石滬曾經是臺灣及澎湖漁民定置捕魚最重要的一種方法。它的興築可溯及臺灣原住民海灘公用地的集體開發,在漢人集資或是獨資的私有開發時達到高峰,而它的產權的內容逐漸由共用財而演化為私有財產權。在公權力不彰時,財產權由社區的集體力量執行,當在地政權穩固時政府成為產權的最後執行力量。石滬的開發、組織、管理與運作等程序,涉及產權的建立、交易的買賣契約;這些活動涵蓋各種交易成本。本文以財產權理論作為起點,運用交易成本之分析方法,說明興築石滬所延生的經濟活動,並探討參與興築的資本結構,石滬之買賣契約的選擇。本文結果可以總結為:一、石滬興築的參與者考量興築之成本效益決定是否建造石滬。二、在考量交易成本之下,石滬的所有人會將石滬視做不動產依契約改變其地役權以追求個人資源之最適利用,三、石滬的資本結構也會影響石滬築造的規模大小;一般而言,獨資開發的石滬較合資開發的石滬有較大的規模。
Stone Tidal Weirs were one of the important fixed shore traps, set up by the people, who lived near the specific shores of Taiwan and Penghu, to catch fish. Taiwan’s Aborigines started with their collective constructions of Stone Tidal Weirs, and the number of the fishing weirs came to a peak when Han people dominated the business in partnership or sole proprietorship. The property rights of Stone Tidal Weirs were evolved from being collectively owned by the aboriginal communities into being privately owned by Han people. When the public enforcement of property rights was weak, the community enforcement would be a substitution for it; however, when the local governments were able to manage their jurisdictions, they would be the ones to enforce the property rights of Stone Tidal Weirs. The ownerships, managements and administrations of Stone Tidal Weirs involved the establishments of their property rights and the contracts related to the exchanges of their property rights; all of these activities incur a variety of transaction costs. Our study is initiated by the evolution of Stone Tidal Weirs’ property rights, and we apply the approach of transaction costs to discuss the economic issues relevant to the establishment of Stone Tidal Weirs, and explore the structure of their ownerships and the contracts to dealing the exchanges of weirs’ property rights. The main results of our study are summarized as the followings. First, the potential owners to reclaiming a Stone Tidal Weir would take the cost and benefit of building it into account and evaluate whether it is worthy of their investments. Second, as Stone Tidal Weir were real estates, to reduce the transaction costs of managing it, its owner would exchange its easements with the persons interested in them to pursue his best interests. Furthermore, the structure of Stone Tidal Weir’s ownership would affect its scale; the Stone Tidal Weir in sole proprietorship usually had a larger scale than the one in partnership.