National Economic Analysis of Agricultural and Church Restitutions in the Czech Republic

Democratically set ownership rights are the basic premise for a fully functioning liberal market economy. The restitution processes in the Czech Republic should have played an important role in rectifying the abuse of ownership rights during the period of the centrally-planned economy. Unfortunately, the asymmetries of the church restitutions, as the last process which should have been part of the rectification, i.e. the restoration of democratic ownership rights in the Czech Republic, became the catalyst for new injustices and grievances in relation to ordinary entitled persons to whom other restitution laws also applied. In light of the above, this article contains an analysis of the restitutions of agricultural and forest assets and an analysis of church restitutions. The results of these analyses are compared in order to confirm the hypothesis that church restitutions were given preference over ordinary entitled persons. The conclusion to the article shows this to be fully in accordance with basic economic theories.