地籍、资产有形性和增长

Cadasters, Asset Can Sever WP/26/34 IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are 2026FEB African Department Authorized for distribution by Pablo Lopez Murphy IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the ABSTRACT:Cadasters—records of land and property ownership—constitute an important pillar of a country’sinstitutional landscape by enabling the assignment of property rights. This paper examines the impact ofcadasters on long-term economic growth by identifying a specific channel in this link: asset tangibility. Ithypothesizes that the more a firm’s assets aretangible, the more relevant cadasters become. The analysis usesa cross-country dataset on cadasters together with granular data from industry panels over the last six decades. WORKING PAPERS Cadasters, Asset Tangibility,and Prepared by Can Sever 1.Introduction Cadasters—recordsof land and property ownership—constitutean importantpillar of a country'sinstitutional framework.Theyformalizeproperty rights, improvetransparency of ownership,andhelp thestate raise tax revenues.This paper explorestheimpact ofcadastersoneconomic growthby identifying a To test thisphenomenon, the analysis uses a recently established cross-country dataset oncadastersfrom D’Arcy et al. (2024)together with granular data from industry panels over the lastsixdecades, andexploits the differences inasset tangibility acrossindustrieswithin countries.The resultsshow thatmore developedcadastersboost long-term growth, particularlyin industrieswithhighasset There are several channels through whichtheintroductionand quality of cadastral records canspurgrowth, particularly in industries that rely more on tangible assets.First,cadastersprotectthesecurityof tenure and ownership rights over a spatial unit through legally recognized and enforceable records.Thisis particularlyrelevantfor firmswith moretangible assets, since those assetsface risks ofconfiscation by While this paper specifically focuses on the asset tangibility channel in the link between cadastersand growth, cadasters can affect growth via other channels as well.Cadasterscan facilitate aggregategrowth by strengthening the state’s capacity to tax, providing information on taxable assets and liable The focus of this paper isstate-administered cadastralrecords (henceforth, cadasters).D’Arcy etal. (2024)establishedaunique andcomprehensive dataset onthe existence, quality, and extent of state-administeredcadastral recordsbased onthousands of documents globally.The authorsdefine a cadaster Using this rich source,D’Arcy et al. (2024)documents a positive association between thedevelopment ofcadasters and economic growth.However, establishing causalitybased on macro-dataremains a challengefor several reasons.First,there can be other factors driving both cadastral reforms This study makes a step forward toward causality in the interplay between cadasters and growthby addressing some of these concerns. For this purpose,the analysis adopts data from two-digitmanufacturing industriesfrom the UNIDO database, and exploits thevariationinassettangibility across In the baseline,thedependenceontangible assetsfor each two-digit manufacturing industry iscalculated using datafromlarge, listed firms from a benchmark country with a strong institutional frameworkand highly developed financial markets(i.e., theUS).Therefore,theindustry-levelproxy fortechnologicalintensityislikely to be driven by the differences in the productionneeds andprocesses acrosstwo-digit Afurtheradvantage ofgranulardata is that growthina two-digit manufacturing industry isunlikelytotrigger anationwidecadastral reform,therebymitigating the issue of reverse causality. The use ofindustry-level data also makes it possible to control for the effects ofunobservedfactorson growthat a or demand shocks,areabsorbed bycountry-year fixed effects. Finally, the roles of industry-specific global It is however worth noting thatas a result of the inclusion of fixed effects at such granular level, theempirical approach in this paper does not directly capture the aggregate effects of cadastral reforms on The estimated disproportionate effect of cadasters on industrieswith greaterassettangibilityissizable.For instance,when a country goes through a cadastral reform moving from the 25thto75th percentile of the distribution of the cadaster index,a typical rubber products industry(an industry with highassettangibility)sees an additionalvalue-addedgrowth of 4.3percentage pointscumulativelyover the 10-year period compared to the furniture industry(an industry withlowassettangibility).Alternatively, following Additional analyses rule out several alternative explanations to this finding.First, as mentionedbefore,cadasters can r