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5
THE LEGAL FOUNDATIONS
OF ECONOMIC GROwTH IN
ANCIENT GREECEThe Role of Property Records
Edward M. HarrisThen bear in mind that all men regard those agreements as having greater validity that
are concluded with the approval of the state and are entered in the public records; and it
is impossible for anything thus administered to be cancelled, either in case one buys some
land from someone else or a boat or a slave, or if someone lends money to another person
or frees a slave or makes a gift to someone.
Dio Chrysostom 31.51The Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto has written eloquently about the
importance of providing legal protections for the rights of ownership as a key
factor in economic development. If the majority of the people cannot pro-
tect their assets through the legal system, they cannot participate in the legal
arrangements that would allow them to use their assets to take advantage of
their full economic potential. One of the most important protections the legal
system can provide is the documentation that enables proprietors to prove and
enforce their rights of ownership, in particular property registers. This permits
owners to transform their property into capital and to participate in the mar-
ket. As de Soto observes,Any asset whose economic and social aspects are not fixed in a formal
property system is extremely hard to move in the market. How can the
huge amounts of assets changing hands in a modern market economy
be controlled if not through a formal property process? Without such
a system, any trade of an asset, say a piece of real estate, requires an