The Individual Right to Property and Forced Expropriation—Analysis of Law and Economics

Vilfrendo Pareto describes the excellent distribution of economic resources which simultaneously achieves maximum productive efficiency and social justice. The Constitution of Greece describes the process of compulsory expropriation of property when there is a public need. The compensation criteria for this expropriation do not take into account the positive and negative externalities that the subsequent public project will cause. The consequence of this paper is the unjust social distribution of economic resources. The aim of this paper is to investigate this weakness of the compensation system that does not meet the criteria for Pareto improvement, while a constitutional analysis of comparative law concerning the provision of property is made. An appendix to the case law of the Greek Court of Audit is provided. The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is proposed as the most complete for the experimental assessment of the maximum amount of compensation of owners during the process of forced expropriation through Experimental Economics tools.