States can grant regulatory authority to local governments to amend zoning and tax laws to increase housing affordability and not put a hole in city budgets In this paper we explore three approaches to solving the growing housing affordable housing crisis. First, I summarize some… Read More »A Pathway to Opening the Urban Land Market to Affordable Housing
Tyler Cowen writes: “The land tax, an idea that dates to Henry George and the classical economists of the late 19th century, is having another one of its moments.” In fact, the idea is older, dating back to Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill,… Read More »Land Taxes Break the Power of NIMBY Interest Groups, a Rebuttal to Tyler Cowen
The Persistence of Poverty Amid Advancing Wealth “What happens when government abandons its proper role? At the top, we get fraud. Corruption. Gross incompetence. For the rest of us? We get unemployment, inequality, poverty, and inadequate healthcare, retirement, and welfare.” L. Randall Wray, Making Money… Read More »The Great Enigma of Our Times: MMT and GCE
The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. Don Huberts After the COVID-19 dip, global oil use has rebounded to 100 million barrels per day and is projected to rise to 104 million bpd by 2026 with no peak in sight. Coal… Read More »Leveling the Energy Playing Field
Fall is here once again. This change of seasons typically evokes thoughts of colorful leaves; nights by the fire, hot cocoa in hand; and the impending holiday season. This fall, however, larger, more distressing trends are overshadowing these fanciful notions in many people’s minds.
Inflation has us paying more – much more – for everything from the food we feed our families, to the gas we put in our cars, to the insurance policies we purchase to safeguard our assets. And when it comes to our homes (often cited as most Americans’ largest asset) more and more buyers find themselves priced out of a housing market that is increasingly dominated by corporate investors with all cash offers, looking to turn a dual profit as landlords and owners of physical assets that can be borrowed against with ease.
In the Netherlands, the government is trying to combat the housing crisis with more subsidies for first time house buyers. But this will only make prices go up even more. There is a better solution, which would make housing cheaper for everyone: a land value tax. But as long as homeowners are in the majority, no politician dares to burn its fingers on this idea.
On a lazy Sunday morning I managed to get my son Miran (9) and his friend Tinus (10), who lives next door to us, to play a game of Monopoly. They were not very enthusiastic at first; they find the game boring and predictable. The player who can build houses first quickly gets ahead in the game. Especially if he reinvests the money he earns in new houses. For the others, it’s hard to catch up. The winner accumulates piles of money, the other players are broke and frustrated. There’s hardly any strategy involved. It’s just a matter of being lucky or unlucky.
The current housing market in the Netherlands looks a lot like a Monopoly game. If you bought a house at the right time, your wealth is growing. If you don’t own a house yet, it is almost impossible to get in on this wealth growth.
In The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian argue that, over the past four decades, private entities have wrested control of many of the functions of federal, state, and local governments. Free-market ideologues and cost-cutting “small government” bureaucrats have cooperated with business firms… Read More »The Privatization of Everything
Does informality hold back tax progressivity, that is, the capacity to tax the rich at a higher rate than the poor? The optimal (and fair) distribution of the tax burden has long been a key issue in both academic and policy circles.
In a new paper, I study whether reducing informality by tackling tax evasion leads policy makers to increase statutory tax progressivity. I take advantage of the Italian “Ghost Buildings” program, which is a policy that identified buildings not registered in the land registry.
Believe it or not, property taxes have a lot to recommend them. An ad valorem tax on an inelastic base, property taxes are a transparent and steady revenue stream that forms the financial backbone of most municipal budgets. Yet despite these widely admired (in economic… Read More »Bias in Property Assessments: Sources and Solutions
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