Land remains one of the most sought-after collateral for credit in India despite being afflicted by deep structural, regulatory, and information-driven distortions. These distortions stem from years of fragmented policymaking, poor governance and a lack of political will that cuts across most States in our Union. Rational lenders, in the presence of weak property rights and high information asymmetry, have responded through conservative credit policies. This has constrained significantly the ability to unlock the full value of land, something that is necessary for continued economic growth. We provide an overview of these distortions and how they impact land markets as well as credit creation in this article. We enumerate the various types of distortions and explore interventions—regulatory, structural and technological—that have been used to mitigate them in the past. We examine newer solutions, such as block chains for land registries and paralegal titling that are promising but require selective implementation to be successful.
Gérard Béaur, Phillip Schofield, Jean-Michel Chevet & María Teresa Pérez Picazo (dir.), Property Rights, Land Markets, and Economic Growth in the European Countryside (Thirteenth-Twentieth Centuries)
