Joseph Stiglitz
Nobel laureate economist who formalized the Henry George Theorem and has repeatedly argued that land and rent are the proper base for taxation.
Overview
Joseph Stiglitz (b. 1943) is an American economist, winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize, and former Chief Economist of the World Bank. Though not a self-described Georgist, his work provides some of the strongest mainstream theoretical support for land value taxation.
The Henry George Theorem
In the late 1970s Stiglitz formalised what is now called the Henry George Theorem: under optimal conditions, the aggregate land rent of a community exactly equals optimal spending on public goods, so a tax on land rent can fund those goods completely. His "The Theory of Local Public Goods" (1977) and Arnott & Stiglitz (1979) are the canonical statements.
Contemporary Advocacy
Stiglitz has continued to argue that taxing land and rents — rather than labour and capital — improves both efficiency and equity, notably in his 2014 Roosevelt Institute white paper Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity, which targets rent-seeking as a central economic problem.
See Also
Sources
- Arnott & Stiglitz (1979), "Aggregate Land Rents, Expenditure on Public Goods, and Optimal City Size," QJE — wiki summary
- Joseph Stiglitz (2014), Reforming Taxation to Promote Growth and Equity, Roosevelt Institute. PDF