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
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Commissioner Dorgan is quite right that North Dakota, like other states, possesses a sovereign right to levy taxes in the manner of its choosing provided only that it does not discriminate against interstate commerce in a gross and overt way. I am only surprised that he feels a need to defend North Dakota’s use . . . → Read More: Intergovernmental Competition for Energy Resources  Comments are closed  Address, Publication  Energy, Leasing policy, Minerals policy, Politics, Property taxation, Public finance, Tax policy Technical Appendices A-L for Oil and Gas Leasing Policy: Alternatives for Alaska in 1977, 8 of them by Mason Gaffney. Others by Michael Crommelin, Richard Norgaard, and Robert Rooney. . . . → Read More: Appendices for Oil and Gas Leasing Policy: Alternatives for Alaska in 1977 The purpose of this report is to be of service to the Alaska State Legislature and the Department of Natural Resources in their review of oil and gas leasing policy. It is written from the State’s viewpoint. It treats the State’s interests as being frequently adverse to those of the State’s lessees, without being hostile . . . → Read More: Oil and Gas Leasing Policy: Alternatives for Alaska in 1977 To serve his citizens best, the statesman should act much like a private landowner maximizing his net income from lands. He should resist the temptation to use his power to manipulate and control, foster and suppress, divert and channel, reward and punish on the too easy presumption that the market has no rationale or normative value of its own. . . . → Read More: Objectives of Government Policy in Leasing Mineral Lands 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 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 |