The Lincoln Institute is committed to strengthening land-based financing to support public services in order to effectuate a key insight of economist Henry George: there is a crucial public role in private land ownership.
Our work supports efficient and equitable methods of taxation and the use of land-based financing tools to supply a full range of public services, from social housing to investment in climate resilience measures. We provide public officials with the tools and training to improve community welfare through fiscal policy, including modern methods of valuation, new techniques for gauging the land value increment due to public investment, and case studies of successful implementation of these approaches. We also publish extensive databases that allow comparison of alternate approaches to land-based taxation, covering state-by-state property tax features and local finance measures across many categories of revenue.
This online self-paced course provides an overview of how local governments in the U.S. raise and spend money for the public services and infrastructure that are foundational to a high quality of life.
This course examines the deep problems of the Massachusetts property tax in the 1970s and the subsequent reforms that created one of the most functional and fair systems in the United States.