Overview
The year is 1837. Imagine that you live in Calcutta and a man with a thick Boston accent offers you some ice cream. There is no such device as a refrigerator, much less a freezer, and yet here is a man offering you a cold (and delicious) treat. How did it get there? In this lecture, Dave Hebert explains how ice harvesters in 19th century Boston were able to create their own system of property rights that allowed each person living around a local pond to thicken ice as needed. The result? These entrepreneurs shipped blocks of ice to destinations as far flung as India, opening up a new market to places where ice (and all its benefits) did not exist.
