NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

The Property Tax as a Coordinating Device: Financing Indiana's Mammoth Internal Improvement System, 1835 to 1842

John Joseph Wallis

NBER Historical Working Paper No. 136
Issued in November 2001
NBER Program(s):   DAE

The state of Indiana set out to build a Mammoth system of canals, railroads, and turnpikes in 1836, after a decade of intense debate in which sectional rivalries prevented any state action. This paper investigates the role played by the adoption of an ad valorem property tax in ameliorating the sectional rivalries and coordinating the costs of financing the transportation system with the taxes levied to finance it. It also traces the rise and fall of land values in the state between 1835 and 1842, estimating the effect of internal improvement projects on land values.

download in pdf format
   (290 K)

email paper

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/h0136

Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded* these:
Arnott and Petrova w8913 The Property Tax as a Tax on Value: Deadweight Loss
Wasi and White w11108 Property Tax Limitations and Mobility: The Lock-in Effect of California's Proposition 13
Coate w17145 Property Taxation, Zoning, and Efficiency: A Dynamic Analysis
Mieszkowski and Zodrow w1481 The New View of the Property Tax: A Reformulation
Poterba and Sinai w14253 Income Tax Provisions Affecting Owner-Occupied Housing: Revenue Costs and Incentive Effects
 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
NBER Videos
Themes
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org

Contact Us