Property Rights and Urban Development: Initial Title Quality Matters Even When it No Longer Matters

Ignacio Navarro () and Geoffrey Turnbull ()

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 2014, vol. 49, issue 1, 22 pages

Abstract: Formal title to property allows owners to borrow for investing in improvements. Title legalization laws, however, appear to yield only modest increases in housing quality in developing countries. We offer a simple model in which squatters initially balance initial investment in low quality structures to reduce the risk of eviction against the future effect of increasing the marginal cost of improving quality. The effort to secure initial possession thereby creates a legacy effect, reducing subsequent investments in housing quality. Empirical tests using Bolivian data yield results consistent with the legacy theory: initial title risk suppresses long run housing quality. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Squatting; Property rights; Property title; Housing quality; K11; R14; R21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11146-013-9417-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jrefec:v:49:y:2014:i:1:p:1-22

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11146/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11146-013-9417-0

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics is currently edited by Steven R. Grenadier, James B. Kau and C.F. Sirmans

More articles in The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().