Many local jurisdictions offer property tax exemptions or similar concessions to older citizens. Such exemptions represent substantial intergenerational transfers and may have important implications for local public finances. The consequences of age-based property tax exemptions depend upon the...

This paper examines the welfare effects of a tax on foreign purchases of domestic land. Using a simple static framework the paper shows that an appropriately chosen tax will generally be welfare-improving for the domestic country

We explore the impact of British colonial institutions on the economic development of India. In some regions, the British colonial government assigned property rights in land and taxes to landlords whereas in others it assigned them directly to cultivators or non-landlords. Although Banerjee and...

In contrast to the conventional wisdom, real estate activity in the aggregate is not disfavored by the 1986 Tax Act. Within the broad aggregate, however, widely different impacts are to be expected. Regular rental and commercial activity will be slightly disfavored, while historic and old...

For well-diversified investors in depreciable real estate, the trading decision may be made with the sole objective of maximizing the property's depreciation tax shelter net of all capital gain taxes and transaction costs.This paper develops a dynamic programming model in which the optimal...

This paper studies the role of asymmetric information in commercial real estate markets in the U.S. We propose a novel and exogenous measure of information based on the quality of property tax assessments in different regions. Employing direct and indirect information variables, we find strong...

Property rights are the most fundamental institution in any society. They determine who has decision-making authority over assets and who bears the costs and benefits of those decisions. They assign ownership, wealth, political influence, and social standing. They make markets possible; define...

Tenancy has been a means for labor to advance their socio-economic condition in agriculture yet in Brazil and Latin America, tenancy rates are low compared to the U.S. and the OECD countries. We test for the importance of insecure property rights in Brazil on the reluctance of landowners to rent...

We present a conceptual framework to better understand the interaction between settlement and the emergence of de facto property rights on frontiers prior to governments establishing and enforcing de jure property rights. In this framework, potential rents associated with more exclusivity drives...