to a land transaction (Section II). In addition, land registration provides in one place and guarantees all the necessary information to enable contracting parties to conclude a land transaction. Consequently, land registration plays an important role in reducing land transaction costs thereby raising the efficiency of whichever planned investment.

Land registration increases efficiency of land use in another dimension. Efficiency in land use may be determined, among other things, by resource endowments, level of technology, skills and entrepreneurship which are not uniformly distributed among individuals in one country. Land registration creates a market in land and/or increases market efficiency, thereby enabling property rights in land to move from less to more efficient users of land. The flow of property rights in land may be between individuals within one sector such as agriculture or between sectors such as from agriculture to industry. Such a flow of property rights from less efficient to more efficient users of land raises the allocative efficiency of land, with resultant increases in its productivity and in its contribution to economic growth.

# **(v) The Labor Mobility and Efficiency Linkage**

Land registration makes a positive contribution to the mobility of labor which enhances its allocative efficiency. The make up of the linkage between land registration and efficiency of labor use is as follows. Land registration provides landownership security and develops land sales and rental markets. With security of land tenure guaranteed, the landowner can lease out part or all his land and move out of agriculture in search of better opportunities either in terms of jobs or selfemployment. He will not be concerned about possibilities of losing his ownership rights since they are guaranteed by the land registry. He will also find it easier to get a renter as land registration improves the rental market. Alternatively, the landowner could sell part or all his land to take advantage of better opportunities elsewhere with full knowledge and confidence that, if he wanted land in future, he could re-enter the market and buy it. The existence of efficient land markets created by land registration enables him to easily sell, lease, or buy land whenever he wishes. The ease with which people can buy, lease or sell land creates a favorable environment for mobility of labor from areas of low labor productivity (with low economic returns) to those with higher productivity, thereby raising overall labor productivity, efficiency of investment and economic growth.

Mobility of labor is particularly important in a rapidly changing economy. During the 1980s and early 1990s when the Thailand economy was growing very fast, the big movement of people from rural to urban areas helped to ease the labor shortages in the rapidly growing non-agricultural sectors of the economy, particularly in the urban areas. In the financial crisis years of 1997 and 1998 when the non-agricultural sectors of the economy shrank, there was a massive movement of people (who had lost their jobs) from the urban to rural areas to look for a livelihood in agriculture. The ease with which people were able to move during years of economic boom and those years of the financial crisis contributed to the optimal allocation of labor, and its positive impact on economic growth.

**V. Relevance of the Theoretical and Conceptual Framework for Land Registration, Financial Development and Economic Growth**

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