Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Land economics / Richard T. Ely

Collection:: Economics Books

LAND ECONOMICS 129 of the utilization of land in agriculture have more than offset the growth of population. This has in general been true with respect to the world as a whole, and this is one of the causes of agricultural distress. In Chicago and in New York City great attention has been paid to very high land values, while little attention has been paid to declining and low land values. The prepossession of economists, and for that matter the general public, is seen in the frequent use of the term unearned increment with but little use of the term unearned decrement. We simply do not know the facts that we should know. A vast amount of research is needed to give us an adequate knowledge of the facts. We do know, however, that decrements are great and significant, as well as frequently disastrous. At a meeting of the Chicago Regional Planning Association held about two years ago one of the speakers stated that in his belief decrements in land values in Chicago in recent years had equaled increments in land values. The present writer would be inclined to doubt if that would hold good just now. But here again we do not know the facts. We do know that there are many attractive towns and cities in the country where, as the saying is, one can scarcely give away land, and where it will not yield what it has cost to bring it to its present state of ripeness for utilization. The term ripening costs in land utilization is new. It cannot be found in any treatise on general economics, and yet it is something of great significance both in theory and in practice and unquestionably must modify more or less the popular ideas in regard to the income or rent of land. Ripening costs which are a common feature of business generally have not been thoroughly analyzed with respect to land. Broadly conceived, ripening costs occur when land is ripening from one use to a higher use, for it takes time to change from one use to another. They consist of expenditures made, or income sacrificed, during this period. If the holder of the land is a private individual, the costs are in the form of taxes, special assessments, and interest foregone, which must be paid or sacrificed even when there is no income from the land. These costs of ripening use are particularly significant in the case of land because of the large investment and longer period of time required to change from one use to another.

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