The concluding chapter discusses limitations to the property rights paradigm. Neoliberal property rights are not a cure-all for rural development. There is an emerging consensus from the United Nations, World Bank, and FAO on the need for more context-specific property rights and international guidelines on how to respect, record, and strengthen such rights, especially customary rights. The conclusion then shows how the book’s theory speaks to the broader relationship between politics and markets beyond land and redistribution. States can generate new markets or enable the rise of markets, or new markets can arise organically. A government can then choose whether, and how, to delineate and protect property rights in those markets. Like with property rights in land, a country’s political institutions (democracy vs. dictatorship) as well as government coalitional dynamics (between elite factions and citizens) and foreign pressure determine property rights regimes. The conclusion applies to the evolution of subsoil property rights over oil in Mexico, subsoil mining rights for mineral natural resources in the United States, and property rights in the banking sector in Venezuela.

This chapter begins with existing explanations for rights informality: weak state capacity, left-wing ideology, and competing state goals. It then develops a theory for understanding why governments that distribute land often withhold property rights, presiding over widespread rural property informality for long periods, and why other governments grant more secure property rights over land. Authoritarian regimes tend to redistribute land from large landowners to peasants but withhold property rights. Democracies often grant property rights to beneficiaries of previous land reforms but do not redistribute additional property. This difference is driven by how political regimes empower or disempower landed elites and peasants, differences in institutional powers, and constraints that political elites face, and the incentives of incumbency and political competition. Democracies are better at channeling popular demands into policy. But policies can also be blocked by the powerful in a legislature. Finally, foreign pressure during economic crisis can force a country to turn to international financial institutions for help. Privatization and greater security of property rights can be a condition for support.