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water supply is an extremely contentious resource issue in California and the West. The framework currently used to resolve these issues, however, is based on the legal system that arose in response to the 1849 Gold Rush, and on which California and other Western states modeled their laws. In "Golden Rules: The Origins of California Water Law in the Gold Rush," Mark Kanazawa mines a vast cache of previously untapped historical sources both to tell the story of California s water laws and to shed light on how institutions and economies develop in relation to each other. The Gold Rush was a massive shock to the California economy and provides a unique opportunity in which to observe largely unfettered economic and cultural forces giving rise to rapid and dramatic changes in laws. Kanazawa draws on the latest scholarship in law and economics, property law, and new institutional economics, in combination with a great deal of evidence, to describe and interpret the water law doctrine that emerged from 1850s California. Seen through the lens of water development and property law, "Golden Rules" provides a coherent framework within which to understand much of what is observed in terms of institutional developments, and the activities governed by those, during the Gold Rush."