ABSTRACT
For property law scholars, Hernando de Soto’s most important writing is probably The Mystery of Capital (2000).1 But de Soto’s earlier book, The Other Path (1989), is if anything more important for scholars of law and economic development. The Other Path’s title was a self-conscious reference to the Shining Path, Peru’s Marxist revolutionary movement-and the book’s content was an exuberant refutation of that movement. For development scholars, The Other Path powerfully revived the idea of law as a key to development, even in the face of what was then a certain jaded disillusion with law-and-development.2
