Land Rent as a Function
of Population Growth
Harry Gunninson Brown
[Reprinted from the Journal of Political Economy,
Vol. 34, No. 3 (June, 1926), pp. 274-288]
I. IMPLICATIONS OF THE CLASSICAL THEORY OF RENT
The rent of land is commonly explained as a consequence of increasing
population operating in a world handicapped by a "law of
diminishing returns." It is supposed that the better land tends
to be used by preference but that, as population increases, the
greater crowding of this land lowers the marginal product of labor --
or of labor and capital -- to such a point that it becomes worth while
to bring into use poorer land. Thereupon the better land, since there
is not enough to go around except by undesirable crowding, comes to
have a scarcity value, i.e., comes to yield rent.
It is perhaps partly on the basis of this conception of rent that
some economists have been inclined to view with unfriendly eyes the
contention that rent, as a social product, should be absorbed by the
state and that in land, as a gift of nature, every citizen should have
an equal right (to be realized by the social appropriation of rent).
Nature is niggardly, they would probably say. With increasing
population the amount of land becomes relatively inadequate. Land is
not something which nature offers in sufficient amounts for all, but
something of which at least a part of mankind -- if population becomes
too large -- cannot have enough.
If, indeed, land rent comes into existence only as the marginal
product of labor (or of labor and capital) is lowered, then this rent,
so far from being a social product, might, in a fairly plausible
sense, be said to be no product at all. As numbers increase, the land
yields no more per person, but less. The new hands, along with the new
mouths, are not only not a blessing to those already on the earth but,
if rights to the earth must be divided equally, a curse.
To illustrate, suppose an island capable of supporting in comfort ten
couples with two children each, or forty persons. If two of the
couples have, each, twelve children (and the other eight, two each),
so that, in the next generation, there are twenty couples instead of
ten, and if rights to the use of the land must be redivided equally,
then these two couples have, by their excess of offspring, brought
serious injury to the children of the other eight couples as well as
to their own.
II. IS A SUFFICIENCY OF LAND IN ANY SENSE A PRODUCT OF
FORETHOUGHT?
Society, however, is at present so organized, at least in
considerable degree, that thriftlessness and lack of forethought
involve loss primarily to those who are thus thriftless and to their
children and not, except incidentally and indirectly, to others. If a
couple fail to save, it is their children and not the children of
those who do save whose fortunes are small. If in some families the
children are numerous it is the children of these families who must
suffer because of the smallness of the parts into which their family
estates must be divided.
The advocates of relatively increased land-value taxation, of whom
the writer of this paper counts himself one, desire to make the
proportioning of income to the efficiency, thrift, and forethought of
the individual or the family more exact than it now is, rather than
less so. Might not the social appropriation of a land rent brought
into existence solely by a lowering of the marginal productivity of
labor and capital be inconsistent with this ideal? May there not be a
sense in which, in a country tending to undue crowding and a lowered
margin of labor productiveness, a sufficiency of land, like capital,
is the product of thrift or forethought? And may it not be said that,
if the land supply is inadequate, a low-birth-rate family in effect
produces land for its members of succeeding generations, by keeping
down the number of those who must use the land?
No denial is here intended of the contention which may thus be made
that land may be scarce in relation to population and that, under such
circumstances, if rights to land are divided equally, high-birth-rate
families reduce the birthright, in land, of the children of all other
families. So far from denying this contention, the present writer,
though decidedly favorable to increased land-value taxation, would be
inclined to insist upon it and has elsewhere[1] done so, though
briefly and, perhaps, inadequately.
Let us carefully consider the problem in the light of the economic
theory of wages and of the rent of land. To simplify our exposition we
may leave interest on capital out of account. Let us suppose, first,
plenty of land on which the labor of one man can produce, in a season,
1,000 bushels of wheat. An individual whom we may designate as X has
possessed himself of a piece of this land sufficiently large for his
needs. At the beginning, the land does not bear economic rent. There
is plenty of land to be had, for all who desire it. But population
increases and land becomes relatively scarce. On the land owned by X,
while one man can produce 1,000 bushels, two could produce but 1,900,
three could produce 2,700, and four could produce 3,400. At the
beginning, X's wages are 1,000 bushels. There being plenty of land, no
part of the output is "imputable" to land. Or, as we have
above stated the matter, there is no rent. But with the increase of
population and the consequent crowding of land, a part of the product
becomes "imputable" to land and the part "imputable"
to the labor of any individual becomes less. Thus, if the crowding is
so great that other land than that belonging to X, of similar size and
quality, is cultivated by the labor of four persons and if this must
in general be the case in order that all of the population should be
employed, then wages cannot exceed 700 bushels2 or their money
equivalent. For wages must be low enough so that it is worth while for
employers to hire all available labor. Under these circumstances, the
rent of X's land would come to be 600 bushels. That is the amount "imputable"
to the land. For four persons working on that land could produce, on
our hypothesis,[3] 3,400 bushels; and yet each one of the persons, if
added to the labor working on the rest of the land in the community,
would not increase the product on such other land by more than 700
bushels, or, all four of them, by more than 2,800 bushels. X could
secure four men to work on his land for not to exceed 700 bushels
each, and could have 600 bushels left for himself as rent. Or he could
lease the land for 600 bushels to some other person who would work it,
with the aid of three employees. If X continued to hold and work the
land, he would hire either two or three men to help him, would pay
them about 700 bushels each, and would have 700 bushels for his own
labor, as such, plus 600 bushels which he could have got without
working, e.g., by leasing the land to another, and which should be
regarded as rent. (A total product of 3,400 with four men, including
X, wages 700 each, leaves 600 rent. A total product of 2,700 with
three men, wages 700 each, also leaves 600 rent. X would be
indifferent whether to employ the fourth man.) X receives, therefore,
if he works, a total income of 1,300 bushels. Since he is a landowner,
he has profited by the growth of the community and the rise of rent.
Prior to the population increase he could get only 1,000 bushels. His
wages, nevertheless, are lower than before, viz., 700 bushels instead
of 1,000. If the entire rent is appropriated by the community in
taxation he will not have profited but will have lost. For, in that
case, he will have to pay into the public treasury his 600 bushels of
rent, or their money equivalent, leaving him 700 bushels in wages
whereas previously his wages alone were 1,000 bushels. The increase of
population has reduced the earning power of his labor and the labor of
his descendants by 30 per cent. Might it not be argued that, in the
case of families which maintain a low birth rate, as, for example, the
peasant proprietors of France are said to do, in order that their land
be not too greatly subdivided, the incomes of these families should
not be thus reduced? Is it desired, we might be asked, that this
motive to the limitation of births should be weakened? Is it desired
that those who multiply quite without regard to economic consequences,
and their descendants, should, through taxation or otherwise, deprive
of the proportionate share which they would otherwise have of the
land, families which have restricted their birth rate and are in no
wise responsible for the overpopulation from which they are so made to
suffer? Yet, in the case of X and his descendants, half of the rental
yield of the piece of land owned by them could be taken in
taxation,[4] without leaving them any worse off because of the
population increase. X, or his son or grandson, would then have a
possible labor income of 700 bushels plus an income from rent of
300?the other 300 of the rent being taken as a tax -- or a total of
1,000, which would be equal to their labor income, or wages, prior to
the population increase.
But if we suppose that increase of population reduces the marginal
product of labor very much more slowly, then it becomes possible to
make out a case for public appropriation of the great bulk of rent
without anticipating any reduction of the incomes of land-owning
low-birth-rate families below what their labor formerly yielded. Thus,
suppose that, on X's land, a second worker could add 990 bushels to
the product, a third 980 bushels, and so on up to an eleventh, who
could add 900. If population became so great that, on the average,
eleven must be employed on such a farm as that of X, then wages must
be not in excess of 900. At such wages X would employ ten -- and,
possibly, eleven -- workers, including himself if he worked. Assuming
ten to be employed, the total output would be 9,500 bushels, total
wages would be ten times 900 or 9,000 bushels, and rent would be 500
bushels. Assuming eleven to be employed, the total output would be 900
greater, or 10,400 bushels, but the total wages would be eleven times
900 or 9,900 bushels, leaving the same net return or rent, viz., 500
bushels. In other words, the employer, whether X or some tenant of X,
will be on the margin of doubt whether to employ an eleventh man. But,
in this case, 400 bushels, or four-fifths of the rent, could be taken
in taxation while still leaving to X (or his son or grandson)[5] an
income of 1,000 bushels, made up of wages, 900 bushels, and rent, 100
bushels.
On the other hand, assuming the marginal product of labor to fall
very rapidly with increase of population, it could be shown that only
if a very small per cent of rent were taken in taxation could the
standard of living of the X family be prevented from falling.
Nevertheless, in general, some special tax could be imposed on land
rent or land value, without reducing the standard of living of
families like that of X, and this could be done even if land rent came
into existence only through a lowering of the marginal product of
labor with increasing population. We shall soon see, however, that
this is not, in any country of importance, the only cause of rent. And
there is reason to doubt whether, in countries so little crowded as
the United States, it is a cause of any considerable relative
importance.
III. WHEN LAND RENT IS CLEARLY AND WHOLLY A SOCIAL PRODUCT
It may be that conservatively minded readers, whose real reasons for
opposing anything which savors in the least of single tax are
altogether different from the consideration we have been discussing
and who, in fact, have never before thought of that consideration,
will be forthwith ready to grasp at it as a new justification for
their opposition. But the case for heavy increase of land-value
taxation remains sufficiently strong in spite of any argument which
can be drawn from the possibility of an inadequate land supply.
In the first place, the idea that rent results almost exclusively
from an increase of population which forces down the margin of
cultivation or production is erroneous. Overpopulation is, of course,
possible. There is, without doubt, a law of diminishing returns. But,
up to a certain point, depending upon the nature of the land, the type
of people composing the population, and the stage of the arts of
production, increasing numbers operate, not to decrease, but to
increase per capita product, even if resort must be had to poorer
land.
Thus, to illustrate, let us suppose the settlement of a territory in
which most of the land is of uniform productiveness on which a worker
of average efficiency, working with a given equipment of capital, can
turn out (as in our previous example) 1,000 units of product per year.
After a certain density of population is reached, however, it becomes
necessary either to work the land more intensively, with corresponding
diminution of per capita product, or to resort to poorer land on which
the productiveness of labor would have been, at first, only 900 units.
But the closer co-operation, better division of labor, etc.,[6] made
possible by the larger population may bring it about that, on the
900-unit land, 1,000 or more units could now be produced and that, on
what had been the 1,000-unit land, 1,100 units or more could be
produced. Under such circumstances, it certainly cannot be said that
those responsible for the increase of population have inflicted any
injury upon the rest of the community. On the contrary, the rent of
land is clearly a social product and not a differential due to
decrease of individual productivity at the margin. It is a net
addition to the output of industry, brought about by the increase of
population. Can there be any objection to regarding a value so
produced as a fit subject for special taxation?
The opinion that rent is largely, if not almost entirely, a social
product gains further support when we contemplate the case of city
land. Thus, the great rise in the rental value of the land of New York
City since its early days by no means signifies a corresponding
reduction of the marginal product of labor below what it would be were
population smaller. It may, indeed, be true that, assuming the
population in the rest of the United States and, possibly, in the rest
of the world, to be constant (and the stage of the industrial arts to
remain unchanged), an increased number of persons concentrated in New
York would bring decreasing proportionate returns. That the law of
diminishing returns applies to increase of numbers on city land is as
true as that it applies on agricultural land. But the virtues of city
land for industry are, in a peculiar degree, virtues due to situation.
And the situation of such land is, in large part, so far as it has
economic significance, a matter of its relation to the location of
other places and of the density of population of and types of industry
in these other places. If, therefore, the United States as a whole
grows in population, the number of persons whose services are wanted
in and about New York City to handle the larger import and export
trade of this larger population becomes larger. And the marginal
productivity of labor there may be, therefore, as great as or greater
than before, despite a larger local population. In short, if
population is most advantageously distributed within a country,
diminishing returns do not set in for any part of it until they set in
for the country as a whole. So if, with increasing population thus
advantageously distributed, the marginal productivity of labor in the
country as a whole is no less than if population were smaller, and if
the rent of land in and about New York City greatly increases,[7] this
increasing rent is clearly an addition to the output of industry and a
social product.[8] Is it undesirable that such a product should
contribute heavily to the expense of maintaining, through government,
favorable conditions for social life?
But it is not necessary, in order that increased population should
raise rent, that it should force resort to poorer land. It is not
necessary that the increased population force resort even to land
which, though not less productive than the better land previously was,
would be less productive were it not for the improved division of
labor, etc., consequent on the larger population. Suppose, for
example, an immense plain containing an indefinite amount of land of
equal quality. Population flows into it from outside and, little by
little, a large part of the land is appropriated and settled. So long
as any of this land remains unused, it cannot be said that increasing
population is forcing down the margin of production. Indeed, the
closer co-operation and the better division of labor conceivably
resulting from the increasing population may even raise the marginal
product of labor. But is it not, nevertheless, practically certain
that rent will arise on some of this land? For there will surely be
parts of the land which, as population increases and as roads and
railroads are constructed, will come to have special advantages of
situation as trading centers, centers of manufacturing, etc. The
increase of population will, then, clearly, raise rent, but will do so
by bring? ing out special advantages on part of the land, advantages
not previously existing, rather than by forcing production to a lower
level.[9] Is it not evident that, in such a case, rent is a social
product and that its appropriation for social uses is reasonable? The
growth of a city is, possibly, an advantage even to the owners of
marginal land, but it certainly confers a special advantage on those
whose near-by location enables them to reap exceptional returns from
supplying the city needs as to produce. It confers a still greater
advantage on those whose land comes to have value for distinctly urban
uses. The occasional settler who (or whose descendant) finds that his
land is in the center of a thriving city may become a millionaire as a
consequence of conditions to which his own contribution was negligible
if anything at all. In this case and, in general, in a country no more
crowded than the United States, land rent has probably grown much more
largely by the increase of the possibilities of special, often
supra-marginal, land, thus creating a differential between it and
marginal land, than by forcing cultivation to a lower margin. It
follows that any desire that we may feel to protect small landholders
who limit their families from being made to suffer through the general
increase of population need not prevent us from taking, in taxation,
most of the rental value of land, including that of mines and power
sites, and nearly all of the rental value, flowing from its situation,
of city land.
If population increased so as greatly to lower the margin of labor
productiveness, despite a system of land-value taxation that
discouraged speculative holding of good land out of use, then the
argument for regarding a part of land value as not really a social
product would have some merit. Possibly, in that case, there would be
something to be said for considering a certain value or rent per acre
as not socially produced and taxing only the surplus value or rent
above that. Or it might be better, lest speculative holding be
encouraged, to levy some tax even upon that low value per acre but to
have the full tax rate apply only to the surplus value.[10] But
whatever value per acre -- within any reasonable limits -- was so
chosen for no land-value tax or for a lower rate of tax, it is obvious
that nearly all of the value of city land would be a surplus above
this amount. And a very large part of the value of well-situated
agricultural land, even if the country were crowded, would be a
surplus above it.
But it is possible to go even farther and to assert that not only the
way population happens to settle but even the very expenditures and
improvements made by government operate unevenly so as to give some
land a differential advantage over other land and call rent into
existence. Surely rent is then a social product and to appropriate it
largely by taxation for the common benefit can hardly be regarded as
unreasonable.
IV. A PROBLEM OF PREVENTION DISTINGUISHED FROM A PROBLEM OF
DISTRIBUTION
It seems worth while to point out that we have, in this matter of the
effects of population changes and social development on land values
and on the marginal productivity of labor, two problems to deal with
rather than one. The first is a problem of prevention. The second is a
problem of distribution. That population should increase to such a
point as to lower per capita wealth-producing efficiency will probably
seem to most economists -- the present writer included -- undesirable.
Should such population increase occur, it may indeed be a matter of
dispute whether the rent so caused may best be taken, in whole or in
large part, by taxation, rather than that other wealth should be
heavily taxed. But it is to be preferred that such population increase
should not occur. The evil condition resulting from such population
increase, though the taxation of land rent may, perhaps, not
especially aggravate it, is not to be cured otherwise than by
restriction of immigration and by birth control.
So far, however, as population increase, public expenditures, and the
like, though without lowering the marginal productivity of labor below
what it would be with a smaller population, tend nevertheless to
increase rent, so far as land rent is thus clearly a social product,
the phenomenon in question is not undesirable but is, in itself,
desirable. Here our problem is one of distribution. The increase of
population has brought a more than proportionate increase of product
or, at least, a net addition to the product beyond the former marginal
output multiplied by the increase of producing labor units (or
composite labor and capital units). But this net addition to product
does not, in our system of private property, automatically distribute
itself among the public. On the contrary, the gain, or a considerable
part of it, goes with the ownership of certain pieces of land on which
production feels a differential impulse because of the increased
population, public improvements, etc. So far as marginal production is
increased, all producers share in the gain. But so far as differential
production on certain pieces of land is increased, the benefit is
confined to owners of land as such. And the question which here
naturally suggests itself is whether we wish so to levy taxes as to
distribute this surplus or special gain to all, through the medium of
public expenditure, or whether we wish the owners of land to receive a
special benefit in excess of what is received -- if any is received --
by other members of the society. The present writer, in the face of
this problem, can find only one reasonable answer, viz., that such a
differential gain should be taxed, and taxed, eventually, fairly close
to 100 per cent, for the advantage of the society whose creation it
mainly is.
V. IS THERE A CASE FOR SPECIAL LAND-VALUE TAXATION EVEN WHERE
RENT IS NOT A SOCIALLY PRODUCED NET ADDITION TO OUTPUT?
But there would be something to be said for the view that land should
be especially taxed even if population increase and social development
caused rent only by lowering the margin of production and decreasing
per capita income. It is true that in that case a high tax on land
might, as population increased and the marginal product of labor fell,
penalize the offspring of low- birth-rate families which have been
doing their part to keep population within the limits of available
good land, and might make the offspring of such families share to some
extent in the general poverty due to the action of others. We have
already seen, however,[11] that a part of rent so produced could be
taken without occasioning this unfortunate consequence. And do we not
also penalize the farsighted, in some degree, when we tax their
capital or the income from it? As a family's low birth rate may enable
the children to inherit, each, larger pieces of a landed estate, so
likewise it may enable the parents to save and to have for bequeathal
absolutely more capital and not merely more per child. The present
system of taxation, therefore, penalizes somewhat the thrift which is
contributed to by a low birth rate as well as thrift in general.
Furthermore, under the existing tax regime, many persons see clearly
that their taxes are heavier in proportion as they are more efficient
and more thrifty; while a tax on land rent, even if rent arose solely
from a lowering of the margin of labor production, could be seen to
penalize the farsighted, only by a process of more or less recondite
reasoning. And in a country where most of the users of land were
tenants anyhow, any such effect would be reduced to a minimum. That
land-value taxation would in any appreciable degree discourage
farsightedness may, therefore, be regarded as somewhat doubtful, and
that it would discourage farsightedness and thrift more than do our
present taxes may be regarded as, perhaps, still more doubtful.
Nevertheless, if, anywhere, rent arises almost solely from the forcing
down of the margin of production, the contention that nearly all of
rent should be taken in taxation and that nearly all of the required
revenues of the state should be so secured loses, in such a community
or country, much of its force.
At this point, attention ought, possibly, to be directed to certain
social consequences likely to flow from the taxation of land values
rather than improvements, commodities, incomes, etc. In the long run,
capital cannot be worth less than the cost of bringing it into
existence since otherwise people would not produce it. So while it is
doubtless true that a relatively useless piece of capital does not
have high value just because it may have had high cost, it is also
true that cost of production (or more nearly, perhaps, of duplication)
as well as usefulness are causally related to the value of capital.
But land has no cost of production.[12] Its value depends solely upon
its expected future rent. To reduce this rent by taxation tends to
lower the salable value of land in as great a proportion. Hence it
becomes easier for a poor man who is thrifty and ambitious to get a
start in life and to come to be an owner of land.
Some professional economists seem never to have grasped this point.
They are fond of objecting that the greater cheapness of land is
really no benefit to the poor man. The lower price of land, they say,
is no advantage, since it is a consequence of an increased tax on the
land. Though the poor man buys his land more cheaply, in the same
degree he pays higher taxes on it after he has bought it. The
increased taxes amount, it is claimed, to full interest on the saving
in purchase price. The poor man who was to be helped pays in taxes all
that he would have had to pay in interest on a mortgage.
But although the above seems to be a common view among professors of
economics who have accepted it from economists of the older generation
and who pass it from one to another as a sage comment, so that it has
come to be a traditional objection in the craft, nevertheless it is an
objection wholly without point. For it overlooks (not to mention
possibly less important considerations)[13] the very significant fact
that the levy of such taxes makes possible a corresponding reduction
of other taxes. Even if the lowering of the salable value of land no
more than balances the increased tax on the land -- and this is not
unqualifiedly true[14] -- still the reduction or removal of taxes on
the labor earnings, on the already accumulated capital, and on the
future improvements of the prospective purchaser of land is all clear
gain.
The truth is that to tax land values rather than improvements,
commodities, etc., would, for all future time, make the securing of a
competence easier for the ambitious poor. And it may be that such a
condition would tend, by opening the door of hope, to stimulate
forethought and to keep down the birth rate. The opportunities for the
economic rehabilitation of those who may suffer reverses, or of their
families, would be improved. Thus such a reform, though by no means a
panacea for all our economic ills, is, in certain respects, comparable
to the abolition of debt slavery and of imprisonment for debt and to
the establishment of bankruptcy laws.
VI. SUMMARY
In this discussion we have been confronted with the problem of the
relation of land rent to population and the bearing of this relation
on the justification of the exclusive or, at any rate, the special
taxation of land values. We noted, at the start, that rent is
frequently thought of as brought about solely by a lowering of the
marginal productivity of labor (or labor and capital) and as,
therefore, accompanied by a reduced per capita output. If and when
such a condition is the sole cause of rent, it may reasonably be
claimed that to take all of rent in taxation would subject
low-birth-rate families to as much deprivation from an inadequate land
supply as those high-birth-rate families which are responsible for
this inadequacy.
But it appeared, on further consideration, that the more intensive
use of land and the use of poorer land, resulting from increase of
population, may go along with more effective co-operation and division
of labor made possible by such increase, so that rent may arise
without any lowering of the marginal productivity of labor. It
appeared, also, that increased population frequently brings out
capabilities in favorably situated land, increasing the productivity
of such land absolutely, so making possible a rise of rent without
lowering the margin of labor and capital productiveness. And, further,
it appeared that the rise in the rent of special pieces of land is
often the consequence of governmental expenditures which bring a
special benefit to the owners of such land. In all these cases, rent
is clearly a social product and the taking of it in taxation for
social purposes seems intrinsically reasonable.
Finally, we turned back to the theoretically possible case where rent
arises solely from a lowering of the margin of production. We saw
that, although very heavy taxation of land rent or land values might,
in such a case, penalize the farsighted, yet our present system of
taxation also penalizes farsightedness and thrift. And we saw that
there are definite social gains from the taxation of land values that
are not securable from our present tax system. For the taxation of
land values correspondingly relieves the earnings of labor and the
capital accumulations of the thrifty and it makes land cheap and easy
to buy. It therefore opens the door of opportunity and hope to the
common man who is ambitious and thrifty and anxious to get a start in
life and acquire a competence.
The view is held by some economists that, although tariffs of long
standing may properly be lowered when the public realizes their
economically injurious consequences, and although other changes of tax
policy may properly be made, nevertheless it is unfair and improper
ever to change, no matter how gradually, in the direction of taxing
land values more and other things less. The purchaser of land, it is
held, does not buy merely a claim to its future rent subject to the
vicissitudes of such gradual changes in relative taxation as may
result from the progress of understanding and from changes in public
sentiment. On the contrary, he buys a claim to a future rent against
which the public must never discriminate in taxation by one iota. The
present writer does not hold this opinion and has presented at length,
elsewhere (
The Taxation of Unearned Incomes, Lucas Brothers, 1925), his
reasons for dissenting from it.
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES
- See Economic Science and
the Common Welfare (rev. ed., Columbia, Missouri: Lucas
Brothers, 1925), Part II, pp. 225-28.
- Of course it is to be
understood that a worker of superior efficiency may receive more.
For simplicity we are here assuming efficiencies to be equal.
- See figures earlier in
paragraph.
- In addition to any tax they
had previously paid.
- If willing to work.
- Perhaps, even, new inventions;
for it may be that the larger population will bring with it a
greater variety of ideas.
- Assuming, of course, no
corresponding decrease elsewhere.
- Nature plays this part in the
matter, however, viz., that the situation of New York City on a
great natural harbor is a condition without which the growth of
the interior population would not have made labor in the city so
productive as, in fact, it has.
- Cf., the author's book, Economic
Science and the Common Welfare (rev. ed.), Part II, pp.
228-29.
- See, however, the further
discussion in sec. V.
- Sec. H.
- For various minor
qualifications of this principle, see the writer's book, The
Economics of Taxation (New York: Holt, 1924), pp. 221-33.
- See the author's book, The
Taxation of Unearned Incomes (rev. ed., Columbia, Missouri:
Lucas Brothers, 1925), pp. 101, 154-56.
- Ibid.
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