In this regard, I see issues of basic property law as interwoven with my primary concern for contract and finance issues. While underlying property definitions and systems of some sort are needed to clarify the subject of market exchange activities, the key issues in attracting development and investment are often times driven by the clarity of contract law and by the fluidity of a strong system of financial intermediaries with an effective and extensive presence across the economy. Likewise, value emerges not so much from the asset itself, but from its relationship to other asset values and market opportunities - this means that property value really involves contract law which allows for exchange and reordering of market opportunities. I understand that the really poor and impoverished may require a stronger public involvement in the process, but I do not believe public involvement can lead to a long-term sustainable market exchange process without the simultaneous emergence of a private contract based system for ordering and reordering asset values, some of which are understood as, even if not formally defined as, real property. In essence real property is about establishing status and identity in place.
Contract is about the reordering of status, identity, and place.
I do think, however, that primary attention given to one rather than the other leads to a different set of considerations. My own interests have been peaked by thinking about access issues in U.S. markets in terms of contract and finance. Likewise, advancing approaches to primary and secondary mortgage markets as investment markets, and studying accessibility to financial intermediaries has generated a great deal of progress in property ownership. My point is that much can be gained from investigating property markets not as activities concerned with defining and structuring property rights. I am curious about the extent to which activities in various countries can be mapped against a shifting paradigm of seeing these issues as primarily property driven or as primarily contractual.