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Article

30 Mar 2013

Author:
Economist

Property and the Lady

...Terra Lawson-Remer, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations...argues that economists have tended to take a simplistic view of the security of property rights, which assumes that if foreign investors and local elites have security, so does everyone else...Ms Lawson-Remer has developed an alternative property-insecurity index that focuses on the experience of minority groups...Faster growth is not a reward in itself: little evidence suggests that higher growth automatically trickles down to vulnerable groups...Allowing the copper mine to proceed may well raise growth in Myanmar after half a century of stagnation. It sends a powerful signal to foreign investors. But it threatens to leave the original owners trapped in poverty and without the community safety net on which they have long relied. A fairer solution is to pay a market price that reflects not just the value of land today, but also its potential value when the elites have taken over. [refers to Norinco]