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Bonds without Bondsmen: Tenant-Right in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Timothy W. Guinnane  and
Ronald I. Miller
Timothy W. Guinnane
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Yale University, Box 208269, New Haven, CT 06520-8269.
Ronald I. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.
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Abstract

Tenant-right, or a tenant's right to sell his holding, was one of the most puzzling institutions of nineteenth-century Irish land tenure. Historians have argued that the institution reflects the tenants' assertions of a proprietary interest in the land, an assertion often backed up by threats and violence. In this article we argue that landlords respected tenant-right because they could profit from the instistution. Our model reflects comments by contemporaries and explains that tenant-right functioned as a bond aganist nonpayment of rent and was part of a rational landlord's income-maximizing strategy.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1996 , pp. 113 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

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