Abstract: This dissertation explores the interaction of tax and land use policies in the U.S. The first essay, Exclusionary Fiscal Zoning and Residential Housing Density, explores the hypotheses that local generation of tax revenue encourages local governments to enact zoning policies that reduce the efficiency of land markets. The theoretical model predicts that heavy reliance on local income tax revenue by local governments will encourage strict large-lot fiscal zoning restrictions. Empirical results support the theoretical hypothesis for tax districts in Delaware County, Ohio. The second essay, The Effect of Use-Value Assessment on Land Use Change in Rural and Suburban Areas, explores the effects of preferential property tax treatment for agricultural uses. A survival model is employed to explain the timing of farmland conversion to urban uses. Preferential tax assessment is found to be effective at slowing farmland conversion in a rural Ohio township, but ineffective in a suburban township closer to Columbus, Ohio. The third essay, The Capitalization of Property Taxes into the Prices of High and Low-Value Homes, employs a hedonic model to test the impact of local property taxes and large-lot zoning on housing values. The empirical results show mixed evidence to support the hypothesis that property taxes have a more negative impact on high-value homes as compared to low-value homes. The results also show a price premium on homes with small lots. This premium may be explained by a zoning induced shortage of small-lot homes.

Can today's policy makers and researchers effectively draw on the ideas of nineteenth-century philosopher Henry George to help solve twenty-first-century problems? This compendium presents eight essays by scholars who demonstrate that many of George's ideas about land use and taxation remain valuable today.

This text brings together essays by scholars connecting the property tax with land use. They explore the idea that the property tax is used as a partial substitute for land use regulation and other policies designed to affect how land is utilized. Like many economists, the contributors see some type of property taxation as the more efficient means of helping to shape land use. Some of the essays analyze a conventional property tax, while others consider radically different systems of property taxation. context of a dynamic model of real estate markets. The remaining papers examine how various tax mechanisms and non-tax alternatives to regulating and determining land use, such as zoning and private neighbourhood associations, complement or substitute for one another. Urban planners and economists interested in local public finance should find this a useful study.

As external forces increase the demand for land conversion, communities are increasingly open to policies that encourage conservation of farm and forest lands. This interest in conservation notwithstanding, the consequences of land-use policy and the drivers of land conversions are often unclear. One of the first books to deal exclusively with the economics of rural-urban sprawl, Economics and Contemporary Land-Use Policy explores the causes and consequences of rapidly accelerating land conversions in urban-fringe areas, as well as implications for effective policy responses. This book emphasizes the critical role of both spatial and economic-ecological interactions in contemporary land use, and the importance of a practical, policy-oriented perspective. Chapters illustrate an interaction of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical approaches to land-use policy and highlight advances in policy-oriented economics associated with the conservation and development of urban-fringe land. Issues addressed include (1) the appropriate role of economics in land-use policy, (2) forecasting and management of land conversion, (3) interactions among land use, property values, and local taxes, and (4) relationships among rural amenities, rural character, and urban-fringe land-use policy. Economics and Contemporary Land-Use Policy is a timely and relevant contribution to the land-use policy debate and will prove an essential reference for policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels. It will also be of interest to students, academics, and anyone with an interest in the practical application of economics to land-use issues.

In three essays the author discusses whether taxation can be used as a tool for obtaining and perpetuation of economic democracy, and if so, what system of taxation is the best for the end in view.