The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 102659555X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-82920

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fisher, Irving http://d-nb.info/gnd/118533541

Title:: The nature of capital and income

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Macmillan Company

Year of publication:: 1923

Scope:: XXI, 427 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2019

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part III. Capital and income

Collection:: Economics Books

222 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmar. XIII rapidly, it may happen that in certain quarters, although the present use for dwelling purposes is more important, in a few years the locality will cease to be a residence quarter and the land will be needed for business purposes. In such cases, it may “pay” to keep the land out of present use en- tirely and reserve it until the city has grown so as to make it profitable to erect a business block. If the land were now encumbered with a dwelling, either the possibility of its subsequent use for business purposes would be cut off, or the profit from its conversion to those purposes would be impaired by the prior destruction and waste of the dwelling. Under such circumstances it would usually happen that speculators would buy up and hold the land. The manner in which the gain presents itself to them is simply as a pro- spective rise in value from the growth of the city; they therefore buy the land to sell it later at a higher price. Such a speculator is commonly regarded as keeping land “out of use.” He is, however, only deferring the use, and, if he has foresight, is no more to be condemned than the wise speculator on the wheat exchange, whose work, as is well known, operates to conserve the supply of wheat. The speculator thus tends to bring about the best utilization of the land in the sense that, out of several alternative income streams which the land might be made to yield, that one is selected which possesses for him the maximum present value. In general it is probable that the best uses of the land for the public also are found in this way. The latter con- clusion does not, however, absolutely follow from the former, since the “best” uses are not necessarily those which have the greatest market value; but those who would prevent all land speculation will at least need to adduce other arguments than that speculation “keeps land out of use,” before they have proven their case; for wise land speculation means simply the discriminating choice, out of a number of uses, of that use or series of uses which affords to-day the greatest present value.

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