Property taxes are the most important revenue source for most cities and towns in the U.S., providing funding for a variety of local services and infrastructure. Unfortunately, traditional property taxes’ emphasis on taxing the value of improvements – like homes and businesses – can produce… Read More »What are the on-the-ground effects of a land value tax? Lessons from the Pennsylvania experience.
“Don’t tax me. Don’t tax you. Tax that man behind the tree!” Recent disasters and folks looking to buy houses are driving renewed concerns over resilience, affordability and sustainability. The “supply” of houses is low and mortgage interest rates are relatively low, so builders and… Read More »What taxes are “fair”?
This is the first in a series of articles discussing housing affordability, economic justice, and inequality in the United States. Afew months ago, I took the plunge and bought a home the traditional way, house and land packaged as one. Buying a home this way was… Read More »How Our Obsession with Owning the Land Beneath our Homes Is Driving the Housing Affordability Crisis (and What to Do about It)
On legal process grounds, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ended the Federal eviction moratorium about halfway through its sixty-day extension. But eviction moratoriums in seven states and the District of Columbia continue, as the homelessness crisis the Federal moratorium was intended to curb persists.… Read More »The Eviction Crisis: Noise and Insight
Henry George was an American economist, social philosopher and reformer of the late 1800s. He is known chiefly for analyzing and promoting a single tax on land value, thus eliminating all other taxes. With no tax on trade, and no sales taxes and no tariffs,… Read More »Why I am a Georgist
Although the political-economic philosophy of Henry George was once common to most literate people in the western world and even beyond, the past century has seen its resurgence in many quarters. This is due in part to the advent of easier communication through the Internet… Read More »The Basic Fundamentals of Georgism
The term frozen capital is used mainly to refer to any capital stock, unused or underused, that thereby reduces productive enterprise from operating at its optimum potential. In most instances, it is an accounting or bankers’ term,[1] often referring to inventory which is shelved or… Read More »Taxing Rent Thaws Frozen Capital
Most recent economics texts have devoted little or no space to the subject of rent and rent seeking. In classical economics, that which prevailed over a century ago prior to what is today known as neoclassical economics, rent was a pivotal idea and factor of… Read More »The Impact of Rent and Rent-Seeking on the Economy
Achieving the American Dream. That’s what many of us strive for. And that often means seeking a home to own. Perhaps you have experienced the excitement of unlocking the door of your newly-purchased home. Sadly, sometimes that dream can turn into the nightmare of home… Read More »The Value of Public Land Trusts
Addressing a conference on urban issues held in San Francisco, the British author and economist Barbara Ward (famous for several best-selling books on international equity and developmental economics) explained a key challenge afoot in the Bay Area. The year was 1967, and the locals were… Read More »California Voters May Opt for Value Capture to Save Transit from the Pandemic
