There's a science behind impersonal exchange -- the voluntary provision of data by individuals, to land- and property-related registries, for example. Next week Benito Arruñada, professor of business organization at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, will come to Lincoln House for the final lecture of the fall series.
Arruñada will be discussing how public registries can encourage economic growth and be efficiently organized, drawing from his new book, Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange: Theory and Policy of Contractual Registries (University of Chicago Press, 2012). Registries can strengthen property rights and reduce transaction costs, and Arruñada will analyze the main tradeoffs in the organization of registries, and propose principles for successfully developing registries in countries at different stages of development. There are several challenges in structuring land and company registries, relevant to the current mortgage foreclosure crisis in the United States, the frenzy for simplifying business formalities, and some questionable efforts in developing countries in universal land titling. The analysis also applies to other areas of impersonal exchange, including intellectual property and financial derivatives.
A former president of the International Society for New Institutional Economics, Arruñada has done extensive research in the confluence of law, economics and organization. He has published widely and has acted as consultant to international agencies and national governments on law and economics, land titling and business formalization.
Public Registries: Institutional Foundations of Impersonal Exchange is free and open to the public, but registration is requested. The lecture is Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at the Lincoln Institute.