admin_ild's blog

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto is the intellectual father of the World Bank’s “Doing Business” series which examines the costs of various aspects of doing business in different countries across the world, and his book, The Mystery of Capital, created waves as he explained why capitalism did well only in the West — without property rights, he argued, the costs of doing business in non-capitalist countries was too high. De Soto’s team applied for licences, power connections, land (all the things you need to set up/run/close an enterprise) and totted up the costs of doing this. If this was very high, he argued, capitalism wouldn’t prosper. His Instituto de Libertad y Democracia (ILD) has, since, tried to help countries develop property rights. He elaborates on the importance of this to Sunil Jain and Kanika Datta, on the relationship between middle classes and property rights, on China, and a host of other issues.