Land rent, Economic rent: The Earth’s Worth Secretly Supported by Economists: Bryan Kavanagh analyses the Henry Tax Review following Karl’s salvo on global economic issues.
On his death in 1988, Hutchinson was succeeded by Bryan Kavanagh. As a professional property valuer and a student of Georgist economics, Kavanagh knew that the land market is characterized by bubble-burst cycles and that the bursts are followed by recessions in the wider economy. On this basis he had predicted, in an article published in The Valuer in July 1987, that the next recession would be in 1991/2. This was correct to within one year. Seeking a reliable method of diagnosing a land bubble, Kavanagh began aggregating statistics on property turnover in the several Australian States since 1972, and eventually noticed that whenever the turnover exceeded 19% of GDP in a nationwide trend, and then returned below 19% (as it always did), recession followed within 2 years. He concluded that the ratio of property turnover to GDP is a veritable barometer of the economy, and that a ratio exceeding 19% indicates an economically damaging bubble. He is therefore unimpressed by the Greenspan doctrine that one cannot recognize a bubble until it bursts. Australian real estate re-entered bubble territory, according to Kavanagh's criterion, in 1999 or 2000.
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Bryan Kavanagh blogs at the Land Values Research Group: Economics as if location matters (Prosper Australia)
Source: Renegade Economists
Aired: 5/5/10 12:00 AM
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