Property Tax Equalization Rates: Implications of Their Use in Tax Inequality Cases in the City of New York

A bstract . The New State Board of Equalization and Assessment annually determines for each taxing jurisdiction within the state, an estimate of the ratio of its assessed values to market values. The methods used in constructing such ratios are reviewed as well as the ways in which the ratios are used. Special emphasis is given to the use of the ratio by taxpayers in tax inequality or certiorari cases. Using data on New York City , it is estimated that maximum use of the ratio in such cases could lead to as much as a 22 percent reduction in the City's property tax base. As well, estimates are made of the redistributive effects across different property types in the city under the assumption that tax rates are increased to just offset the revenue effects of the tax base erosion. The most obvious effect is the increased burden on residential housing owner-occupiers.     

Absentee Ownership of Farmland and State and Local Tax Policy: Income Tax Promotes Absenteeism, But the Property Tax Can Be Used to Strengthen Family Farms

Abstract . The incentive effects of state and local tax policies in promoting or inhibiting the ownership of farmland by non-operators are evaluated. Previous research on the economic, social and environmental effects of absentee ownership is reviewed as well as evidence regarding the impact of tax laws on absentee owners versus owner-operators. The Federal tax laws, it is found, work to increase land prices, reduce entry into farming by young farmers, and increase absentee ownership. State income tax policies may reinforce these effects. Property tax policies, on the other hand, may counteract income tax laws by giving tax relief preferentially to owner-operators. Several modifications of property tax relief programs are suggested.     

Local Labour Markets and Theft: New Evidence from Canada

This paper provides causal evidence that labour market opportunities affect theft‐related crime rates in Canada. Synthetic panel data from 2007–2011 combine the Labour Force Survey and Uniform Crime Reports microdata. Low‐skill unemployment rates and corresponding crime rates are measured for age‐city‐specific groups of young males. IV estimates exploit the exposure of low‐skill employment to exogenous demand for exports to the US. Causal estimates of the elasticity of theft‐related crimes with respect to low‐skill unemployment range from 0.357 to 0.654. The use of aggregated unemployment rates appears to bias OLS estimates downward. IV estimates are found to mitigate this aggregation bias.     

Pennsylvania's Success with Local Property Tax Reform

A bstract Fifteen cities in Pennsylvania are pioneering an innovative approach to local tax reform that harnesses market incentives for urban renewal .
Opting for the so-called "two-rate" or "split-rate" property tax , these cities are lowering taxes on buildings, thereby encouraging improvements and renovations , while raising the tax on land values, thus discouraging land speculation . The resulting infill development as indicated by increased building permits means downtown jobs , efficient use of urban infrastructure, an improved housing stock, and less urban sprawl .
Cities in other states are poised to follow Pennsylvania's example.     

Subjective and objective evaluations of teacher effectiveness: Evidence from New York City

A substantial literature documents large variation in teacher effectiveness at raising student achievement, providing motivation to identify highly effective and ineffective teachers early in their careers. Using data from New York City public schools, we estimate whether subjective evaluations of teacher effectiveness have predictive power for the achievement gains made by teachers' future students. We find that these subjective evaluations have substantial power, comparable with and complementary to objective measures of teacher effectiveness taken from a teacher's first year in the classroom.     

Multitasking,Information Disclosure,and Product Quality: Evidence from Nursing Homes

This paper uses a mandatory quality disclosure policy, the Nursing Home Quality Initiative (NHQI), to investigate how quality ‘report cards’ affect firms’ choices of multidimensional product quality. I show that after the introduction of NHQI: (1) scores of quality measures improve for the reported dimensions but deteriorate for the unreported ones; (2) there is no evidence that nursing homes decrease quality‐related inputs; (3) consumer demand becomes sensitive to changes in the NHQI quality measures. These findings are consistent with the multitasking hypothesis that firms may respond to information disclosure by reallocating effort across dimensions of quality without necessarily increasing overall quality.     

Forecasting the New York State economy: The coincident and leading indicators approach

Currently there are no reliable summary indicators of the economic and fiscal condition of states and localities. This deficiency has hampered the efforts of policy makers at the sub-national level to monitor changes in the economic environment and predict how those changes will impact the fiscal health of governments. This paper attempts to fill this analytical vacuum by providing summary indicators of economic and fiscal health for New York State. The models developed are based on the single-index methodology developed by Stock and Watson [(1991). A probability model of the coincident economic indicators. In K. Lahiri and G. H. Moore (eds.), Leading economic indicators: new approaches and forecasting records (pp. 63–85). New York: Cambridge University Press]. This approach allows us to date New York business cycles and compare local cyclical behavior with the nation as a whole. We develop a leading index of economic indicators which predicts future movements in the coincident indicator. The Stock and Watson approach is used to create a fiscal indicator which acts as a summary indicator of revenue performance for New York. In addition, we explore the ability of our economic indicator series to predict future changes in state revenues. We find that changes in the leading indicator series have significant predictive power in forecasting changes in our revenue index.     

Property Tax Assessment Reform: A Source of Local Revenue Windfall or Fiscal Retrenchment

Abstract . Researchers, state officials and taxpayers have often speculated that property tax assessment reform would lead to an increase in the overall tax burden. They contend that, given the large non-discretionary increase in the tax base during the reform, local governments can raise more resources without increasing the nominal tax rate. An empirical analysis of 74 towns in New York supports that position. However, two types of tax shifts that occurred in the wake of reassessment—interclass shifts of tax burden to the owners of residential propertieskovn the other property classes and intra-class shifts observed among residential property owners—have caused significant moderation in this pattern of local government behavior. Therefore, tax reform, while it bestows revenue windfalls upon some local governments, may require fiscal retrenchment by others.     

The Spatial Effects of Wage or Property Tax Differentials, and Local Government Choice between Tax Instruments

This paper considers the spatial effects (on wages, employment, and business capital as functions of location) of a localized differential in source-based wage tax rates or business property tax rates between (for example) a central city and the surrounding suburbs. A simple model is used in which business production uses only labor and capital inputs. Consumers have fixed residential locations but may commute to work. Wage and property tax differentials have effects that are similar in some ways but different in other ways. If given a choice, a local government would choose to set its business property tax rate equal to zero and use only a wage tax.     

中国税制结构和宏观税负影响因素分析——基于时间序列数据的分析

中国税制改革必然涉及到税制结构的调整和宏观税负的变动。根据设定的模型,文章对1994年-2008年中国税制结构和宏观税负影响因素进行了分析,发现有的经济变量既影响税制结构又影响宏观税负,而有的变量仅影响税制结构,对宏观税负则没有影响。     

The role of neighborhood characteristics in mortgage default risk: Evidence from New York City

Using a rich database of non-prime mortgages from New York City, we find that census tract level neighborhood characteristics are important predictors of default behavior, even after controlling for an extensive set of controls for loan and borrower characteristics. First, default rates increase with the rate of foreclosure notices and the number of lender-owned properties (REOs) in the tract. Second, default rates on home purchase mortgages are higher in census tracts with larger shares of black residents, regardless of the borrower’s own race. We explore possible explanations for this second finding and conclude that it likely reflects differential treatment of black neighborhoods by the mortgage industry in ways that are unobserved in our data.     

State history and the finance-growth nexus: Evidence from transition economies

In this paper, we analyze the growth effects of state history and financial development in transition economies. We show that accumulated experience with established statehood yields significant results and transforms the impact of finance on growth in East-Central Europe, Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. State history as a proxy for long-run ancestral exposure to institutions, political organization and centralization negatively affects the finance-growth nexus. We argue that a long state history is likely to generate extractive institutions that facilitate the provision of soft budget constraints and thereby impair the finance-growth nexus.     

房产税改革主要目标的选择——基于地方政府行为激励视角的分析

房产税改革是当下我国经济体制改革中的热点,但什么是房产税改革的主要目标迄今都没有一个统一的认识。目前国内关于房产税改革目标存在三个主流观点:1成为调控房价主要工具;2成为地方主体税种;3帮助实现收入分配公平。本文从地方政府利益诉求和行为激励的视角对上述三个目标进行了分析,认为在地方政府作为改革主体的前提下,成为地方主体税种应该是房产税改革长期内的主要目标,而其余两个目标都不可能成为房产税改革的主要目标。     

论物业税能否成为地方财政的主体税源

物业税征收的主要目的之一便是使之成为我国地方财政的主体税源,而这一目的能否实现取决于物业税的征收方案。针对不同物业税征收方案进行对比分析,得到的结论是仅合并房地产保有环节税种不足以使物业税成为地方财政的主要来源,将土地出让收入纳入物业税的征收,才有可能使物业税成为我国地方政府的主体税源。     

Property Tax and Housing Returns

This paper evaluates the effects of property tax on housing. While land tax and capital gains tax are widely used for curbing hoarding of land and speculation, its effectiveness is inconclusive. The imposition of a capital gains tax will impair the liquidity of property transaction, lower the rate of return on property investment, and reduce revenue from land sales which represents an important tax resource for the communities. This paper shows that a capital gains tax is capitalized into housing prices. Individuals tend to postpone the purchase of houses because of transaction taxes. Using an impulse response function, we show that a transaction tax has a dynamic negative impact on housing returns. While this paper focuses on Hong kong, for the purpose of comparison Singapore and Taiwan are also discussed.     

The income redistribution effects of Medicaid: Application in New York State

The efficacy of Medicaid as an income redistribution mechanism among New York State counties was examined to determine tthe degree of income shifting from higher to lower income counties. A sample of 21 counties, grouped into four discrete income classes according to 1970 per capita income was taken.Costs and expenditures (attributed to Medicaid) were allocated over all counties, adjusting for federal and state aid transfers. The data were tabulated for each of the 21 counties and six key ratios (including: Medicaid expenditures per authorized recipient, etc.) were developed as measures of income distribution.The impact of Medicaid was tested using two independent statistical techniques, goodness of fit and pooled comparisons between each pair of means for each ratio. Results indicated that no appreciable shift in income from high to low counties existed. Medicaid failed 45 of 72 mean difference tests, and the true distribution of costs and expenditures across income classes did not differ significantly from a uniform distribution in 77.7% of the cases.The results indicate that the mandated funding structure of Medicaid impinges more severely on poorer counties. Lack of an adequate health care infra-structure may seriously limit the ability of lower income counties to provide care even with Medicaid covering a large share of medical costs.