Books [0]

The Mystery of Capital [0] and The Other Path [0] are the two documents essential to understanding the ILD’s Vision and Mission [0]. In the books section, you will find free downloads of the first chapter of each of the books in several languages, as well as links to bookstores. You will also find information on another work by Hernando de Soto, Realizing Property Rights [1], (with Francis Cheneval) and a recent book The War of the Notaries [1] written and published by the ILD (in Spanish, translation underway).

Articles, interviews and presentations [1]

Articles:

The Hidden Architecture of Capital [1]: "Imagine a country where the law that governs property rights is so deficient that nobody can easily identify who owns what, addresses cannot be systematically verified, and people cannot be made to pay their debts. Consider not being able to use your own house or business to guarantee credit. Imagine a property system where you can't divide your ownership in a business into shares that investors can buy, or where descriptions of assets are not standardized."

The Constituency of Terror [1]: "Newspaper headlines and television anchors across the United States ask, "Who are these people who hate us so much?" We who live in the Third World and the former Soviet nations know terrorism well. The 21st century terrorists we confront are ruthless politicians with domestic ambitions. Killing innocents is but a means to an end: taking control of political power in their own countries. But these terrorist politicians have a common problem. They are small minorities in their own countries...."

Interviews:

The Power of the Poor [1]: Capitalism's Moment of Truth (2005), a four minute film featuring Hernando de Soto summarizing his ideas and the ILD's work -- produced by an independent U.S. filmmaker to raise funds for a two-hour television documentary about the ILD. With the financing now in place, the documentary is currently in production and will air in the U.S. in 2008. (Requires Windows Media)

The Future of Democracy and Markets in Latin America [1]. In November 2007, John Sullivan, CIPE's executive director, sat down with Hernando to talk about the future of reform in Latin America. These are some of the questions he asked de Soto: Is it reasonable to expect support for free markets in the region? What is the future of democracy in Latin America? What do citizens see as their primary concerns and who can offer best solutions to their problems?

Speeches:

Breathing new life into dead capital [1]: Landmark presentation of preliminary studies on the extralegal economy of 12 Latin American countries developed for the Inter-American Development Bank. It includes a video, an interactive presentation, and a full set of executive summaries.

Is Economic Freedom for Everyone? [2] Lecture delivered on September 29, 2006 at The Heritage Foundation. " What I’m going to talk to you about is some of the things that we have learned since the publication of The Mystery of Capital, how we go about doing our research and how we go about finding out why, even if there is now no competing model to the market economy—because, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s the only game in town—we advocates of markets in the developing world still face difficulties." PDF of the lecture [2]