Institutional foundations of impersonal exchange [electronic resource] : theory and policy of contractual registries

Governments and development agencies spend considerable resources building property and company registries to protect property rights. When these efforts succeed, owners feel secure enough to invest in their property and banks are able use it as collateral for credit. Similarly, firms prosper when entrepreneurs can transform their firms into legal entities and thus contract more safely. Unfortunately, developing registries is harder than it may seem to observers, especially in developed countries, where registries are often taken for granted. As a result, policies in this area usually disappoint. Benito Arruñada aims to avoid such failures by deepening our understanding of both the value of registries and the organizational requirements for constructing them. Presenting a theory of how registries strengthen property rights and reduce transaction costs, he analyzes the major trade-offs and proposes principles for successfully building registries in countries at different stages of development. Arruñada focuses on land and company registries, explaining the difficulties they face, including current challenges like the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and the dubious efforts made in developing countries toward universal land titling. Broadening the account, he extends his analytical framework to other registries, including intellectual property and organized exchanges of financial derivatives. With its nuanced presentation of the theoretical and practical implications, __Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange__ significantly expands our understanding of how public registries facilitate economic growth. Misguided property titling and business formalization policies How public registries reduce the transaction costs of impersonal trade Organization of the book Methodology and exposition: approach, assumptions, and caveats The role of verifiable contract publicity in impersonal trade. Impersonal exchange requires rights on assets, not merely on persons ; What do rights on assets mean? difference between rights on assets and rights on persons ; Differences between the economic and legal views on enforcement, or why economics chose to ignore legal property ; Specialization and transactions require multiple rights on each asset, hindering impersonal trade ; Generalizing the analysis ; Prevalence and varying contractual difficulty of sequential exchange ; Information problem of sequential exchange and solving it by selective application of property and contract rules ; Conclusion and next steps Institutions for facilitating property transactions. Private titling: privacy of claims as the starting point ; Publicity of claims ; Registration of rights ; Land titling systems compared: promise and reality ; Organizational requirements: registries' monopoly as a safeguard of their independence Istitutions for facilitating business transactions. Prevalence of "contract rules" in business exchange ; Requirements for applying contract rules: the rationale of formal publicity ; Difficulties involved in organizing company registries: independence and collective action ; Lessons from four historical cases ; Registration and the theory of the firm Strategic issues for creating contractual registries ; Understanding conflict between local and wider legal orders ; Following a logical sequence of reform ; Identifying the key attributes and users of registry services ; Evidence on the effects of property titling ; Evidence on the effects of business formalization The choice of title and registration systems. Private versus public titling ; Voluntary versus universal titling ; Recordation of deeds versus registration of rights ; Choice of business formalization system Conveyancing and documentary formalization. The palliative nature of documentary formalization ; Role of conveyancers in each titling system ; Market-driven changes in the conveyancing industry ; Regulation of conveyancing services in the twenty-first century ; Role of title and credit insurance Organizational challenge. Producing useful information for decisions on formalization systems ; Integrating contractual and administrative registries ; Exploiting technical change ; Structuring incentives for effective public registries ; Reconsidering self-interest ; Concluding remarks ; Recapitulation ; Challenge of public registries. "Governments and development agencies spend considerable resources building property and company registries to protect property rights. When these efforts succeed, owners feel secure enough to invest in their property and banks are able use it as collateral for credit. Similarly, firms prosper when entrepreneurs can transform their firms into legal entities and thus enter into contracts more safely. Unfortunately, developing registries is harder than it may seem to observers, especially in developed countries, where registries are often taken for granted. As a result, policies in this area usually disappoint. Benito Arruñada aims to avoid such failures by deepening our understanding of both the value of registries and the organizational requirements for constructing them. Presenting a theory of how registries strengthen property rights and reduce transaction costs, he analyzes the major trade-offs and proposes principles for successfully building registries in countries at different stages of development. Arruñada focuses on land and company registries, explaining the difficulties they face, including current challenges like the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and the dubious efforts made in developing countries toward universal land titling. Broadening the account, he extends his analytical framework to other registries, including intellectual property and organized exchanges of financial derivatives. With its nuanced presentation of the theoretical and practical implications, Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange significantly expands our understanding of how public registries facilitate economic growth"--Jacket Tracing the development of registries in developed and developing countries, the author argues that, while no single institutional arrangement is appropriate across the board, there are general principles that may be applied to facilitate the protection of both private property and impersonal trade.