ABSTRACT
The administrative infrastructure to properly manage and maintain a land registration system and the land rights recorded therein are important public goods. Land registration systems reveal much of the wealth of a nation and its distribution among the population. With the increasing attention for protection of privacy this is a much-debated issue because several experts see it as a threat to many and to the security of the nation. Full publicity of the system is sometimes curbed and governments, as well as individuals, have tried to distort the functioning of land registration systems. In economic theory, full and easy access to information is essential for the operation of markets, and a limited publicity of land records supposedly results in a constraint for land markets to develop and to allocate land to the most efficient user. For economists limited land information will theoretically prevent land from reaching its highest value and, again theoretically, this will also affect overall growth in rural areas in a negative way. In modem computerized systems some protective measures can be taken relatively easy in this respect, e.g., to give access only to one specific property at a time and not show all properties registered in the name of a person or entity, to levy progressive fees for data retrieval - the more properties the higher the fees - and/or to register the full details of applicants. Sometimes a national law requires a proven interest or even explicit (written) permission of the registered entity to enable a registrar to submit information on the property.
