Episode 110: Housing and the Land-Value Tax

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Recent estimates are that the United States has a shortage of housing volume of 4-7 million homes. A problem of that scale doesn’t happen overnight and involves decades of neglect and inaction. With the chronic lack of housing likely to be a major issue for the foreseeable future, public policy experts have been brainstorming about potential solutions, and a few have dusted off an idea that’s older than the Republic: a tax on the value of land without regard to the buildings and other property improvements on it. Mark and Joe trace the history of the land-value tax, the difficulty of implementing it, and whether it can be part of the solution to our housing crisis. (Recorded April 18, 2025.)