Abstract

From the point of view of institutional economics, growth is related to the implementation and enforcement of property rights. The system that emits, and enforces those rights needs to have very low transactions costs leading to the least possible frictions. The lowest the transactions costs the highest the level of security of investment, as well as the benefits of direct and indirect socioeconomic impacts. However, traditional economic development models do not focus on transactions costs and property rights systems, both of which seem to be the suspects for low productivity, slow growth, and informality. Many developing countries suffer from systems of property rights that are unpredictable because they are inundated with overwhelming bureaucracy, difficult to follow, track, and measure. The speaker has developed a methodology to best diagnose the reasons why a country has such high transactions costs and how to reduce them systematically. This diagnostic method is called Reality Check Analysis (RCA) and its outcomes allow for the best design of policy reforms and strategic application. The presentation will focus on the theoretical definition of the problem, the analysis of Reality Check Analysis, its application and important results measured through a socioeconomic 3,000 household survey. This survey presented the direct benefits of applying a simple property rights system to investment, savings, property values, trust, child labor, to mention a few.

Speaker Bio

Elena Panaritis until recently served as a senior economic advisor, handling the Euro and Greek Economic Crisis, to two Greek Governments (2009; 2015). In 2015 she also served as the Special Envoy for Negotiating the Greek Sovereign debt and lending program of Greece. Elena worked directly with 3 Greek Prime Ministers and the Minister of Finance, as well as EU and IMF high-level officials, lenders to Greece. In 2015 she was appointed the Alternate Director to the IMF of Italy, Greece, Portugal, Malta, Albania and San Marino, from which position she resigned the same year after strong political pressures. In 2009 she was appointed honorary Member of the Hellenic Parliament until 2012. She is the founder of Panel Group, a triple-bottom-line business that focuses in the informal sector, transforming the wealth base of poor property holders, to proud middle class owners. She has also founded Thought4Action, an Action Tank that works as an educational foundation to create awareness and calls for action, about transforming countries under solvency, economic crisis and informality. Elena Panaritis has taught economic development, housing finance and property markets reform courses at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and the Johns Hopkins University- School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).