The last 25 years have witnessed a fundamental change in state and local land policy, reflecting a revolutionary change in attitudes towards immigration and growth. Local governments used to compete to attract people, now it seems to exclude them In the battle of boosters versus knockers, the knockers have won going away. We have . . . → Read More: Changes in Land Policy: How Fundamental are They?
 Comments are closed  Publication  Economic History, Economic Science, Land economics -- urban, Politics, Property taxation, Tax policy, urban expansion There is a great interest stirring currently in Canada and elsewhere in tapping for the public revenues more of the economic rent of natural resources and/or the unearned increment of land values. “Economic rent”, not long ago a strange alien wording, has become common currency in Canadian discussion. Ontario has enacted a tax on . . . → Read More: The Many Faces of Site-Value Taxation Comments are closed Address, Publication Land Rent, land value tax, Politics, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy, tax reform In order to protect the environment, we are going to have to face up to the chronic (and now acute) problem of mass unemployment. To save jobs and make jobs we now tolerate polluting mills and vehicles; we chew up more earth each year for energy and materials; we secure and protect mineral rights . . . → Read More: Environmental Policies and Full Employment “Though custom has dulled us to it, it is a strange and unnatural thing that men who wish to labor, in order to satisfy their wants, cannot find the opportunity.” “There can be no real scarcity of work . . . until human wants are all satisfied.” Today, nearly a century after Henry George . . . → Read More: Toward Full Employment with Limited Land and Capital Comments are closed Publication Economic Science, Full Employment, inflation, Land Economics - Macroeconomics, Macroeconomic stability, Macroeconomics, Unemployment A reply to comment by Henry Goldstein and Procter Thomson on my “Tax-induced Slow Turnover of Capital,” published in Western Economic J. WEJ editors returned it for shortening. Meantime Anthony Chisholm replied on my behalf, using some of this material. I have incorporated it into to be polished and published. . . . → Read More: Time, Taxes, Turnover and Intensity The many wasteful policies and procedures in federal water resources programs have been much analyzed by economists and other scholars. Agency benefit-cost practices have been found wanting. Benefit estimates have been biased upward and cost estimates downward. Environmental effects of projects, often adverse, are not weighted enough. I generally endorse the thrust of these . . . → Read More: The Water Giveaway: A Critique of Federal Water Policy Comments are closed Publication Land Economics - Water, Land economics -- Environment, Law, Leasing policy, Natural Resources, Politics, Water I have four points: we do not need property tax relief; we do need assessment reform; we do need to shift the property tax in part to the stale level; and we do need to convert the general property tax into a tax on site vaiue. “An Agenda for Strengthening the Property Tax.” In . . . → Read More: An Agenda for Strengthening the Property Tax Comments are closed Publication Land economics -- urban, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy, tax reform Taxes on land and buildings are important influences on land use, and are within the control of government. Real estate taxes are a major source of revenue to local governments (LGs) in the United States, as well as being a major cost of owning property. Currently under legal attack in the United States is . . . → Read More: Tax Reform to Release Land MANY, IF NOT ALL economists now agree that the fisc may tax away rent without impairing any economic function. It is only necessary that the tax be independent of landowner behavior. What is less widely understood is that not taxing rent obstructs its proper functioning. Untaxed landowners through the centuries have manifested a propensity . . . → Read More: Taxation and the Functions of Urban Land Rent Comments are closed Publication Capital theory, Land economics -- urban, Land Rent, Politics, Property taxation, Tax policy, urban development NOT MANY YEARS AGO, mention of taxing ground rent was likely to evoke at best pleadings of ignorance, usually well founded, and at worst scorn and rage, similarly founded. More recently, many economists have set out to dispel the ignorance. AJES 31(3):241-58 (July 1972). . . . → Read More: Sources, Nature and Function of Urban Land Rent Comments are closed Publication Land Economics -- General, Land economics -- urban, Land Rent, Urban Economics |