"The 2011 International Property Rights Index (IPRI) has ranked Nepal in the 100th place among 129 countries, one slot higher than last year. The IPRI is an annual international comparative study that measures physical and intellectual property rights and their protection around the world.
The study quantifies the strength of property rights, both physical and intellectual, and ranks countries accordingly. The countries are ranked based on 11 factors reflecting the state of legal and political environment (LP), physical property rights (PPR) and intellectual property rights (IPR). This year the report contains rankings of 129 economies representing 97 percent of the world GDP." Source: KP
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"A crucial ingredient missing in most macroeconomic programs in LDCs is the establishment of widespread, legal property rights for the assets people now hold. It is not that the majority, the poor included, in countries trying to build market economies is without property. This majority does in fact possess land, buildings, and businesses, but they do not have formal, legally recognized rights to use these assets in the marketplace which macroeconomic reforms are supposed to create.
The reason why open markets have produced enormous wealth in the West and not in developing countries is that the property rights of citizens of Western nations over their assets are "formalized." What does "formalized" mean? Property rights are "formalized" when they are embodied in universally obtainable, standardized instruments of exchange that are registered and governed by legal rules and connected to the rest of the economy through mechanisms which, additionally, can support the whole range of transactions that make a market economy work. Formalization creates the rights, obligations, and legal instruments that enable the owners to relate to government and private business. It provides the mechanisms whereby the most important assets of the informal sector, namely real estate and businesses, can be used to secure the provision of goods and services, especially credit and infrastructure. Formalization transforms its beneficiaries into individually accountable customers.
Formal property rights afford economic agents in the Western nations indisputable proof of ownership and protection from uncertainty and fraud. Property rights of Westerners can then enter the marketplace as a form of specie-backed currency adapted to the rapid and frequent transfer of resources to their highest valued-use. Their markets generate growth because widespread formal property rights permit massive, low-cost exchange, thus fostering specialization and greater productivity.
Without formal property, a modern market economy simply cannot exist because most assets are commercially and financially invisible. Nobody really knows who owns what and where, who is accountable for the performance of obligations, who is responsible for losses and fraud, and what mechanisms are available to enforce payment for services and goods delivered. This is called the informal sector: that part of an economy that lacks the institutions required to provide security and allow business and government to perform efficiently. It is a universe where there is too much room for misunderstanding, confusion, reversal of agreement, and faulty recollection, and where the costs of uncertainty are so high that credit cannot be extended on reasonable terms to most people and businesses.
The majority of informal assets are therefore "dead capital"; they lack value as collateral for securing the interests of creditors. They are like corporations that cannot issue stocks or bonds to obtain new investment and finance. To become "live capital," these assets must first be formalized so that ownership can be traced and validated and exchanges can be governed by a legally recognizable set of rules. Formalized titles were crucial to opening the door to credit in countries such as the United States, where close to US$4 trillion of the securities floated in the market are backed by mortgages and the other guarantees that formal property permits." (Source: MOC)
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