Excess Burden of the Property Tax: the Open Jurisdiction Case

Abstract

This article derives the general expression for the excess burden of the property tax in an open jurisdiction. The resulting expression corresponds to the loss of revenues resulting from the decline in structures and from contraction of city size. Also, it appears that if the land is municipally owned then there is no case for the imposition of the property tax. Simulations reveal that the marginal excess burden to revenue ratio rises exponentially and is sensitive to parameters like income level, nature of housing preferences, technology, and so on.