If you have an interest in land value taxes and Georgism, you might have come across the acronyms ATCOR - “All taxes come out of rents” - and EBCOR “Excess burdens come out of rents”.
Sounds like ultimately this argument reduces to the idea that all rents flow to non-replicable factors (whether land, non-replicable skills, or enforced monopolies) and everything else is subject to perfect competition and there are no extractable rents? I mean, is that particularly controversial as a high-level model of an economy?
That sounds right to me, Benjamin. Nice characterisation.
I don't think it's controversial. It just wraps up existing ideas of tax incidence and factor mobility in a memorable way. I guess I'm not sure what to do with this idea other than hold it in my head as an organising principle.
The idea of public goods and income growth feeding into rents is basically identical. We talked about that a bit, though it doesn't have a specific name (a colleague says "land takes the gains").
I think that’s basically the underlying concept at play here. It shouldn’t be controversial. Just wanted to think through whether there was nugget of wisdom that was missing from my thinking or whether ATCOR just captures a more general pattern in economy that fits with existing ideas.
Sounds like ultimately this argument reduces to the idea that all rents flow to non-replicable factors (whether land, non-replicable skills, or enforced monopolies) and everything else is subject to perfect competition and there are no extractable rents? I mean, is that particularly controversial as a high-level model of an economy?
That sounds right to me, Benjamin. Nice characterisation.
I don't think it's controversial. It just wraps up existing ideas of tax incidence and factor mobility in a memorable way. I guess I'm not sure what to do with this idea other than hold it in my head as an organising principle.
The idea of public goods and income growth feeding into rents is basically identical. We talked about that a bit, though it doesn't have a specific name (a colleague says "land takes the gains").
I think that’s basically the underlying concept at play here. It shouldn’t be controversial. Just wanted to think through whether there was nugget of wisdom that was missing from my thinking or whether ATCOR just captures a more general pattern in economy that fits with existing ideas.