Going digital: Credit effects of land registry computerization in India

By improving access, without altering the underlying information, computerization of land registration provides a unique case to test for credit supply effects of improved land administration that have often been elusive in the literature. We exploit the variation in the timing of the shift from manual to digital operation of Andhra Pradesh's 387 subregistry offices during the state-wide rollout of this intervention between 1999 and 2005. Administrative data on credit disbursed and registered land transactions from 1995 to 2007 point to significant, though quantitatively modest, increases in credit access in urban but not rural areas. Institutional factors allow us to explain these results.