Comments on: How Much is the U.S. Worth?

By: James James

James James — Mon, 11 May 2015 13:58:40 +0000

“Land taxes do depress land values”

Slight clarification: they depress land prices. A 100% land tax would depress land prices all the way to zero, but the land would still be just as valuable.

By: James James

James James — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 08:03:05 +0000

Today in London there’s a car park for sale in Mayfair (the most expensive location on the Monopoly board) for £100m: “Property experts believe that the half acre site… could be worth at least £500 million when fully developed.”

So that’s a billion pounds an acre in the most expensive part of London.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/bidding-war-for-londons-oldest-car-park-which-could-be-worth-500m-when-redeveloped-10206431.html

By: Richard Brookes

Richard Brookes — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 14:03:39 +0000

As a slight aside, I’m distrustful of aggregating market values of goods that are not for sale. (See this post for an explanation).

I remember from 20 years ago the claim that one park in Tokyo was worth more than all the land in California. That absurdity resulted from the absurdity of trying to estimate “what this thing would cost to buy if it was for sale, which it isn’t”

It’s fair enough to estimate the value of an aggregate of all the land in a state on other bases, such as productive capacity, but you can’t use market values if there is no market.

Going further off-topic, a similar point goes for the market capitalisation of a company. The share price x share issuance may be a reasonable estimate of the value of a company, but it does not imply that you can sell most or all of it for that price (if you own it), or that you can buy all of it for that price (if you don’t).

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 16:44:35 +0000

If those numbers looked off by three orders of magnitude, there’s a reason:

This post has been updated. Due to an error in the BEA paper, figures for the per-acre value of states were incorrect by a factor of 1,000. As a result, a previous version of the chart, “Sea to Shining Sea,” showed incorrect figures for the total value of land per state and the per-acre value.

(Mindlessly cutting and pasting them was still my fault though.)

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 16:31:57 +0000

Land taxes do depress land values and do not increase rents.

By: James James

James James — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 14:46:29 +0000

Remember that things like income tax depress land values. In a Georgist state with no other taxes, rents would go up and land would be worth much more. The state would still collect as much tax as it does now, but all from land.

By: James James

James James — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 14:43:59 +0000

I’d say off by three orders of magnitude. In central London it can get up to £100m/acre.

By: Borepatch

Borepatch — Sat, 25 Apr 2015 13:37:29 +0000

This can’t be right. $1000/acre in Washington D.C.? I remember in the 1980s, Columbia MD (just up the road from D.C.) was ~ $100,000/acre. Columbia is pretty nice, but it can’t be as expensive as Foggy Bottom.

As to $10/acre general cost, undeveloped woodland in *very* rural Georgia is going for 50 times that.

The numbers seem off by maybe two orders of magnitude.