Description
This new collection brings together a diverse group of scholars to apply Hernando de Soto's work to a wide range of contemporary issues in property law and theory. Scrutinizing his contention that the institution of private property is necessary for the proper functioning of a market economy, the volume makes an important contribution to debates and controversies in property law, and to the study of mature market economies.
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Hernando de Soto Polar is a Peruvian economist best known for his books The Mystery of Capital and The Other Path, in which he argues, firstly, that property is necessary for the proper functioning of a capitalist economy because it fixes the economic potential of assets, integrates dispersed information, makes people accountable, makes assets fungible, helps network people, and protects transactions and, secondly, that formalizing the informal assets (primarily land) of the world's poor as property will lead to an improvement in their wealth and wellbeing. Wishing to bring de Soto's work to wider attention in North America, Barros (Widener U. School of Law) here collects 11 essays by property scholars from the United States and Canada that examine and build on de Soto's ideas. The essays fall into four general categories: general critical analyses of de Soto's ideas about property, assessments of the possible dangers of land titling and other sudden introductions of property rights, applications of de Soto's ideas to issues in property theory, and applications of de Soto's ideas to legal issues such as the US legal system's treatment of intangible assets and the use of eminent domain to promote economic development. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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