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Property rights and contractual approach to sustainable development

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Abstract

Sustainable development is argued to exist in weak and strong versions. Although the use of a property rights and contractual approach has been well understood in the case of weak sustainable development, the approach has been virtually ignored in the strong version. This paper formulates a property rights and contractual approach for the strong version of sustainable development. By reference to an analytical model and examples from Hong Kong and Taiwan, a Schumpeterian process and the institution of resource entitlements are shown to be the necessary ingredients to promote the strong version of sustainable development.

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Yu, B.T., Shaw, D., Fu, TT. et al. Property rights and contractual approach to sustainable development. Environ Econ Policy Stud 3, 291–309 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03354042

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