If you own your home, you have the right to sell it at whatever price you deem correct. But sometimes individual property rights are at odds with the economic well-being of the public. Suppose you are the individual presiding over the following conflicts. What is your decision? Explain what you based your decis ion on.

a) Bill’s property is directly in the middle of a planned highway extension. The state is willing to pay him fair market value for his property, $125,000, but he wants $500,000 instead.

b) Valerie’s property, along with her neighbors’, is where a private developer wants to build a new shopping mall. Representatives of the developer have offered each of them $150,000 for their homes, a price 20 percent above fair market values. Valerie is the only holdout. It isn’t the price; she just doesn’t want to move.