public evidence of registrable rights (ownership, leases, mortgages etc.) held by specific individuals and assigns priority among them as per law.<sup>4</sup> This facilitates impersonal trade by protecting third parties’ rights (Arrunada _et al._ 2019); expands the range of potential contractual partners and options by reducing the scope for moral hazard due to asymmetric information; and provides the basis for enforcement of rights via the courts as a last resort.

Although not costless, having rights documented and mechanisms for enforcing them clearly defined has several advantages. It provides private benefits by (i) increasing investment incentives and reducing the need to spend resources on non-productive activities to maintain land rights; (ii) expanding contractual options and the range of potential contracting partners for land transfers; (iii) improving credit access if there are liquid sales markets and collateral can be registered and enforced at low cost; and (iv) empowering individuals, especially women, who were traditionally often disadvantaged by making enforcement of rights easier and encouraging entrepreneurship. It also provides public benefits by (i) improving functioning of land and associated markets for mortgages and insurance via public price data; (ii) providing the basis for effective land us regulation and planning; and (iii) enhancing state capacity and the social contract by allowing fair taxation and incentivizing tax payment in return for public goods that can increase land prices.

_Investment instead of ‘guarding labor’ and other defensive measures:_ Although undocumented rights are sufficient to incentivize short-to medium-term investment, greater scales and longer duration normally require documented rights. Rights that can be enforced via the courts have been instrumental in reducing deforestation in Brazil (Baragwanath & Bayi 2020) and <mark>Colombia (</mark> Peña _et al._ 2017; Vélez _et al._ 2020). In the US West, clarification of access rights to publicly owned grazing land increased productivity and use of fallowing as much as privatization (Bühler 2023). By contrast, uncertainty land allocation at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup> century, in turn, deterred irrigation investment and reduced output (Alston & Smith 2022). Having rights to land clearly documented reduces the need to spend resources on contesting them (Fetzer & Marden 2017) as discussed above, on or protecting rights (De Meza & Gould 1992), including via physical presence (Field 2007), allowing resource reallocation to investment or more beneficial activities.

_Land markets:_ People may be concerned about losing their rights if they enter longer-term contracts. Systematic documentation of land rights at the community level in Mexico facilitated long-term land rentals, occupational shifts to non-agriculture, and migration (Valsecchi 2014; de Janvry _et al._ 2015). Complete registration of all land and measures to ease transferability and eliminate restrictions on urban residence rights in China almost doubled the likelihood of non-farm enterprise startups (Deininger _et al._

> 4 Such protection is based on either a document lodged for registration and a way to prioritize among documents (often based on the time of registration) in a system of deeds or a search by the registrar at the point of registration (in a title registration system). See Arrunada and Garoupa (2005) for a conceptual comparison and economic evaluation of different registration systems and Arruñada (2012) for the importance of registries for impersonal exchange with third parties.

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