Abstract
This article examines whether Romanian counties with greater end-period exposure to systematic cadastral registration displayed different real-estate sales trends during January 2017-June 2026. The study uses 4,788 county-month observations for the 41 counties and Bucharest. The dependent variable is the monthly count of immovable properties in the National Agency for Cadastre and Land Registration's (NACLR) transaction statistics, compiled from registration applications based on legal acts transferring ownership that were registered and resolved in the reference month; it is not the number or value of sale contracts. Cadastral exposure is reconstructed from the official National Cadastre and Land Registration Programme (NCLRP) annexes at 30 June 2026. The conservative measure covers 401 administrative-territorial units (ATUs) completed integrally, while a broader sensitivity measure also includes 91 partially completed ATUs. Because cadastral exposure is cumulative, observed only at the end of the sample and time-invariant within each county, the econometric exercise is descriptive rather than causal. Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood specifications include county indicators, calendar-month indicators, a linear trend, a March-May 2020 indicator and a post-2023 period indicator. The exposure-trend coefficient is negative in all reported specifications and reaches the conventional 5% threshold in two variants, but it becomes statistically insignificant when Bucharest, and then Bucharest and Ilfov, are excluded. The results therefore provide no robust evidence of a positive county-level sales effect. They are consistent with, but do not prove, the view that a programme concentrated in rural and low-liquidity areas may improve legal certainty and formalisation without independently creating additional market demand. Systematic registration remains important legal infrastructure, but its dynamic transaction effect cannot be identified from the present end-period exposure measure.
Cuvinte cheie
cadastre
land registration
property rights
real-estate sales
Romania
panel data
Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood model.
Istoric articol
Publicat
31.08.2026
Informații autori
Citare recomandată
Mihnea-Tudor Orjan (2026). Systematic Cadastral Registration and Real-Estate Transaction Intensity in Romania: A County-Month Panel Analysis, 2017-June 2026. Constantin Brâncuși University of Târgu Jiu Economics Series, 2(1), 660–670. https://doi.org/10.65631/jes.4.2026.61
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