Property without Rights

Michael Albertus is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He is the author of the award-winning book Autocracy and Redistribution (Cambridge, 2015) and Authoritarianism and the Elite Origins of Democracy (Cambridge, 2018). Albertus also writes regularly for popular outlets such as New York Times, Washington Post, and Foreign Policy.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Conceptualizing and Measuring the Property Rights Gap; 3. The Political Origins of the Property Rights Gap; 4. Evidence on the Rise and Fall of Property Rights Gaps in Latin America; 5. Consequences of the Property Rights Gap; 6. Opening and Closing a Property Rights Gap in Peru; 7. The Long-Term Consequences of Peru's Property Rights Gap; 8. Property Rights Gaps Around the World; 9. Conclusion.

'Low productivity in agriculture condemns many countries and regions to poverty. This erudite book combines history and detailed data analysis to show that low productivity is often caused by a property rights gap, created by regimes trying to cultivate large masses of peasants dependent on them. The book explains where these missing property rights in land emerge, what they imply for inequality and poverty, and how they can be overcome. This is first-rate social science that should inform modern debates on development and policy.' Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology