The buyer has a group of sellers to choose from while the seller can get a return that would be much higher than the cost of his land. It may be worth four such tracts. These decisions are best left to the market.

• You also talk of the informal economy. How can the informal economy be made a part of the formal economy?

The first thing that needs to be done is to quantify it. You can’t do anything before you know how big the informal economy is. This has been done in Egypt. You should know how much is formal, and how much is illegal. So the first step is to quantify it. Only then solutions will follow.

• You suggest giving legal rights to squatters because they will not move away. So, by giving them these rights, the money flow becomes smoother and credit availability makes that land or house more productive. But what about non-squatters, people who go by the law. Won’t they feel cheated?

It may seem like I’m saying that, but that’s not the case. What I’m saying is that we need a legal system that recognises this majority of people who currently are outside the western system of law. In fact, the US and Europe itself has gone through the evolution of squatter rights to its present form. It is this system of legal rights that makes capitalism work there and not in developing countries.

... contd.