Private property rights not to use, earn from or trade land in urban planning and development: A meeting between Coase and Buchanan

•Paper explains why rights “not to” use, earn or trade are integral to property rights.•It connects Coasian transactional economics with Buchanan's right to refuse trade.•The research exposes property rights issues in taking, squatter clearance and adverse possession.

This paper discusses the importance of private property rights not to trade a resource, with reference to the economic emphasis on transactional efficiency due to Hayek's friend, Ronald H. Coase (1910–2013). These were stressed by James M. Buchanan (1919–2013), a supporter of Austrian economics, for the planning and development of a market economy that respects human dignity based on freedom. It has been explained that the ideas of Coase and Buchanan are not contradictory, but complementary. The former focused on voluntary contracting and the latter on institutional stability that safeguards the freedom of contract. Three contentious topics in property planning and development, namely trends in the exercise of eminent domain and land resumption in favour of doubtful public use or purpose; a legislative tendency to reduce the period of occupation for adverse possession; and government eviction of squatters from public land, are illuminated by such rights not to trade.