Tekniska innovationer har potential att ge ekonomisk utveckling. Taggtråd är ett exempel, enligt den nya studien ”Barbed Wire: Property Rights and Agricultural Development”, publicerad i Quarterly Journal of Economics:

There is growing evidence from current developing countries that insecure property rights may limit economic development. Complementing that literature, the historical development of American agriculture appears to have been limited when farmers were unable to protect frontier lands from encroachment by others’ cattle. In the United States, this institutional failure was resolved not by legal reform but by technological change: the introduction of barbed wire fencing. Following the introduction of barbed wire, low-woodland areas that had been especially costly to fence experienced substantial relative increases in agricultural development. Increases along intensive margins were particularly rapid and substantial: land improvement, crop production, and crop productivity. Land values increased substantially, indicating a large increase in total economic production.

Dels är det intressant att äganderätt de jure inte alltid räcker för äganderätt de facto; dels är det intressant att det än en gång fastslås att skydd av privat ägande ger incitament till ekonomisk utveckling.