National governments originate historically to acquire, hold and police land. Other functions are assumed later, but sovereignty over land is always the first business. Private parties hold land from the sovereign: every chain of title goes back to a grantor who originally seized the land. When economists today speak of “rent—seeking” they usually are . . . → Read More: Rent-Seeking and Global Conflict
 Comments are closed  Policy Paper  Economic History, Economic Science, Land Rent, Politics, Rent-seeking Nonpoint pollution goes right to a chink in the armor of conventionally trained economists (like myself) who are overtrained towards becoming protagonists of the price system. The very name “nonpoint” pollution suggests that economists see this as just an odd bit of clutter, something “non-regular” in their tidy world. Indeed, all pollution was an . . . → Read More: Nonpoint Pollution: Tractable Solutions to Intractable Problems The following data were taken from the assessment rolls of Los Angeles County for 1971-72 by Dr. William Truehart and presented in his dissertation at Claremont Graduate School, 1973. They are valid as very general indicators, but the assessor and his staff, Dr. Truehart, and I, all three, have handled them in . . . → Read More: Land as a Share of All Wealth Once upon a time each building was written off from taxable income over something purporting to approximate its economic life. Then Congress and the industry began implementing the Commons variation of the George principle. They began shortening tax lives and steepening the gradient of depreciation paths. The light broke on most of us with . . . → Read More: Land Gains, Fast Write-Off, and Incentives to Build Comments are closed Address, Publication Banking, Depreciation, Economic History, Macroeconomic stability, Macroeconomics, Public finance In the heady early ’70s, many of us sensed that tax reform was finally on its way. The sleepy public had awakened to its true interests. One of the few solid results of that climacteric was victory over the depletion allowance. For years this had been the quintessential loophole, the symbol and a citadel of . . . → Read More: Oil and Gas: The Unfinished Tax Reform Professor Harry G. Brown often complained of a “conspiracy of silence” against the land tax idea. Certainly it has received more silence than its due, yet it would be hard to find a topic on which so many economists have rendered opinions and taken positions over the last two hundred years. I group these . . . → Read More: Two Centuries of Economic Thought on Taxation of Land Rents One comment - (Comments are closed) Publication Economic History, Economic Science, Georgist history, Literature Review How should the forests be taxed? All agree they should be taxed on the basis of parity and equity with other industries and resources. But, with parity in respect to what? There is no substance to “parity” until we define the base. And unfortunately almost everyone, ourselves included, tends to define the base in the . . . → Read More: Alternative Ways of Taxing Forests This paper attempts to define land rent net of soil depletion. The paper is an outgrowth of a larger study’ of the meaning and function of land rent, and is not represented as more than a subspecialized monograph focused on its fragment of the wider topic. Some economists will challenge one or more of its . . . → Read More: Soil Depletion and Land Rent The object of human organization is synergy, combining parts into a whole greater than their sum. Large organizations seek synergy in hierarchy and financial controls. Cities achieve it by bringing independent actors into mutual access so they can cooperate via free contracts and association in the marketplace, in government and society. This paper purports . . . → Read More: The Synergistic City: Its Potentials, Hindrances and Fulfillment Comments are closed Publication Economic History, Land economics -- urban, Land Rent, Property taxation, Tax policy, urban development, Urban Economics We hear a lot these days about the need for more capital to make jobs. Some of what we hear and read we may discount as self-serving, lobbying for more preferential tax treatment of profits. Yet there is a case argued by sincere and public-minded people on objective grounds which we must take seriously. . . . → Read More: Taxes, Capital and Jobs Comments are closed Publication capital gains, Capital theory, Incidence, Land Economics - Macroeconomics, tax exemptions, Unemployment |