The Demand for Land Title Registration : Theory with Evidence from Kenya

This article examines the role of title registration in providing security of property rights for landowners. A simple model is developed to examine the trade-off between increased security of registering title against the administrative costs of accessing the system. The model predicts that the demand for registration should be increasing in the value of the land, the education of the landowner, and proximity to the central government (the latter two being measures of the cost of accessing the system). Evidence on land registration in Kenya provides support for the model