IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ire/issued/v04n012001p95-117.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax Policies and Residential Mobility

Author

Abstract

Governmental tax policies have direct consequences for public spending and the distribution of wealth among a country’s population. But unintended consequences may also occur as a result of the design of those policies. We illustrate the potential impact of such unintended consequences by analyzing differences in home ownership mobility in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts that appear to result from the distinct differences in the design of real estate tax polices across these states. California’s Proposition 13, which became law in 1978, limits the increase in real estate taxes to a maximum of 2% in any given year regardless of home value appreciation. With home value appreciation, Proposition 13 creates sizeable disincentives to move. The evidence from an analysis of single family home sales records in California, Illinois, and Massachusetts indicates that California’s homeowners are significantly less mobile than their counterparts in Illinois and Massachusetts. The lower mobility was clearly not intended by the passage of Proposition 13, though its impact on society is potentially very significant. We recommend that countries in the process of developing tax systems for residential real estate ownership (such as China, the countries of the former USSR, and many countries in Africa) take account of such originally unintended consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Hoven Stohs & Paul Childs & Simon Stevenson, 2001. "Tax Policies and Residential Mobility," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 4(1), pages 95-117.
  • Handle: RePEc:ire:issued:v:04:n:01:2001:p:95-117
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.gssinst.org/irer/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2001-Vol-4-No-1-Tax-Policies.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cheung, Ron & Cunningham, Chris, 2011. "Who supports portable assessment caps: The role of lock-in, mobility and tax share," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 173-186, May.
    2. Ayşe İmrohoroğlu & Kyle Matoba & Şelale Tüzel, 2018. "Proposition 13: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 24-51, April.
    3. Nada Wasi & Michelle J. White, 2005. "Property Tax Limitations and Mobility: The Lock-in Effect of California's Proposition 13," NBER Working Papers 11108, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. John Deskins & William Fox, 2008. "Measuring Behavioral Responses to the Property Tax," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0816, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    5. Mark Hoven Stohs & Yun W. Park, 2007. "Residential Stability or Rational Bubble: Proposition 13 in Southern California," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 10(1), pages 26-47.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    California; Real Estate Tax; Residential Mobility; Unintended effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L85 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Real Estate Services

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ire:issued:v:04:n:01:2001:p:95-117. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: IRER Graduate Assistant/Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.gssinst.org/gssinst/index.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.