Enforcement problems are broadly of two kinds. First, the lender must attempt to enforce repayment after a default has occurred. But for this to be
worthwhile, the lender must reap a benefit from enforcement that exceeds the
cost. And the costs of sanctions, such as seizing collateral, may not be the only
cost involved. It is sometimes argued that rich farmers who fail to repay are
not penalized because the political costs are too high (see, for example, Khan
1979). Furthermore debt forgiveness programs-where a government announces that farmers are forgiven their past debts-are quite frequent. They have
been common in Haryana State in India (see India Today 1991), for example,
and The Economist (1992) has documented them in Bangladesh. So borrowers,
aware that they can default on a loan with impunity, come to regard loans as
grants, with little incentive to' use the funds wisely.
Second, enforcement problems are exacerbated by the poor development of
property rights mentioned earlier. In both industrial and developing countries,
many credit contracts are backed by collateral requirements, but in developing
countries the ability to foreclose on many assets is far from straightforward.
Land-which, as a fixed asset, might be thought of as an ideal candidate to
serve as collateral-is a case in point. In many countries property rights to land
are poorly codified, which severely limits its usefulness as collateral. Rights to
land are often usufructual, that is, based on using the land, and have limited
possibilities for transfer to others, such as a lender who wishes to realize the
value of the land as collateral. Reclaiming assets through the courts is similarly
not a well-established and routine procedure. (For a general discussion of land
rights issues and collateralization in three African countries, see Migot-Adholla
and others 1991).
The difficulties of enforcement also help explain the widespread use of informal financial arrangements in developing countries. Such arrangements can
replace conventional solutions, such as physical collateral, with other mechanisms, such as social ties (social collateral) (Besley and Coate 1991). Informal
sanctions may persuade individuals to repay loans in situations where formal
banks are unable to do so. Udry (1990), for instance, cites cases of delinquent
borrowers being debarred from village ceremonies as a sanction.
Governments can help solve the collateral problem by improving the codification of property rights. In many countries, particularly in Africa, governments have taken steps to improve land registration. Whether these actions
have the desired effect is debatable, especially in the short run, where attempts
to codify rights may lead to disputes and increased land insecurity (Attwood
1990). Such programs also raise tricky ethical questions about the extent to
which countries should be encouraged to adopt Western legal notions of
property. In addition, the link between improved property rights and improvements in the workings of credit markets, while intuitively clear, is not yet firmly
established from empirical work. Interesting studies in this direction on Thailand (Feder, Onchan, and Raparla 1988) and on Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda
(Migot-Adholla and others 1991) explore the connections among property
rights, investment, and credit