Dog Ownership through the Eyes of a Stray Dog: Property Rights and the Stray Dog Population

摘要

Countries differ widely in the number of stray dogs. I investigate, why some countries have virtually no stray dogs and others have stray dog epidemics? Can this variation be explained by political, economic and cultural differences? There is no single factor that explain the variation in the stray dog populations. Rather, several influential factors or a bundle of factors offer a satisfactory explanation. Broadly speaking, quality of political regime, political institutions, economic development and culture effect the size of stray dog population in different countries. However, I argue that property rights have the greatest effect on the stray dog population. Qualitatively I find that countries with secure property rights have virtually no stray dogs. This holds both across countries and within a country when comparing similar countries. I discuss the limitations and advantages of the research.