This title was first published in 2003. Many former communist republics strive to adopt a market economy in which the privatisation of landed property is a key element. Generally, it is expected that by doing so, economic development will take off, improving food security and decreasing rural poverty. The relationship between changing land regulations, economic development and poverty is complex and yet little understood. With land reform, governments in transitional economies expect to achieve economic growth and thus alleviation of rural poverty. Nowadays, there is ample research to prove that, to be effective, land policy reforms need to be complemented with institutional reforms, and rural development activities. It puts forward a model for rapid assessment of project progress in which macro-economic indicators are applied in a systematic way to give insight to concepts such as land tenure security and food security and to provide warning signals for less-desired developments as a result of project implementation.

This book contains illuminating and carefully written literature reviews on the central topics of the economics of property rights and institutions. As a bonus, it includes two fascinating chapters on topics off the beaten path slavery and new types of property rights in environmental goods. This book will be indispensible for students and experienced scholars alike. Eric Posner, University of Chicago Law School, US This study covers property law and property rights, providing a full summary and comprehensive bibliography of the existing law, together with discussion from an economic perspective on the most important aspects of property law. Leading experts have brought together their knowledge and insight on a full range of issues including comparative property law and the history of property law to create a truly autonomous interdisciplinary resource. This essential reference work will strongly appeal to scholars and students enrolled in academic programmes of law and economics. Academic lawyers involved in research and teaching of private (common) law, practicing lawyers in the field of real estate law, as well as economists involved in researching development economics and transition economics will also find this an invaluable resource.

Annotation. In Pursuit of Land Tenure Security is a unique book that takes the reader on an international tour of perceptions of land tenure security. It contains an anthology of essays based on contacts with people during assignments in various parts of the world over a period of several years. The essays describe the human pursuit for a higher level of land tenure security. Because land tenure security is a perception, the use of stories of human experience introduces the reader to an array of issues associated with land tenure, among them controversial approaches to providing land tenure security. In this way the pursuit of land tenure security becomes a captivating story for anyone interested in land related policies, land related studies, and all those who have discovered the importance of protection of the rights to real property by people, all over the world.

Eastern European societies underwent large-scale deprivations of property by the authoritarian regimes, beginning after World War II, largely ending with the last waves of the kolkhoz movement in the early 1960s. Kuti examines property reparations that took place after 1989, from the perspective of constitutional justice, the rule of law, but also from the point of view of identity politics.

Order at the Bazaar delves into the role of bazaars in the political economy and development of Central Asia. Bazaars are the economic bedrock for many throughout the region—they are the entrepreneurial hubs of Central Asia. However, they are often regarded as mafia-governed environments that are largely populated by the dispossessed. By immersing herself in the bazaars of Kyrgyzstan, Regine A. Spector learned that some are rather best characterized as islands of order in a chaotic national context. Spector draws on interviews, archival sources, and participant observation to show how traders, landowners, and municipal officials create order in the absence of a coherent government apparatus and bureaucratic state. Merchants have adapted Soviet institutions, including trade unions, and pre-Soviet practices, such as using village elders as the arbiters of disputes, to the urban bazaar by building and asserting their own authority. Spector’s findings have relevance beyond the bazaars and borders of one small country; they teach us how economic development operates when the rule of law is weak.