Journal of Property Investm
ent & Finance

Grand Ideas or Delusions of Grandeur? Placing big thinkers 
and essential theories in property economics research

Journal: Journal of Property Investment & Finance

Manuscript ID JPIF-11-2021-0097

Manuscript Type: Real Estate Insights

Keywords: Property economics, Property theory, Property methodology, Property 
research, Property markets, Property philosophy

 

Journal of Property Investment & Finance



Journal of Property Investm
ent & Finance1

Grand Ideas or Delusions of 
Grandeur? Placing big thinkers 

and essential theories in 
property economics research

[Anon]

Abstract
Purpose – This article is looking to reflect on the various important touchstones of ‘grand theory’ and ‘big thinkers’ 
that can be framed when engaging empirical evidence in property economics research

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is reflexive in nature, using experiential reflection to consider theory in 
property economics. The importance of “methodology” is emphasised rather than “method”.

Findings – Using reflexive mode, the paper does not have “findings” as such: if the views expressed are accepted, 
then a research agenda to better understand property economics research is implied.

Research limitations/implications – The nature of reflection is that it follows from the writer’s experiential processes 
and interpretations. The reader may come from a different stance. Broadly accepting the propositions, there is a call 
for property economics research to be formulated in reason and logic, particularly as humans do not reason from 
facts alone. Such reasoned thinking could for example be in the property economic concepts of space and place, 
contracts and justice, capital and financializaton.

Practical implications –To engage with such theory would provide some depth of philosophical roots for property as 
a discipline. Elevating property as a ‘real world’ discipline rather than simply an applied mathematics discipline.

Social implications – The paper enables an understanding of how property economics research can benefit from more 
ontology and more inductive reasoning.

Originality/value – The paper reflects the views and experience of the author based on over 15 years of research 
into property economics.

Keywords Property economics, Property theory, Property methodology, Property research 

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Introduction

This article reflects on various important touchstones of ‘grand theory’ and ‘big 
thinkers’ that can be used to frame empirical evidence in property economics research. 
I look to highlight writers that have focused on certain (neo)classical economic 
principles, and others that have shifted paradigms to bring new ways of looking at the 
theory of property economics. Here we focus on grand theory themes of institutions and 
behaviours, space and place, contracts and justice; as well as capital, financializaton, 
and inequality. Big thinkers contributing to grand ideas are put forward to frame and 
contextualise property economics, and potentially sub-fields of finance and investment 
into the next 40 years. Alternatively, this call to ‘think big’ may be more intellectual 
navel gazing, and thus be more a delusion of grandeur. At its heart though, this piece 
seeks to draw on some mainstream grand theory, to place property economics research 
as a discipline that can claim deeper philosophical roots.

Property Economics Research in the (Neo)classical Tradition

To begin to broaden this property economics research theory, the work by David 
Ricardo on the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (Ricardo, 1817) use 
economic concepts such as rents (and profits, and wages) that are applied to theories of 
land capacity. At the forefront of Ricardo’s thinking was a conclusion that land rent (the 
reward for owning land) grows as population increases. For John Stuart Mill, his work 
on the principles of political economy (1848) developed economic thinking beyond 
Adam Smith on markets and the wealth of nations (Smith, 1776).  Mill condensed key 
micro-economic and macro-economic theories whilst contributing more refined and 
advanced ideas on property economics. The abolition of inheritance tax and the 
development of a cooperative wage system were two significant property related 
leanings towards the end of Mill’s writing. 

Work by Karl Marx can certainly be grouped with the classical economists when 
considering theory in property economics. Ownership of the means of production as 
class tension is particularly pertinent, especially given the relation between labour and 
capital. In Marx et al’s (1889) critical analysis of capitalist production we see a heavy 
critique of capitalism from a perspective of the production process. The issue of land in 
critical analysis is in the works by George and the Georgist tradition, where in looking 
at progress and poverty (1882) we see why poverty exists against vast wealth. Here 
George explores interesting fiscal approaches such as land taxation.

Marshall in his principles of economics (1890) provides along running neoclassical 
approach that heavily concerns itself with the mathematical-diagrams of supply and 
demand, marginal utilities, and relative changes as elasticities. All of which have 
continued application to property economics research. The long-running textbook by 
Samuelson (1948) brought further resurgence in the field of classical economics that 
has application to property economics. Particularly by popularising Keynes (1936) work 

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on aggregate demand in the general theory of employment, interest and money. Given 
the value of place and resources in property, New Keynesian economics as considered 
by Mankiw (2007) is of further note.

As part of the neoclassical writers on welfare economics, Arthur Pigou (1920) 
developed the concept of externalities which applies to property economics research. 
Externalities are those benefits gained or costs incurred by an external third party in a 
market transaction such as property. In order to deal with externalities Pigou believed 
that taxes could provide a disincentive to negative externality (or internalise the cost of) 
problems. Or that subsidies could provide an incentive to provide (or internalise the cost 
of providing) positive externalities for the wider society external to the market.  The use 
of taxes or subsidies with regards to dealing with externalities is still referred to in 
economic circles as Pigovian taxes and subsidies.  

Property Economics Research in Institutions and Behaviours

For the institutional turn in the economics of property, the work of Veblen on the theory 
of the leisure class (1899) began to lead the way on institutionalist thinking. The idea 
that economics can be dynamic rather than static given the fluidity of institutional power 
and change. A further core writer on institutional economics being Galbraith and his 
work on ‘The Affluent Society’ (1958). Here we see a demonstration of the growing 
significance of wealth in the private sector relative to the public sector. So having 
significant institutional economic power to effect economic outcomes in property. 

Moving more into ‘new’ institutional economics are public choice economists such as 
Ronald Coase in the 1960s. Coase would begin to demonstrate that behaviours and 
actions outside of the invisible hand of the market, and outside of the incentives of tax 
and subsidy, could affect economic activity. Of particular significance was that 
integration of legal considerations will affect the decision to carry out a particular 
economic activity, such as bargaining over land due to legal costs between parties may 
generate different transaction costs irrespective of what the open market value suggests 
(Coase, 1960).

In the new institutional economic subdiscipline, Williamson demonstrates that internal 
economics of organisations are important to the outcomes of markets and associated 
hierarchies (1975). In terms of governance and policy, Ostrom’s work on ‘Governing 
the commons’ (1990) more normatively stresses that the commons are less of a tragedy 
and more a point of collective call to action, if institutions and their evolution are put 
upfront in the economic analysis. As such, the work challenges the notion that common 
property will fail due to monopolistic tendencies. Eggertsson (2005) raises further 
institutionalist thought that institutions themselves are imperfect with some possibilities 
and limitations for reform. The strength and depth of this field of can be seen in 
Furubotn et al’s (2005) text on the contribution of new institutional economics to 
economic theory.

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Behavioural economics work also has taken the property economics field into more 
heterodox directions, and thus new directions and implications for property. Shiller’s 
(2000) work on irrational exuberance has argued early on that markets are driven by 
psychological and social factors rather than fundamental values. Especially in later 
editions that consider housing market bubbles. Thaler and Ganser (2015) in 
‘Misbehaving’ gather behavioural examples in a popular format. Plus Kahneman (2011) 
in the popular economic-psychology book ‘Thinking, fast and slow’ takes economics 
into psychology territory, largely by distinguishing between instinct and thought in 
making economic decisions. Economic decision making both individually and 
collectively is certainly a core aspect of property, and this consideration to the field of 
institutional economics and behavioural economics is paramount.

Property Economics Research in Space and Place

Ideas of place in the economics property cannot escape the concepts of space and spatial 
considerations held with economic geography. Space as a concept can be thought of in 
many ways, and physical natural and social constructions space are deep rooted in the 
realm of philosophy. For Kant, (1781) in his ‘Critique of pure reason’ he sees that the 
experience of space can provide additional rational causal depth to what may be merely 
observed in empiricism. In dong so, space can employ economic concepts to understand 
property in relation to space.

However simple, Burgess’ monocentric concentric zone model (Burgess, 1925) still 
plays a part in the spatial visualisation of property in concentric rings. To add economics 
to land, Alonso (1964) took the monocentric model and added economic rents to the 
various property classifications to gain greater understanding of maximum bid-rents at 
various distance from the core. To note, Alonso’s work was inspired by von Thunen, 
whose Isolated State (1826) work used this model to demonstrate methods of 
maximizing agricultural production in concentric zones. Other spatial models of 
property economics significance include Hoyt’s (1939) radial sector model that 
demonstrates spatial patterns in urban development around ribbon transport corridor 
development. Further foundations in spatial modelling include the multiple nuclei 
model as developed by Harris and Ullman (1945) to explain a spatial patchwork of 
different land uses. 

Economic geography of property has several key writers of a more Marxian view on 
labour-capital relations and its governance. Harvey’s ‘The limits to capital’ (1982) 
places more contemporary light on the extent of effects from capital accumulation over 
space. Plus, work by Massey (1995) focuses on the spatial divisions of labour and the 
geography of production as set by particular social structures of the time. In essence, 
unpacking why spatial inequalities persist via the production process. On a similar 
critical analysis, Smith’s (1996) gentrification work almost personalises the process of 
gentrification in cities, seeing some form of revenge by capital on (non-capital owning) 

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residents as they are displaced. The shaping and governance of capital-labour markets 
are also important over space. On a global scale, we see Peck’s (2010) constructions of 
neoliberal reason putting a compelling historical critique of the neoliberal project of 
free(er) markets that has dominated contemporary thinking and practice. In addition to 
Brenner (2004), who’s new state spaces explores how globalisation of capital has 
created new governance of the state beyond the nation.

More theoretically on the geographies of space we can make some leap of connection 
to property economics. Given the nature of property considered here as real property, 
Lefebvre and Nicholson-Smith’s (1991) work on the production of space, bridging 
philosophy of mind and material, enabling an intellectual and practical take on how 
space is produced. Further though, the concept of space as both real in physics and 
imagined in social production, can also be applied to the economic as commodification 
in the economics of property. Soja (1996) in ‘Thirdspace’ develops real and imagined 
dimensions of space are used to build a new theoretical frame. In doing so, there is an 
important rebalancing of historical, spatial, and social considerations in the production 
of space.

More pragmatic applications of space to property economics are those that root 
themselves in ‘real world’ spatial phenomenon. Dicken’s work (1986) in ‘Global Shift’ 
is a major textbook on globalisation of the economy in the social sciences, and this able 
to contextualise property economics in space. Thrift (1996) takes the spatial formation 
as interactions between the place, people, place and ‘things’. In Sassen’s (2001) global 
city work we find one of the first texts to crystallise thinking of city economies working 
as hierarchies in a global system. To make further spatial dissection, the important 
centre-periphery spatial differentials are raise by Garreau (1992) in ‘Edge Cities’. Here 
we see a popularising of the ‘Edge City’ term for growing development of commercial 
hub activity outside of the urban core.

Place-making has always intrinsically considered the importance of economics in 
property research. Howard’s (1898) futurist vision of a To-morrow with a peaceful path 
to real reform, republished in 1902 as Garden Cities of Tomorrow, is the initial 
blueprint. It sets a visual ‘real’ design of place that has recognisable economic issues of 
scarcity of space and wants of an environmentally healthy environment. For Geddes’ 
(1915), ‘cities in evolution’ we find early calls to harmonise town planning by 
embedding the civic in its discourse, particularly given the economic challenges in a 
new industrial age. 

Hall’s (1988) ‘Cities of tomorrow’ as an intellectual history of urban planning and 
design since 1880 covers a broad history on the planning discipline, in addition to some 
of the economic problems that underpin its theory and practice. More directly to 
planning and the economy, Jacobs (1970), explored the economy of cities. Where we 
see from an American tradition a contribution to urban theory on the major determinants 
of urban growth in the economy in the late 1960s.

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Property Economics Research in Contracts and Justice 

For writers on economics in property, as different to say real estate economics, we need 
to consider aspects of real property ownership in various legal forms. With property 
ownership legal forms such as the private, public, cooperative, individual, and 
collective. Political philosophies and social contracts are important therefore to 
contextualise how economics can sit comfortably in studies of property. Hobbes’ (1651) 
work on ‘Leviathan’ performs early writing on social contract, where power is handed 
to an absolute sovereign in return for some form of protection. 

For Locke (1690). In ‘Two Treatises of Government’ there is a focus on natural rights 
and contract theory that are thought to contribute to a more civilized society. With 
respect to property Locke sees that civil society was created for the protection of 
property as life, liberty, and estate. This protection of property, therefore serves the 
private (and non-political) interests of its constituent members and does not promote 
some good that can be realised only in community with others such as esteem. Property 
could therefore for Locke predate the existence of government, and thus society and 
economic systems can be dedicated to the protection of property.

Protection of property under a social contract is also important for economics and the 
economy. For Rousseau (1762), ‘The Social Contract’ situates itself beyond the idea of 
the monarchy making legislative decisions, towards a social contract where we see 
resources representatively allocated by the people, rather than to the people. Beyond 
legislation there is the issue of motivations as set within moral frameworks. For 
Bentham (1789), the Principles of morals and legislation are set with utilitarianism, 
when people are motivated by gaining more utility, satisfaction, or what was people 
today would perceive as ‘happiness’. As such Bentham sets new legal thinking on 
societal motivations and intentions towards property, where greater ownership of 
property could be seen as driving greater pleasure or happiness. 

Later, more specific property focussed work by Proudhon (1840) uncovers what is 
meant by property, by famously pronouncing that ‘all property is theft’ in considering 
the notion private property. The idea of ownership as also public and cooperative makes 
the picture less clear, despite a more Marxian view of labour-capital relations by 
Proudhon. Despite these differences in property, the work by Linklater (2013) 
in ‘Owning the earth’ sees individualised private ownership becoming greater as a 
proportion. This general observation of tenure change leads to some significant 
economic and societal challenges, such as providing goods and services that are 
fundamentally public (non-exclusive) and cooperative (in joint collective ventures). In 
a more contemporary text, Webster and Lawrence (2003) look at how markets and 
planning shapes ownership in relation to property rights. Taking an institutional analysis 
of cooperation approaches, this text explores how transaction costs are reduced through 

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cooperation, whilst includes planning as an enabler rather than inhibitor of reducing 
such contractual costs.

For economics in property, the legal real property consideration of justice resonates in 
economics and the economy. Early writers on justice such as  Paine (1797) on ‘Agrarian 
Justice’, proposed that those who possess cultivated land owe the community a ground 
rent, which justifies an estate tax to fund universal old-age and disability pensions. The 
financial mechanics of which is a fixed sum to be paid to all citizens upon reaching 
maturity. Rawls (1971) ’A theory of justice’ is a touchstone for political theory of 
distributive justice, looking normatively to rebalance equality of opportunity and 
helping the more disadvantaged in society. Here we find some consideration of political 
economy and economic systems to rebalance some of the injustice. In a similar 
consideration of justice, the important recognition by Sen (1999) from his text 
‘Development as freedom’, serves as a reminder that economic development needs to 
be set in relation to freedom and access of opportunity to redress imbalances.

Property Economics Research in Capital, Financializaton, and Inequality

Capital, financialization and inequality need attention when looking at a subset of 
economics in property. Enlightenment writers (1715-1789) such as Rousseau (1775) in 
his ‘Discourse on the Origin of Inequality’ sees that private property is the original 
source and basis of all inequality. For private property as capital there are issues for 
exploration as to whether private ownership capital itself contributes to inequality. The 
‘Age of Capital: 1848-1875’ by Hobsbawm (1975) sees 1860 as the birth of capitalism 
in political language. Here, Hobsbawm explores a period where private enterprise is 
maintained in a belief of developing economic growth to spur material and moral 
advancement. More spiritually and culturally, the concerns by Weber (1905) in ‘The 
protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism’ sees how religious belief set mental 
frameworks and motivations to suit capitalist mechanisms of progress. 

Capitalist progress is therefore not necessary a linear path. Gramsci (2011) in his Prison 
Notebooks 1931-37 sees that systems such as forms of ownership are created in part by 
the cultural norms of the day, where cultural hegemony form ideologies such as 
capitalism (and socialism). Similarly for Foucault (1970) in ‘The order of things’ sees 
that structures and categories (taxonomies) are set within the parameters of their own 
historical epistemological norms such as scientific discourse, and the application of 
economics as a science  of wealth. In doing so, we see norms being reproduced by those 
who hold power as knowledge. To return to Hobbes’ (1651) leviathan, there is the view 
that ‘knowledge is power’. Interestingly the phrase ‘knowledge is power’ scientia 
potentia est occurs in the 1668 Latin version of Leviathan, with Latin being part of the 
language of a powerful elite during this period.

With Schumpeter (1942) in  ‘Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy’ there is further 
emphasis on innovation moments in time that can lead to change. For instance, an 

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argument that with respect to property as capital, there will be new innovative ‘things, 
places, and people’ that tend to create and destroy rather than revolutionise. For property 
economics, the factor of production as entrepreneurship is seen to eventually erode 
capital, as a large intellectual class makes its living by attacking the very bourgeois 
system of private property and freedom so necessary for the intellectual class's 
existence.

The contribution of financialization discourse to capital and inequality is particularly 
interesting to economics in property. Epstein’s (2005) ‘Financialization and The World 
Economy’ opens more contemporary thinking on the increasing importance of financial 
markets, institutions and motives in the world economy. The costs (and benefits) of such 
financialization to property such as housing is brought forward by Aalbers’ (2016) 
political economy work on ‘The Financialization of Housing’. In doing so, we see the 
centrality of housing as a capitalist instrument in the widening of financial capital. The 
role of housing as a financial asset to raise debt is the focus of Mian and Sufi’s (2015) 
‘House of debt’ where they look at housing debt as part of the 2007-8 global financial 
crisis and subsequent economic recession. The idea of financial and economic 
instability has generated a renewed interest in writers such as Minksy (1986) how in  
‘Stabilizing an Unstable Economy’ considers that markets are prone towards period of 
‘crisis’.

Instability of finance and capital can be found in the theatre of property. For Lizieri 
(2009) in ‘Towers of capital’ we see the interesting interdependence of finance and the 
property. As such we can see finance manifest in many city centres that sit the supply 
of commercial buildings. It is in these properties that those who manage finance are 
further perpetuating wealth within those buildings. Capital as wealth different from 
income is stressed by Stiglitz, (2012) in ‘The Price of Inequality’ where we see a 
polarising of wealth groups, and the negative economic effects of such widening 
disparity. What Dorling (2014) would popularise as the 1% ‘superrich’ who are 
concentrating a greater portion of the wealth. With the 1% gaining greater financial 
protection compared to the 99% are faced with greater austerity and economic 
vulnerability. A leading articulation of the issues of capital and wealth (partially as 
backed by property) is by Piketty (2018) in ‘Capital in the twenty-first century’ where 
we see trends in the return on capital being greater than the rate of economic growth, 
and thus an unequal concentrated distribution of wealth causing social and economic 
instability. Progressive wealth taxes being one such approach to reducing minority 
concentration of vast wealth.

Conclusion

So in the realm of property economics, are these theories grand ideas or merely 
delusions of grandeur? At best, this look at grand theory in property economics provides 
useful conceptual framing for empirical work in the discipline. At worst, this theoretical 
grandstanding will be an unnecessary obstacle to getting published (except here). The 

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academic publishing game largely rewards mathematical models with an appropriate 
narrative and concept to ‘test’. Indeed, testing is good science, but what about the art of 
property economics research? Property economics research can be formulated in reason 
and logic, particularly as humans do not reason from facts alone. Such reasoned thinking 
could for example be in the property economic theories of space and place, contracts 
and justice, capital and financializaton. To engage with such theory would provide some 
depth of philosophical roots for property as a discipline. Elevating property as a ‘real 
world’ discipline rather than simply an ‘applied’ mathematics discipline. For those that 
have begun to ask ‘why’ well before the latest number crunching machine tests it.  In 
short, this is a call to more ontology and more inductive reasoning. Towards 
enlightenment and wisdom. Wouldn’t that be grand.

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References:

Aalbers, M. (2016). The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach. 
Routledge.

Alonso, W. (1964). Location and Land Use. Toward a General Theory of Land Rent. 
Harvard University Press.

Bentham, J. (1789). An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. T. 
Payne and Son.

Brenner, N. (2004). New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of 
Statehood. Oxford University Press.

Burgess, E.W. (1925). The Growth of the City. In The City, R.E. Parks & E.W. 
Burgess, Eds. University of Chicago Press.

Coase, R.H. (1960). The Problem of Social Cost. In Classic Papers in Natural 
Resource Economics (pp. 87–137). Palgrave Macmillan.

Dicken, P. (1986). Global Shift: Mapping the Changing Contours of the World 
Economy. Sage.

Dorling, D. (2014). Inequality and the 1%. Verso.

Eggertsson, T. (2005). Imperfect Institutions: Possibilities and Limits of Reform. 
University of Michigan Press.

Epstein, G. (2005). Financialization and the World Economy. Edward Elgar.

Foucault, M. (1970). The Order of Things. Tavistock.

Furubotn, E.G., & Richter, R. (2005). Institutions and Economic Theory: The 
Contribution of the New Institutional Economics (2nd ed.). University of Michigan 
Press.

Galbraith, K.J. (1958). The Affluent Society. Houghton Mifflin.

Garreau, J. (1992). Edge Cities: Life on the New Frontier (1st ed.). Anchor Book.

Geddes, P. (1915). Cities in Evolution. Williams & Norgate.

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George, H. (1882). Progress and Poverty (Vol. 142).

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