Robert C. Ellickson is an American

property law Property law is the area of law that governs the various forms of ownership in real property (land) and personal property. Property refers to legally protected claims to resources, such as land and personal property, including intellectual pro ...

scholar. He is the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

, and was formerly on the faculty at the

USC Gould School of Law The USC Gould School of Law, located in Los Angeles, California, is the law school of the University of Southern California. The oldest law school in the Southwestern United States, USC Law traces its beginnings to 1896 and became affiliated w ...

and

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...

. He is a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

and a past president of the

American Law and Economics Association The American Law and Economics Association (ALEA), a United States organization founded in 1991, is focused on the advancement of economic understanding of law, and related areas of public policy and regulation. It promotes research in law and econo ...

. Ellickson is the author of numerous books and articles on land use, property, and social norms, and is best known for his 1991 book ''Order Without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes''. In that book, a study of ranchers and farmers in

Shasta County, California Shasta County (), officially the County of Shasta, is a county in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population is 182,155 as of the 2020 census, up from 177,223 from the 2010 census. The county seat is Redding. Shasta ...

, he argues that, contrary to the

Coase theorem In law and economics, the Coase theorem () describes the economic efficiency of an economic allocation or outcome in the presence of externalities. The theorem states that if trade in an externality is possible and there are sufficiently low tra ...

, neighbors in close-knit societies reach efficient outcomes in land and property use not by bargaining around legal rules but by largely ignoring them in favor of informal social norms. In 2008, Ellickson was awarded the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Prize by the College of William & Mary School of Law for his body of work advancing the cause of private property rights.

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* American legal scholars Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Oberlin College alumni Yale Law School alumni Yale Law School faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Law and economics scholars {{US-legal-academic-bio-stub