Does providing increased access to secure property rights have a positive impact on people's livelihoods? This policy brief questions Hernando de Soto's contention that capitalism can be made to work for the poor, through formalising their property rights in houses, land and small businesses.

There is enough land in the Amazon region to satisfy Brazilian society's demands for economic development, environmental management of a resource base of global importance and the challenges of agrarian reform.

The author describes a new type of negotiated land reform that relies on voluntary land transfers negotiated between buyers and sellers, with the government's role restricted to establishing the necessary framework for negotiation and making a land purchase grant available to eligible b

In agrarian societies land serves as the main means not only for generating a livelihood but often also for accumulating wealth and transferring it between generations.

This paper argues that Russia's choice of economic organization, which is based on the renewed role of the state, is a response to the existence of severe transaction costs, and subsequent mitigation of contractual incompleteness in the absence of a strong property rights system.