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            The
              Digital Path 
              Smart Contracts and the Third World   | 
         
        
       
        
      Paper
      
      Talk: The Pencil, The Brick, and the Law
      
      Abstract
      Inadequate and ill-adapted property institutions in the third world prevent
        the extralegal assets of the poor from serving as capital. In particular,
        the absence of credible systems of title transfer makes real estate holdings
        ineffective as collateral for loans. How can this barrier to wealth creation
        be surmounted? Country-by-country institutional reform is possible, but
        inevitably slow. New options based on computer networks and trusted computational
        agents may provide a shorter path. By leveraging trust in first-world
        institutions while enabling the evolution of contractual arrangements
        that fit local needs and traditions, this approach could bring advanced
        property systems to regions now paralyzed by their absence. 
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