Are civil-law notaries rent-seeking monopolists or essential market intermediaries? Endogenous development of a property rights institution in Mexico

As the fourth contribution in the 'Land' section, this paper forms a research 'diptych' with the next paper by Levy. Whereas she focuses on the notarial institution in midnineteenth century Mexico, this contribution examines it in a contemporary context. The notary is one of the chief components of property rights protection in civil-law systems, performing various public functions such as writing deeds for real estate property. Yet notaries are considered an 'inefficient' institution by many, due to the perception of rent-seeking behavior enabled by their near-monopoly over validating property rights claims. This study examines notaries in Mexico to unpack the apparent contradiction in the role of notaries in economic development. I use a combination of interviews with notaries and clients, and data on notarial practice and bureaucratic outcomes across the country, to examine notaries' social function. The theoretical lens of endogenous development and institutional functionalism reveals an alternate explanation for their seemingly high-cost services, as well as their role in economic development. Mexican notaries have a dual social function: public representative and private service provider. They perform diverse and essential activities, which in other countries are performed by multiple actors such as real estate agents, escrow offices and title insurance companies. Thus, what is perceived as inefficiency by some can be interpreted as an efficient response to the context in which they operate, and their semi-privatized nature can overcome problems found in other bureaucratic arrangements

It's Time to End Single-Family Zoning

Local planning in the United States is unique in the amount of land it reserves for detached single-family homes. This privileging of single-family homes, normally called R1 zoning, exacerbates inequality and undermines efficiency. R1’s origins are unpleasant: Stained by explicitly classist and implicitly racist motivations, R1 today continues to promote exclusion. It makes it harder for people to access high-opportunity places, and in expensive regions it contributes to shortages of housing, thereby benefiting homeowners at the expense of renters and forcing many housing consumers to spend more on housing. Stacked against these drawbacks, moreover, are a series of only weak arguments in R1’s favor about preferences, aesthetics, and a single-family way of life. We demonstrate that these pro-R1 concerns are either specious, or can be addressed in ways less socially harmful than R1. Given the strong arguments against R1 and the weak arguments for it, we contend planners should work to abolish R1 single-family zoning

Regulatory constraints on supply are a key factor in San Francisco’s affordable housing crisis

In recent months, much has been made of San Francisco’s affordable housing crisis, with many commentators blaming the increased demand for housing on the influx of affluent workers drawn to the Bay Area’s creative and tech industries. Using a dataset of more than 7,300 land parcels, Nils Kok and Paavo Monkkonen find that San Francisco’s real problem is its poor supply of affordable housing. They argue that the city’s relatively low rate of affordable house building can be attributed to regulatory barriers in the form of extensive project approvals and project reviews, which are fuelled by the power of local stakeholder organizations