In 2012, Vietnam will celebrate 25 years of economic reform and structural readjustment from a largely centralized, subsidized economy to one based on market principles. A major component of these reforms has involved establishing land and property rights, thereby giving individuals and...

The property tax is considered to be a good tax for local governments, mainly because of the connection between the types of services funded at the local level and the benefit to property values. Yet, property tax revenues rarely account for more than 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in...

The housing crisis and the Great Recession have placed tremendous fiscal pressure on the United States’ central cities. Cuts in state government fiscal assistance to local governments, combined with shrinking property tax bases, make it hard for local governments to maintain current levels of...