"While the importance of property rights to economic health is more widely understood than ever before, considerable room for improvement remains"

Hernando de Soto

The 2010 International Property Rights Index (IPRI) is an annual study that compares countries in terms of their protection of property rights, both physical and intellectual. IPRI was first released in 2007, under the Hernando de Soto Fellowship program, by the Property Rights Alliance. In order to incorporate and grasp the important aspects related to property rights protection, the Index focuses on three areas: Legal and Political Environment (LP), Physical Property Rights (PPR), and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).

The current study analyses data for 125 countries, representing 97 percent of world GDP. Of great importance, the 2010 gauge incorporates data of PR protection from various sources, often directly obtained from expert surveys within the evaluated countries.

In addition to providing a quantitative measure of the protection of property rights, the report highlights various aspects of property rights through case studies. This year, the authors have collaborated with the IPRI's partner organisations to identify issues that need further elaboration in the index. This year's report contains 6 case studies on physical and intellectual property rights contributed by the IPRI partners as well as a guest case study on gender equality and property rights.

Generally, the report found that countries that have a better protection of property rights have a higher economic growth. The top 25 studied countries enjoy a per capita income of as much as eight times that of their counterparts in the bottom 25.

IPRI is the product of a global collaboration of 62 think tanks and research institutes, a number of which are EFN Asia members. The full report is available on the Property Rights Alliance's website

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