An experiment in eliminating dead capital provides some insights into the issues usually overlooked by economists in their discussions of giving titles to real property to persons, especially poor ones, in less developed countries. In 1984, the government of the town of Quilmes near Buenos Aires in Argentina took away land from some large landowners and gave the title to squatters who had built shacks and other types of housing on the land. The theory was that it would be possible for these squatters to use the property as collateral for loans to improve them or sell them to others who would more productively use the land. At the same time, some of the original landowners took the municipal government to court, and as of 2006, still had not gotten a final judgment. What differences existed, in terms of improvements to property and access to loans, between the new owners and those who did not receive the title to the property on which they live?