Draft:ATCOR

All Taxes Come Out of Rent (ATCOR), is a central concept to the heterodox Georgist school of political economy. The acronym was first introduced by Mason Gaffney in 1998:

"The meaning and relevance of ATCOR is that when we lower other taxes, the revenue base is not lost, but shifted to land rents and values, which can then yield more taxes."

The inverse of ATCOR is the Henry George Theorem (all public spending goes into rents) popularized by Joseph Stiglitz, and the function that complements ATCOR is EBCOR: Excess Burden Comes Out of Rent.

History

John Locke

While the term "ATCOR" was first referenced by Mason Gaffney, the concept was first mentioned by John Locke over three-hundred years prior. John Locke wrote in 1691:

"It is in vain in a Country whose great Fund is Land, to hope to lay the publick charge of the Government on any thing else; there at last it will terminate. The Merchant (do what you can) will not bear it, the Labourer cannot, and therefore the Landholder must: And whether he were best do it, by laying it directly, where it will at last settle, or by letting it come to him by the sinking of his Rents, which when they are once fallen every one knows are not easily raised again, let him consider."

The Physiocrats

The physiocrats focused extensively in their work on the productiveness of agriculture, developing their theories in the context of the agrarian economy of the Kingdom of France. It should also be noted that while François Quesnay believed that the agricultural economy was superior to the mercantile economy, his other physiocratic contemporaries did not see the same. Gaffney writes in his notes on the physiocrats in their relation to ATCOR:

"They did not view this tax shift as a real shift that would raise the tax burden on landowners, because they believed other kinds of taxes are shifted to landowners anyway. You can't squeeze blood out of a stone, they reasoned, so there is only one true taxable surplus, and that is rent, the Net Product of land. For an acronym, we will use ATCOR (All Taxes Come Out of Rent) for this Physiocratic doctrine of tax incidence. Mirabeau's Theory of Taxation, 1760, spelled it out."

Adam Smith

Mason Gaffney wrote in his 2007 paper that Adam Smith "deplored the 'indolence of landowners'' and referenced the concept from his physiocratic forebears:

"Adam Smith, a student of Turgot and Quesnay, deplored the “indolence of landowners” that keeps them from seeing the principle, for then they would see that they hurt themselves the most by shunting taxes off land and onto labor, capital, trade, and production. Taxes on useful activity are shifted to rents, he observed, and more: such taxes impose excess burdens that are also shifted to rents..."

Diagram No.4 from Ebenezer Howard's To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898), an early illustration of the concept later labelled as ATCOR.

Mason Gaffney

Gaffney was the first economist to give a name to the concept, labelling it in 1998 as ATCOR. Taxes on labor (wages) and capital (interest/normal-profit), he wrote, did not increase the size of the revenue pie, but took away from what would become rent's (land's Net Product) complete aggregate, consummating all of the potential taxable income within a locational jurisdiction.

in Gaffney's 1998 excerpt, The Physiocratic Concept of ATCOR, based on his previous lecture notes, he outlines the basic logic behind the economic concept:

"A. Land supply fixed, capital and labor elastic, demand elastic. The thesis that all taxes are shifted to landowners follows logically from two premises. One, after-tax interest rates are determined by world markets, so the local supply of capital is perfectly elastic at a fixed, after-tax rate. Two, labor has been reduced to so low a level that it cannot bear any more tax burden. Anyone may test the premises by observation."

Gaffney then highlights the history of economic thought behind the concept:

"B. Venerable tradition of ATCOR in the history of economic thought:

• Physiocrats, preceded by Locke and Vanderlint
• Adam Smith on “indolence of landowners”
• Paul Douglas; Bronson Cowan; Ebenezer Howard; David Bradford, et al., 1992 NTJ; Dick Netzer (with caveats);
• Others?"

Thirdly, Gaffney highlights later academic hostility to the concept:

"C. Muddying the waters of theory.

Forward shifting of property tax, a la Musgrave. This shift requires our assuming the tax is imposed on just one land use, usually housing, in one small jurisdiction. It is what Howard Jarvis seized on and used to promise tenants that lowering property taxes would automatically lower their rents, since property owners, as he put it, do “not pay one cent” in property taxes, but shift them all to tenants. As soon as Prop. 13 passed, rents shot upwards, and have never looked back except in particular micro-markets like cyclical Silicon Valley.

This is one result of displacing production theory by price theory in economic doctrines. In production theory you would assume elastic demand, and focus on the effect on factor proportions (changing productive processes and products, a la Kneese and Bowers).

• Fixed capital supply. Harberger; Seligman; Harriss
• Twisting the Ramsey Rule by most economists. McLure and Zodrow; Lindsey, and most texts on public finance as examples. Notable exceptions are Ramsey himself, Pigou who inspired him, and Stiglitz."

Lastly, Gaffney ends his notes with a finalized summary on ATCOR:

"The revenue capacity of land, when it is substituted for other tax bases, is comparable to current revenues. Owing to efficiency effects, and renewal effects, it may well be higher. The major reservation is that the supply of labor is not totally elastic, so some of the revenue gains may be 'lost' in higher wage rates, but on the whole higher wage rates are socially desirable, and serve to lower many public costs as for welfare, policing and jailing, aggressive military spending, make-work projects, etc."

Economic Principles

Inelastic Supply of Land

One of the three main reasons as to why ATCOR holds true is that economic land is both: a) finite (has an inelastic supply), and b) essential to economic activity (demand for it is elastic). Because the supply of land is fixed, any cut in taxes on labor and capital will result in marginal increase in the value of land, as the income saved from paying less income taxes allow a greater borrowing capacity in the short run, and an absolute increase in the value of land in the long run. What this means is that income from land ultimately absorbs most of all the income gains achieved by the other two factors of production in the long run, caused by tax cuts on labor and capital.

Elastic Supply of Labor and Capital

The supply of labor is affected by events such as migration, shifts in the employment rate, and the availability of jobs; due to this, in the long run labor can be viewed as highly mobile and therefore its supply as being highly elastic, especially when compared to land which is completely inelastic.

Like labor, the supply of capital can also be regarded as perfectly elastic (real interest rate) in the long run, especially in comparison to land.

"Together this implies that ultimately most taxes, not literally all due to the finite elasticity of labor, are shifted to landowners. Therefore, when taxes on labor, capital and consumption are lowered, the revenue base is not lost, but shifted to land rental values and land capital values, which can then yield more taxes."