Abstract
Property taxation of both residential and non-residential land and structures is the most common form of wealth taxation worldwide, and is often the revenue instrument of choice for local governments. Despite widespread use of the property tax and a voluminous academic literature examining the tax, its incidence and economic effects are still contentious issues, with the debate centring around whether the capital portion of the tax should be viewed as distorting the allocation of capital or as an efficient benefit tax or user charge for local public services.
Keywords
- Assessment process
- Benefit tax
- Capital tax
- Capitalization
- Efficient allocation
- Equity
- Excise tax
- Fiscal differential
- Fiscal equalization
- George, H.
- General equilibrium
- Harberger, A.C.
- Hamilton, B.W.
- Head tax
- Housing market
- Interurisdictional competition
- Land tax
- Land use zoning
- Local government
- Local public finance
- Mieszkowski, P.
- Partial equilibrium
- Profits tax
- Progressive and regressive taxation
- Property taxation
- Property tax limitations
- Returns to capital
- Tax incidence
- Tiebout, C.
- Tiebout model
- Underprovision of public services
- User fees
JEL Classifications
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsBibliography
Anderson, J.E., ed. 1994. Fiscal equalization for state and local government finance. Westport: Praeger.
Bradford, D.F. 1978. Factor prices may be constant but factor returns are not. Economics Letters 1: 199–203.
Brown, H.G. 1924. The economics of taxation. New York: Holt.
Carroll, R., and J. Yinger. 1994. Is the property tax a benefit tax? The case of rental housing. National Tax Journal 47: 295–316.
Fischel, W.A. 1992. Property taxation and the Tiebout model: Evidence for the benefit view from voting and zoning. Journal of Economic Literature 30: 171–177.
Fischel, W.A. 2001a. Municipal corporations, homeowners, and the benefit view of the property tax. In Property taxation and local government finance, ed. W.E. Oates. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Fischel, W.A. 2001b. Homevoters, municipal corporate governance, and the benefit view of the property tax. National Tax Journal 54: 157–173.
George, H. 1879. Progress and poverty. New York: Dutton.
Hamilton, B.W. 1975. Zoning and property taxation in a system of local governments. Urban Studies 12: 205–211.
Hamilton, B.W. 1976. Capitalization of intrajurisdictional differences in local tax prices. American Economic Review 66: 743–753.
Harberger, A.C. 1962. The incidence of the corporate income tax. Journal of Political Economy 70: 215–240.
Ladd, H.F. 1998. Local government tax and land use policies in the United States. Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Mieszkowski, P. 1972. The property tax: An excise tax or a profits tax? Journal of Public Economics 1: 73–96.
Mieszkowski, P., and G.R. Zodrow. 1989. Taxation and the Tiebout model: The differential effects of head taxes, taxes on land rents, and property taxes. Journal of Economic Literature 27: 1098–1146.
Netzer, D. 1966. Economics of the property tax. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Netzer, D. 2001. Local property taxation in theory and practice: Some reflections. In Property taxation and local government finance, ed. W.E. Oates. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Oates, W.E. 1969. The effects of property taxes and local public spending on property values: An empirical study of tax capitalization and the Tiebout hypothesis. Journal of Political Economy 77: 957–961.
Ross, S., and J. Yinger. 2000. Sorting and voting: A review of the literature on urban public finance. In Handbook of regional and urban economics, ed. P. Cheshire and E.S. Mills, vol. 3. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Rubinfeld, D.L. 1987. The economics of the local public sector. In Handbook of public economics, ed. A.J. Auerbach and M.S. Feldstein. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Simon, H.A. 1943. The incidence of a tax on urban real property. Quarterly Journal of Economics 59: 398–420.
Tiebout, C.M. 1956. A pure theory of local expenditures. Journal of Political Economy 64: 416–424.
Wassmer, R.W. 1993. Property taxation, property base, and property value: An empirical test of the ‘new view’. National Tax Journal 46: 135–160.
Wildasin, D.E. 1986. Urban public finance. New York: Harwood.
Wilson, J.D. 1986. A theory of inter-regional tax competition. Journal of Urban Economics 19: 296–315.
Yinger, J., H.S. Bloom, A. Boersch-Supan, and H.F. Ladd. 1988. Property taxes and house values: The theory and estimation of intrajurisdictional property tax capitalization. San Diego: Academic Press.
Zodrow, G.R. 2001a. Reflections on the new view and the benefit view of the property tax. In Property taxation and local government finance, ed. W.E. Oates. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Zodrow, G.R. 2001b. The property tax as a capital tax: A room with three views. National Tax Journal 54: 139–156.
Zodrow, G.R. 2006. The property tax incidence debate and the mix of state and local finance of local public expenditures, Working paper. Rice University.
Zodrow, G.R., and P. Mieszkowski. 1983. The incidence of the property tax: The benefit view vs. the new view. In Local provision of public services: The Tiebout model after twenty-five years, ed. G.R. Zodrow. New York: Academic Press.
Zodrow, G.R., and P. Mieszkowski. 1986a. The new view of the property tax: A reformulation. Regional Science and Urban Economics 16: 309–327.
Zodrow, G.R., and P. Mieszkowski. 1986b. Pigou, Tiebout, property taxation and the under-provision of local public goods. Journal of Urban Economics 19: 356–370.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Zodrow, G.R. (2018). Property Taxation. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1517
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1517
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences