Property Rights: Key to Generating Wealth and Stability

Anthony B. Kim / February 04, 2011

“Confronting Egypt is a festering economic crisis that threatens to shatter that nation’s [already] fragile social peace and alter political orientation. For too many years Cairo has postponed sorely needed structural economic reforms.” These words are a somber assessment given to Egypt’s lack of institutional reform by The Heritage Foundation 25 years ago.

Echoing a similar message, Hernando De Soto, one of the furthermost authorities on analyzing the critical linkage between property rights and economic development, has compellingly articulated in his powerful op-ed:

Bringing the majority of Egypt’s people into an open legal system is what will break Egypt’s economic apartheid. Empowering the poor begins with the legal system awarding clear property rights to the $400 billion-plus of assets that we found they had created. This would unlock an amount of capital hundreds of times greater than foreign direct investment and what Egypt receives in foreign aid. (more…)