Author: Philip Lane

Details here.

Jamie Smyth reviews the new book by Donal Donovan and Antoin Murphy here.

IMF survey paper here.

Summary: The tax on immovable property has been characterized as probably the most unpopular among tax instruments, in part because it is salient and hard to avoid. But economists continue to emphasize the virtues of the property tax owing to its relatively low efficiency costs, benign impact on growth, and high score on fairness. It is, therefore, generally considered to be underutilized in most countries. This paper takes stock of the arguments for using real property taxation, and presents an updated data-set for high-and middle income countries to illustrate its use. It also reflects the renewed and widespread interest in property tax reform globally, and discusses the many policy and administrative issues that must be carefully considered as prerequisites for successful property tax reform.

The June issue of Finance&Development is here.  It includes a profile of Carmen Reinhart here.

Details here.