The choice of titling system in land

This paper analyzes the choice of the socially optimal titling systemassuming rational individual choices about recording, assurance andregistration decisions. It focuses on the enforcement of propertyrights on land under private titling and the two existing publictitling systems, recording and registration. When the reduction in theexpected costs of eviction compensates the higher cost of initialregistration, it is more efficient to introduce a registration systemrather than a recording system. The development of private "titleassurance" improves the standing of recording as compared toregistration. This improvement depends, however, on the efficiency ofthe assurance technology and, also, on corrective taxation that isneeded to align individual optimization, which disregards the transferelement in eviction, with social objectives.