Land-Value

This revised edition of Robert V. Andelson's Land Value Taxation Around the World is the first title in the new series 'Studies in Economic Reform and Social Justice', sponsored by The American Journal of Economics and Sociology. Andelson has provided an interdisciplinary, international collection of essays, which has been in the making for twenty years. This is not a book on the history of economic thought but rather a book about the theory and practice of land reform and an historical summary of efforts to apply land value taxation in different countries around the world. The collection is built around the premise that to tax an activity is to discourage it, and that when people improve land that is under their control, governments should not tax those improvements. Only when land appreciates through no effort on the part of those who manage the land should the government impose a tax. Since land is inelastic in supply, such a tax will have minimal distortionary effects on the economy. These insights are not well understood around the world but they do sometimes guide tax policy and often when they do, they produce salutory effects on economic development. Contributors to this collection argue that patterns of economic behavior are similar regardless of race, religion, or geographical location.