Henry George proposed that land speculation creates boom-bust cycles. I propose a real-assets model of economic crises, loosely based on George’s theory, in which land prices play a central role. Swings in land prices affect the entire economy by three mechanisms: construction on marginal sites, partial displacement of circulating capital by fixed capital investment, and . . . → Read More: A Real-Assets Model of Economic Crises: Will China Crash in 2015
 Comments are closed  Policy Paper, Publication  Capital theory, Henry George, Land Economics -- General, Macroeconomic stability, Macroeconomics A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of . . . → Read More: The Hidden Taxable Capacity of Land: Enough and to Spare Comments are closed Publication Land Economics -- General, Land Rent, land value tax, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy A tax based on land value is in many ways ideal, but many economists dismiss it by assuming it could not raise enough revenue. Standard sources of data omit much of the potential tax base, and undervalue what they do measure. The purpose of this paper is to present more comprehensive and accurate measures of . . . → Read More: The Hidden Taxable Capacity of Land: Enough and to Spare Comments are closed Publication Capital theory, Land Economics -- General, Land Rent, land value tax, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy, tax reform Commercial-capitalist civilization has progressed in step with people’s success in fending off sales taxes in their various guises. We might begin with The Enlightenment, late 18th Century, with its epicenter in Versailles. At the core were the philosophes; at their core were les économistes, or Physiocrats; and at their core was the . . . → Read More: The Sales Tax: History of a Dumb Idea Comments are closed Essay, Publication Economic History, Land Economics -- General, Public finance, Sales Tax, Tax policy, welfare economics 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 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 More economists than not believe that land rent has superior qualities as a tax base. Their failure to push harder for focusing more of the tax burden on land stems partly from a belief that “there is no money in it.” The following journalistic passage reflects this belief: “Authorization of the graded tax would . . . → Read More: Adequacy of Land as a Tax Base Comments are closed Publication Economic Science, Land Economics -- General, Politics, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy This paper is an effort to pull together a systematic outline of one set of accumulated tax outrages, those bearing on land. I follow press releases, and scholarly and treasury and commission and task force – releases on the subject witha growing impression of incompleteness, of a ..tendqncy to 6ettle on one or two . . . → Read More: Coordinating Tax Incentive and Public Policy: The Treatment of Land Income Comments are closed Publication Land Economics -- General, land value tax, Public finance, tax exemptions, Tax policy The higher tax rate in cities drives investors elsewhere, both home builders and industry, because whoever puts un a new building under this state of affairs tends to become a fiscal surplus generator, and no one really wants to be that: it means you pay more in taxes than you get back in services. . . . → Read More: Mason Gaffney’s Testimony to the President’s Commission on Urban Problems This paper introduces the concept of “time-indivisibility,” and suggests that it may interfere with optimal allocation of durable resources, and especially permanent resources. Space on the earth’s stirface is taken as a representative permanent resource. The limitations of leasing and lending as time-dividers are briefly sketched. A simple technique is advanced for analyzing on an . . . → Read More: The Unwieldy Time-Dimension of Space |