Essays in public economics and financial macroeconomics

Abstract

The first chapter of the thesis is entitled A Brief History of Land Value Taxation in Economic Theory. The issue of land rents and their taxation through a land value tax (LVT) was as a hotly debated topic in economic theory since classical age and until the early twentieth century, when it mostly vanished as a research subject. I provide a brief history of the evolution of the concept of land value taxation in economic theory in order to understand the reasons why it fell out of favor as a research subject in the literature. I identify this outcome as being a consequence of developments both inside and outside academia. The second chapter is entitled Tax Housing or Land? Distributional Effects of Property Taxation in Germany. Despite its theoretical merits, Land Value Taxation is not a common policy instrument. One of the main reasons is uncertainty regarding its distributional impacts. Using a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents calibrated to an unique household level dataset of German homeowners in 2017, we assess the distributional effects of replacing a housing tax with a LVT. Our data shows the share of land value in property value is 33%, on average, with considerable household heterogeneity, both within and across regions, and within income levels. We add to the empirical literature by showing land values are more concentrated than property values, but, within regions, not as strongly correlated with income, making it less progressive than a standard property tax for homeowners. Our model is the first to allow for an efficiency-equity trade-off from the introduction of a revenue neutral LVT. Results from the model show the introduction of a LVT increases residential investment substantially, reducing housing rents and benefiting renters. It also leads to migration from urban regions, promoting regional convergence. Landowners with high land holdings lose, in general, but most other landowners across income levels benefit, especially in non-urban regions. Overall, introduction of a LVT increases welfare, despite a minor regressive tendency in urban regions for homeowners. The third chapter is entitled Credit Spirals: Spillovers between Firm and Household Borrowing in a Small Open Economy. The paper deals with an open economy model of financial crisis with sudden stops, but featuring both household and firm borrowing. So far, the literature has mostly ignored the effects of joint borrowing for financial stability. The model features occasionally binding borrowing constraints and shows how borrowing decisions in one sector can reinforce standard capital flows and increase the volatility of collateral asset through strategic complementarities, beyond what standard financial accelerator models would predict. These spillovers can lead to sharper reductions in borrowing and consumption during sudden stop events.