内容简介

　　提到美国西部，人们通常会想起鲁莽好斗的牛仔、亡命之徒和牧场主。不同于这些刻板印象，本书基于新制度经济学视角，将美国的边疆历史置于新的理解框架之中——强调正式和非正式制度的产生，可以如何帮助人们促成合作、化解冲突。本书没有把美国西部边疆描绘成一个好汉与恶人相遇的地方。相反，驯服美国西部的真正英雄，其实是普通人在日常交往中推敲出的制度。正是这些制度确立了西进运动中土地、矿产、水域等自然资源的产权，激励人们合作共赢，避免公地悲剧。

　　作者强调，随着资源变得更有价值，或者建立产权的成本变得更低，资源的所有权也会随之演变。地方层面演化出的规则，要比联邦政府法规更加有效，因为对当地人而言结果更加利害攸关。透过印第安人、毛皮猎人、水牛猎人、牧牛人、自耕农和矿工丰富多彩的历史，作者将佐证上述理论的一系列真实历史案例逐一呈现：产权制度如何演变为可以治理北美大平原上畜牧行为的规则？竞逐金矿的矿工如何敲定在矿脉边认领采矿点产权的规则？灌溉者又是如何在缺水的美国西部分割水域？

　　在本书蕞后，作者总结了美国西部开发的经验给我们的教益，并将其应用于人类当代的“新边疆”——不断遭受侵蚀的环境和自然资源、世界上尚未开发的地区，甚至等待探索的地外太空——显示出产权演化理论框架的普适性与穿透力。

　　为什么说制度企业家是促进法律和秩序、有效利用自然和人力资源的英雄？白人与印第安人之间是交易还是开战，是由是什么因素决定的？穿越大平原的马车队出发前制定了怎样的宪章，用以协调行动、解决冲突？人们为什么没有为北美野牛建立产权，导致它们几乎完全灭绝？

　　作者简介

　　特里·L.安德森（Terry L.Anderson），美国蒙大拿州立大学经济学荣誉教授，华盛顿大学经济学博士。曾在牛津大学、巴塞尔大学和康奈尔大学任访问学者，在坎特伯雷大学任富布赖特研究员。“自由市场环保主义”代表人物，该理念倡导利用市场和产权来解决环境问题。长期担任斯坦福大学胡佛研究所高级研究员，以及该所“产权、自由和繁荣特别工作组”联合主席。智库产权与环境研究中心（PERC）联合创始人、前主席、前执行董事。撰写或编写的著作多达39本，除了发表专业文章，还活跃于《华尔街日报》等大众媒体。

　　彼得·J.希尔（Peter J.Hill），长期担任美国惠顿学院George F.Bennett经济学讲席教授和经济学荣誉教授，曾任教于普渡大学、蒙大拿州立大学和艾奥瓦大学。产权与环境研究中心联合创始人、高级研究员，独立研究所顾问委员会成员。与道格拉斯·诺思、特里·安德森合著了《美国过去的增长与福利》（Growth and Welfare in the American Past），与安德森还合著了这本《不那么狂野的西部》。芝加哥大学经济学博士，在制度经济学、产权和自然资源等领域著述丰厚，长期关注美国西部边疆的开发。曾被美国私营企业教育协会（APEE）授予杰出学者奖（2002）。

Content introduction

When people think of the American West, they usually think of reckless and aggressive cowboys, outlaws and ranchers. Contrary to these stereotypes, the book places the history of the American frontier in a new framework of understanding, based on the perspective of new institutional economics - emphasizing how the emergence of formal and informal institutions can help people forge cooperation and resolve conflict. This book does not portray the American frontier as a place where good men meet evil men. On the contrary, the real heroes who tamed the American West were institutions that ordinary people worked out in their daily interactions. It was these institutions that established the property rights of natural resources such as land, minerals, and waters in the westward movement, and encouraged people to cooperate and win to avoid the tragedy of the Commons.

The authors emphasize that ownership of resources evolves as they become more valuable, or as the cost of establishing property rights becomes lower. Rules that evolve at the local level are more effective than federal regulations because local people have a greater stake in the outcome. Through the rich history of Indians, fur trappers, buffalo hunters, cattlemen, yeoman farmers, and miners, the author presents a series of real historical cases that support this theory: how did the system of property rights evolve into rules governing livestock behavior on the Great Plains? How do competing gold miners hammer out the rules for claiming property at the edge of a lode? And how did irrigators divide water in the water-scarce American West?

At the end of the book, the author summarizes the lessons of the experience of the development of the Western United States, and applies it to the contemporary "new frontier" of mankind - the environment and natural resources under continuous erosion, the unexplored regions of the world, and even the outer space waiting to be explored - showing the universality and penetration of the theoretical framework of property rights evolution.

Why are institutional entrepreneurs heroes who promote law and order and the efficient use of natural and human resources? What factors determined whether the white man and the Indian were to trade or to go to war? What charter was drawn up before the wagon train set out across the Great Plains to coordinate action and resolve conflict? Why did people fail to establish property rights for bison, leading to their near-total extinction?

About the author

Terry L.Anderson is Professor emeritus of economics at Montana State University and Ph.D. in economics at the University of Washington. He was a visiting scholar at the Universities of Oxford, Basel and Cornell and a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Canterbury. He is a representative of "free market environmentalism", which advocates the use of markets and property rights to solve environmental problems. He is a longtime senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and co-chair of its Task Force on Property Rights, Freedom, and Prosperity. Co-founder, former chairman and former executive Director of the think tank Property Rights and Environment Research Center (PERC). He has written or authored as many as 39 books and, in addition to publishing professional articles, is also active in mass media such as The Wall Street Journal.

Peter J.Hill is a longtime George F. Burnett Professor of Economics and Emeritus Professor of Economics at Wheaton College, and has taught at Purdue University, Montana State University, and the University of Iowa. Co-founder and Senior Fellow of the Center for Property Rights and the Environment and member of the Advisory Board of the Independent Institute. He co-authored, with Douglas North and Terry Anderson, "Growth and Welfare in the American Past," and with Anderson, "Not So Wild West." He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago and has written extensively on institutional economics, property rights, and natural resources, and has long been interested in the development of the Western frontier. He was awarded the Distinguished Scholar Award (2002) by the American Association for Private Enterprise Education (APEE).