Assessing economic instruments to steer urban residential sprawl,using a hedonic pricing simulation modelling approach

Over the past centuries, cities have undergone major transformations that led to global urbanization. One of the phenomena emerging from urbanization is urban sprawl, defined as the uncontrolled spread of cities into undeveloped areas. The decrease in housing prices and commuting costs as well as the failure to internalize the real costs associated with natural land, led to households moving-out into the urban fringe – resulting in fragmented, low-density residential development patterns that has multiple negative impacts. Awareness for this problem has fed the need for the implementation of effective policies against urban residential sprawl – a subject that has received considerable attention in literature, albeit little attention has been given to economic incentive instruments. Hence, the objective of this paper is to assess the effectiveness of different economic instruments in steering urban residential sprawl – assessing property taxes, land taxes and public transport subsidies. To this end, the Sustainable Urbanizing Landscape Development (SULD) model is used and adapted, and a case study is provided for the medium-sized City of Aveiro in central Portugal. Results show that a flat property tax and a public transport subsidy for low and middle-income households are the most efficient instruments, leading to a decrease in urban residential area, living space and housing quantity as well as an increase in real estate values. On the other hand, a land tax results in insignificant changes in urban residential development patterns.     

Alcohol Tax,Price–Quality Proxy and Discounting: A Reason Why Alcohol Taxes May Rebound

The increasing concern about the external costs of alcohol consumption has often led economists and policy‐makers to advocate taxes to internalise the social costs and target consumption. However, in certain markets for alcoholic drinks – particularly wine – price is not only a cost but also an indicator of quality, guiding consumer choice. There is, perhaps, a higher probability of ex post satisfaction with products at higher prices in a market with potential adverse selection. The price–quality proxy interacts with discounts, where the full price of the product before discount (referred to as the External Reference Price in the marketing literature) is used as a quality reference. This study shows that an alcohol tax in the presence of discounting may increase the perceived value of the product, and therefore persuade consumers to prefer the purchase of more expensive wines with the highest discount. As a consequence, consumers could favour products with higher alcohol content – which contradicts the objectives of the policy. Consequently, for an alcohol tax to be effective discounting of alcoholic beverages (in particular, wine) should be regulated to avoid the policy backfiring.     

The effectiveness of state preferential property tax programs in conserving forests: Comparisons,measurements, and challenges

Forest property taxes have been identified as one of the major driving forces behind forest loss and parcelization. Among various policy alternatives for reducing the burden of forest property taxes on landowners, preferential property tax programs have been widely used across states. Existing research has mostly focused on individual property tax programs, particularly those based on current use valuation, while little has been done to document, analyze and compare programs across states. By examining survey data from state preferential property tax program administrators across the United States, this paper describes the commonalities and differences among states regarding their preferential property tax programs, provides a preliminary understanding of the relationship between state preferential property tax policy and trends in private forest conditions, and identifies issues related to the effectiveness of state preferential property tax programs and private forest land management and conservation. Our analysis revealed three fundamental disconnects: (1) Program attributes that were previously considered to be important for preferential property tax programs to be effective in retaining forest land and fostering management did not consistently correlate with program effectiveness as viewed by the administrators of these programs; (2) These program attributes did not consistently correlate with actual program effectiveness as measured at the state level by forest trend indicators used in this study (i.e., change in private forest land cover, change in average size of private forest holdings, extent to which private forest land is being actively managed); and (3) The self-assessed program effectiveness did not consistently correlate with actual program effectiveness, either. The various ways in which the effectiveness of preferential property tax programs is defined and measured contribute to explaining these disconnects. It is particularly important for researchers and policy makers to be explicit about how they define and measure effectiveness and the scale on which they conduct their analysis before assessing and comparing programs or suggesting improvement strategies.     

Taxing Snack Foods: Manipulating Diet Quality or Financing Information Programs?

This paper investigates consumers' likely response to a proposed tax on snack foods that addresses public health issues generated by rising U.S. obesity rates. We estimate demands for particular snack foods and show they are price inelastic after accounting for quality variation. We calculate impacts of a range of ad valorem taxes on the demand for salty snack food. The impacts on dietary quality are small, and negligible at the lower tax rates. If taxes were earmarked for funding information programs, as several proponents suggest, taxes would generate a revenue stream the public health community could use for nutrition education.     

Farm-scale ecological and economic impacts of agricultural change in the uplands

Recent decades have witnessed substantial losses of biodiversity in Europe, partly driven by the ecological changes associated with intensification of agricultural production. These changes have particularly affected avian (bird) diversity in marginal areas such as the uplands of the UK. Future trends for upland birds will likely be impacted by changes in agricultural support regimes, such as those currently envisaged in on-going reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy. We developed integrated ecological-economic models, using seven different indicators of biodiversity based on avian species richness and individual bird densities. The models represent six different types of farms which are typical for the UK uplands, and were used to assess the outcomes of different agricultural futures. Our results show that the impacts of these future agricultural scenarios on farm incomes, land use and biodiversity are very diverse across policy scenarios and farm types. Moreover, each policy scenario produces un-equal distributions of farm income changes and gains and losses in alternative biodiversity indicators. This shows that generalisations of the effects of policy and pricing changes on farm incomes, land uses and biodiversity can be misleading. Our results also suggest that a focus on umbrella species or biodiversity indicators (such as total species richness) can miss important compositional effects.     

Determining the economic gains from regulation at the extensive and intensive margins

Among the second-best approaches for the regulation of pollution,little attention has been paid to the distorting effect of intensivemargin policies on the extensive margin. This article shows,within a dynamic framework, that regulation of the intensivemargin has to be complemented by regulation of the extensivemargin. Depending on the elasticity of the pollution functionwith respect to nitrogen use, the appropriate regulation atthe extensive margin is zero, a tax or a subsidy. We show empiricallythat combining a nitrogen tax with land-use taxes is about 18per cent more cost efficient than a nitrogen tax alone and 58per cent more efficient than off-site abatement in the formof groundwater treatment.     

A systematic framework of location value taxes reveals dismal policy design in most European countries

Location values have long been recognized as an attractive instrument to raise municipal revenues. First, they increase fiscal efficiency and equability compared to traditional property taxes. Second, they can be used to enhance sustainable urban planning. The question of how to design a location value tax has long been discussed in various strands of literature, but there are few efforts to create multidisciplinary approaches. This lack of reconciliation hampers the discussion on optimal designs that includes all economic, social and environmental considerations. Here we combine literature on public finances, urban economics and value capture with that of sustainable urban planning to narrow this gap. We develop a framework to assess the design characteristics of location value taxes from a sustainability perspective, and apply this framework to assess current practices in Europe. The analysis reveals severe shortcoming in policy design in most European countries, although Denmark provides a more promising example. Nonetheless, location value taxes have a high potential for improving sustainable urban planning.     

Taxes and quality: A market–level analysis

A conventional assumption of product homogeneity when the commodity of interest is actually heterogeneous will lead to errors in an analysis of the incidence of policies, such as taxes. In this article, an equilibrium displacement model is used to derive analytical solutions for price, quantity, and quality effects of ad valorem and per unit taxes. The results show how parameters determine the effects of tax policies on quality. The potential for tax–induced distortions in quality, and the distributive consequences of those distortions, are illustrated in a case study of the market for Australian wine.     

Agricultural Taxation in Canada: An Overview and Assessment

This paper provides an overview of tax policy issues that arise with the taxation of the Canadian agricultural sector. The scope of the paper encompasses the federal income tax, the goods and services tax (GST), payroll taxes, provincial sales taxes, provincial and municipal property taxes, and excise taxes. The paper focuses primarily on measures that apply only to farmers or, in a few instances, to small business owners. The paper identifies numerous areas where additional in-depth research is required and some of the considerations that should be addressed in such analyses.     

Measuring the Recreational Value of Open Space

We develop aggregate measures of the recreational value of types of open space when data on individual site visitation are not available. Our procedure accounts for both the allocation (between the different types of open space) and participation (total number of trips) decisions. The procedure is applied to estimate the recreational value of three types of open spaces (beaches, urban parks and national parks) in Israel.     

The State of Resource Taxation in Australia: ‘An Inexcusable Folly for the Nation’?

This article discusses the principal claims made for the Resource Rent Tax (RRT) by Garnaut and Clunies-Ross (1975, 1979) relating to its efficiency and potential for generating tax revenue relative to other forms of resource taxation, and also their concern about the greater uncertainty of these revenues. An analysis of the risk-return trade-off associated with a shift from ad valorem royalties to an RRT finds this shift to be worthwhile. Estimates are also provided of the foregone tax revenue from the North West Shelf associated with the use of ad valorem royalties rather than the RRT.     

房地产税、地方公共支出对房价影响——全国及区域层面的面板数据分析

研究目的：分析中国房地产税、地方公共支出对房价的影响。研究方法：计量经济模型。研究结果：（1）中国房地产税对房价有抑制作用,而地方公共支出对房价有促进作用,两者对房价的净影响为正;（2）房地产税对房价影响存在显著的区域差异,且各房地产税种对房价影响不尽相同;（3）地方公共支出对房价的影响也存在显著的区域差异,东部地区大于中、西部地区。研究结论：（1）房地产税收和地方公共支出预算相互配套的政策组合能有效调控房地产市场。（2）中国房地产税对房价的调控能力不强,应改革现行的房地产税制,开征物业税。     

碳税与碳税政策分析

近年来,随着全球自然灾害的频发,气候环境问题被越来越多的人们所重视。而CO2等温室气体的排放导致气候变化也逐渐成为公认的事实。各国在制定经济发展政策时必然面临巨大的气候变化挑战。纵观世界范围,当前通过市场机制控制温室气体排放的途径,不外乎分为两类:排放额的控制及排放物价格的控制。前者主要表现为建立碳排放市场发展碳排放交易体系;而后者主要表现为碳税的征收。在理论上,碳税通过发挥其控制和激励两大功能,通过经济手段减少CO2的排放;但在实际执行过程中同时也必须考虑如何降低征收成本,加强监管力度以及解决信息不对称等不可避免的问题。文章在学习参考国内外学者关于碳税政策研究的基础上,论述了碳税政策的理论基础、执行过程以及税收收入的分配状况,并分析该政策的利弊得失。     

The North American horticultural industry and the risk of plant invasion

We develop a monopolistic competition model of the horticultural industry and estimate the resulting profit function with U.S. and Canadian industry data. Combining the results with a hazard analysis of the characteristics of exotic plants introduced in North America, we explore optimal tax simulations for internalizing the risk and costs of a potential plant invasion. If the share of the exotic plant sales in final profits is large, then the resulting annual fee will be high, discouraging the expansion of the nursery industry. However, the annual revenues could fund efforts to mitigate the damages resulting from any accidental plant invasion.     

The Effects of a Federal Flat Tax on Agriculture

This study examines the impact of a federal flat tax on agriculture by determining the tax liability under the current and flat tax systems using actual farm records. The study considers the linkages between agriculture and the rest of the economy by examining the impact of a flat tax on interest rates and capital investment and how those changes would affect agriculture. Results indicate that roughly 63% of agricultural producers would benefit from a flat tax in terms of lowering taxes paid. Under the flat tax, larger farms and more profitable farms would be relatively better off.     

土地税费政策参与宏观调控的实践研究

通过分析耕地占用税、城镇土地使用税、土地增值税、新增建设用地有偿使用费（简称新增费）、土地闲置费等土地税费政策参与宏观调控实践效果,反应出我国土地税费政策参与宏观调控过程中存在税制结构不尽合理、土地取得环节税负偏低、保有环节征税范围过窄、流转环节税费政策实施难度大等问题。对策建议：优化土地税制设计,加强调控作用;在土地取得环节实行差别化税额标准;提高土地保有环节的税负;在土地流转环节加强税费征管。     

Tax reform and the natural resource industries

Tax reforms passed by Federal Parliament in June 1999 include rationalising indirect taxes, a tax mix change, and a smaller fiscal surplus. The impact or first-round effects on the natural resource industries indicate large gains. Important second-round reactions, particularly a real currency appreciation, erode most of, and in some cases more than all of, the first-round gains. A complete assessment requires the use of general equilibrium models.     

论取消刚性矿业增值税改征柔性税的必要性

刚性矿业增值税即矿产品销售增值税约占采掘业广义矿业税费的2/3,导致经济开采边际工业指标上升。现行矿业增值税的副效应是既不能合理利用矿产资源,又不能激励矿业健康投资,还不能有效维护矿产资源所有者经济权益。矿业增值税变成矿业税费金改革的拦路虎,必须尽快取消并改征柔性税(费/金)。文章着重从六个方面对取消刚性的矿业增值税改征其它柔性矿业税(费/金)的必要性进行了论述。     

森工企业税费的问题及建议

通过对西藏林芝地区森工企业的调查,针对森工企业木材税费高,各种税费约占销售价的４９％,费大于税,不合理不合法费多,征管方式单“等问题,本文结合实际提出了进一步完善林业税费收取的若干建议。并指出国家及地方政府应适当采取扶持政策,森工企业应进一步加强内部管理,银行应适当让利,企业可逐年扭亏增盈,达到三年脱困的目标。     

TAXES,INVESTMENT INCENTIVES AND THE COST OF AGRICULTURAL INPUTS

This paper examines the effects of taxes and investment incentives on relative capital/labour costs on farms of different sizes. Income tax relief reduces the cost of purchased non-capital inputs to farmers, while investment incentives reduce the cost of capital items. A framework is developed for calculating the relative magnitudes of these effects and it is shown that capital costs have been reduced relative to labour costs throughout the post-war period in the U.K. and on large farms (paying a higher tax rate) more than on small farms.