Post by Mark Thomas

American property law used to favor building. Since the 1970s, it has shifted toward protecting owners who don't build. New Enabling Acts: 13 papers on housing, energy, state capacity, innovation, and more. 🏡 American property law now protects owners who don't build. Roderick Hills David Schleicher 🏛 Fifteen forces are driving a decades-long decline in American state capacity. Ganesh Sitaraman ⚡️ 1960s-era nuclear rules are pricing out safer, smaller reactors. Nick Loris Prasanna Pydipalli 💡 Unused property rights need an expiration date. Dave Fagundes Aaron Perzanowski 🏡 Corporate ownership bans alone won't fix housing affordability. Michael Hornzell 🏡 People closest to new housing fight it hardest. Paulo Carvalho ⚡️ Local zoning is the main bottleneck for solar, not state or federal rules. Patrick Seroogy 🏥 Licensing laws keep new hospitals and clinics from opening. John Oates ⛏️ Domestic mining can't compete on cost, workers, or permits. Beia Spiller Zach Whitlock Ambarish Kota Emma D. Nafisa Lohawala 🏡 NIMBY opposition and local institutions drive insufficient permitting. Robert Wassmer Shoshana Levy, MPPA ⚡️ Five statutes besides NEPA need streamlining. Nick Loris 💡 Anti-troll laws increase patenting but shift it toward incremental work. Xuewen Han Zhitao Yin Arun Rai 🏛 Digitizing government paperwork lets firms specialize. Zhixuan Shen Wanli Li Mengmeng He Xi Wen Enabling Acts is a biweekly roundup of new legal scholarship on abundance—housing, energy, infrastructure, and state capacity. Issue and subscribe link in the comments 👇