In contrast, De Soto's researchers found that legally registering a small garment workshop in Peru required 289 days, at 6 hours per day; the cost was about $ which was about 30 times the monthly minimum wage. The lack of property rights for all but the very rich, as documented by De Soto, is a serious impediment to financial development.
Government is often the primary source of financial repression in developing countries. Strong property rights, a crucial element in financial development, severely constrain a government's ability to expropriate land, factories, or ideas whenever it wants to profit from them.