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What is the relation between the land system with Chinese characteristics and the country's high-speed economic growth in the past decades? There is a lack of rigorous academic research based on the general equilibrium theory of macroeconomics on this issue.

By building a multisector dynamic general equilibrium framework with land system, this paper explores how the land supply mode with Chinese characteristics affects China's economic growth as well as its transmission mechanism.

This paper confirms the importance of land system with Chinese characteristics in explaining the mystery of China's high-speed economic growth. Counterfactual analysis shows that if China adopts a land system similar to that of other developing countries, GDP will drop 36% from the current level under the baseline model.

As the industrial sector shrinks relatively and the output elasticity of infrastructure decreases, this inhibitory effect will become more apparent. China should improve its land supply mode, especially expand the supply of commercial and residential land and reduce the cost of land in the service sector. This can promote better economic development in the future and thus improve household welfare and the structure of aggregate demand, replace “land-based public finance” and thus inhibit the “high leverage” risks of local governments.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss property taxation and examine the extent of its contribution to financing urban infrastructure/services in Ghana. Dwelling on existing literature, it analyses the contribution of property tax to local level internally generated funds (IGF) and expenditure on urban infrastructure/services financed from IGF.

Using a case study approach with a combination of both quantitative and qualitative research, this research was carried out in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis in the Western region, Ghana based on its economic and social diversity, business and economic opportunities and different land tenure systems. Data were collected through expert interviews and questionnaires, with a baseline study from 2006 to 2013. To check the veracity of data, triangulation of data were adopted.

The study revealed that property rate accounted for 28 per cent of IGF of the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA). This revenue was expended mostly on waste management, education, social services, street lights and health facilities. For the period between 2006 and 2013, property rates revenue alone was able to finance not less than 84 per cent of total expenditure from IGF. It was estimated that if the challenges to property taxation were resolved in Ghana, the tax could finance the entire annual IGF budget of the STMA on urban infrastructure and services over and above the expended expenditure with a surplus margin of 13 per cent.

This paper makes available empirical evidence of property tax contribution to IGF of STMA that could stimulate and enhance revenue mobilisation of other local government authorities. Debate on property tax revenue contribution towards financing urban infrastructure/services is also stimulated.

There exist many researches on property tax, however, none of these studies have examined the exact contributions of property rating revenue in financing urban infrastructure and services. This paper is the product of the original research conducted in Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the nature of infrastructure as a public good has traditionally lent itself to state provision and to review how land-based financing (LBF) can be used to overcome the public infrastructure funding constraints in South Africa.

The paper is largely based on a review and analysis of the academic literature, government reports and reports from research institutions such as the World Bank, Department for International Development, Urban Land Institute and the Lincoln Institute.

The paper finds that although a number of LBF instruments are being used in South Africa, the majority of them are not suited to addressing the current infrastructure funding constraint. However, the paper finds that some LBF mechanisms, such as tax-increment financing (TIF), that are currently not used could play a role provided that certain preconditions are met.

LBF has only partially been implemented in South Africa, thus the paper is limited to exploring the issues, challenges and necessary policy and regulatory changes needed to support LBF.

The review of LBF mechanisms currently being used in South Africa highlights many of their practical limitations. Furthermore, concrete proposals and legislative amendments are proposed in the paper regarding the implementation of additional funding instruments such as TIF.

Infrastructure is regarded as a key precondition for socio-economic development. LBF offers a viable and important alternative for fiscally constraint governments in emerging economies to fund infrastructure provision.

The main contribution of the paper is its focus on the use of LBF in the under-researched Sub-Saharan African context.

Over the past 20 years, China's infrastructure has developed at an extraordinary speed. The current literature mainly focuses on the effects of political incentives on the infrastructure. However, this paper indicates that the structural change of China's land regime is an important clue and that the supernormal development of China's infrastructure is an explicable result for that.

This paper theoretically proves that in a politically centralized and economically decentralized economic entity with a public land-ownership regime, the self-financing mechanism formed by local officials through regulation of the land-grant price is the primary factor that influences the optimal supply volume of infrastructure in a region, in addition to political and economic incentives, and whether the self-financing mechanism can be formed or not depends on the structure of a country's land regime, which can help to explain the difference between the development of infrastructure in China and that in other developing countries from a theoretical angle.

The paper suggests that the mode is facing an important transformation toward land reform and new-type urbanization construction, and the replication and promotion of China's experience in infrastructure construction are of further significance under the Belt and Road Initiative as it provides a method for helping developing countries to eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks.

Through the test of multinational panel data, the paper indicates that the structural change of China's land regime around 1990 had an overall effect on the supernormal development of infrastructure in China. The paper indicates that the “land-based development mode” of China's infrastructure indeed contributed to the supernormal development of infrastructure in China, but there are still some shortcomings in this mode.

Australia’s Future Tax System (2009) among its recommendations identified the need for realignment of tax revenue across the tiers of government in Australia, as well as the need to raise additional revenue from land-based taxes. In achieving these objectives, this paper aims to examine the revenues generated from land and how capital gains tax may be reconceptualised as a value capture tax resulting from the rapid urbanisation of Australia’s cities. The development of a theoretical framework realigns the emerging rationale of a value capture tax, as a means for revenue to be divested from central government in the form of capital gains, to sub-central government as a value capture tax.

A qualitative research methodology comprising grounded theory and phenomenological research is used in undertaking the review of tax revenue collection from state land tax, conveyance stamp duty, local government rating and Commonwealth capital gains tax. Grounded theory is applied for constant comparison of the data with the objectives of maximising similarities and differences in these revenues with an analytical construct as defined by Strauss and Corbin (1990, p. 61).

The paper finds that realigning revenue from land-based taxes against the principles of good tax design provides greater opportunity to raise additional revenue to fund public infrastructure while decentralising revenue from central government. It provides an alternate mechanism for revenue transfer from central to sub-central government while conceptually improving own source revenue from value capture taxation as a new revenue source.

The limitation of this paper is the ability to quantify the potential increase that would be generated in the form of value capture revenue. It is demonstrated in the paper that capital gains tax took over 15 years for revenue generation to crystallise, a factor that would likely occur in the potential introduction of a value capture tax for funding transport infrastructure.

The pathway to introducing a value capture tax is through re-innovating capital gains tax as a value capture tax directly hypothecated to funding transport infrastructure that results in the uplift in values of the surrounding property from which revenue is raised.

This paper provides a new approach in contributing to funding the capital outlay of public infrastructure in lieu of central government consolidated revenue allocated through the Commonwealth Grants Commission. It provides a much-needed approach to decentralising revenue from the Commonwealth to sub-central government in Australia which has one of the most centralised tax systems in the OECD.

This paper aims to explore the case for the radical reform of land policy worldwide. It does so, however, in the context of present problems posed by the prevailing coronavirus pandemic. It is a strategic study, not a scientific analysis and is oriented towards the field of the built environment in general and the real estate industry in particular.

Although it draws on concepts of land management long extolled and covers concerns currently circulating about the prospects for urban planning and property development post-pandemic, the synthesis is original.

The concluding counsel is that land policy reform, being a component factor of so much of society's endeavours, should figure far more prominently across the political platforms of the world.

Most of the material regarding the “Great Land Question” is based on findings from countless strategic foresight studies conducted by the author over the past 25 years and re-assessed in light of the pandemic. If correct, the practical implications will be significant.

This is a review of existing models.

The importance of reliable and well‐developed infrastructure for the development of any nation hardly needs to be emphasized. Efficient transport, reliable energy, safe drinking water and modern telecommunication systems are all critical to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), expanding international trade, achieving long‐term investment and growth, and ultimately ensuring social development of the population. Although globalization was expected to ensure that global capital markets, which have the depth, maturity, size and sophistication to fund all viable investments would ease financing of infrastructure projects, this has not happened and demand for infrastructure, particularly in the developing countries has remained acute. This paper reviews the financing of infrastructure projects and based on historical trends it argues that construction industries need to take more active part in the financing of infrastructure projects as a strategy for their own development. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of putting infrastructure industries on commercial footing as a prerequisite to financing them.

Beginning farmers have unique challenges securing credit because they are less likely to have established sales and collateral for secured loans. This article explores US beginning farmers’ financing strategies relative to those of established operations, with a focus on the source of financing and debt structure (short- vs long-term usage). Agricultural operations commonly use nontraditional financing tools and strategies to start, build and/or sustain their businesses. This article provides a comparative overview of financing strategies comparing established operators to operations with only beginning operators, as well as those multigenerational operations with at least one beginning operator.

The study uses 2013–2016 USDA Agricultural Resource Management Survey data to explore how various financing patterns vary across US beginning farmers and ranchers with a particular focus on understanding differences where (1) all operators are beginning, (2) there is a mix of beginning and established operators and (3) all operators are established.

This article explores how the nature of beginning farmer status, human capital resources and alternative marketing strategies may influence financial management strategies and lead to differential use of nontraditional financing sources for beginning farmers and ranchers.

Though exploratory, the authors hope that attention to patterns among US beginning farmers and ranchers of reliance on human capital resources including off-farm income and type of beginning farm operation, nontraditional government support programs and alternative marketing strategies can provide important information as to the role of nontraditional credit in the US farm economy.

The paper examined how local authorities have attempted to rate undeveloped land as a means of mobilising revenues and the challenges associated with implementing this policy guideline. It focused on current practices in terms of policy and administration, the availability of undeveloped urban land, its revenue potential, and ways to improve policy for local land taxation.

Drawing from the mixed-method approach both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Officials of the Wa Municipal Assembly, Lands Commission, Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority were purposely selected based on their knowledge and the roles they play in property rating practice. They were interviewed to understand their perceptions and views on rating undeveloped lands. Stratified proportionate and simple random sampling methods were used to select respondents. The respondents included land and landed property owners in three selected neighbourhoods.

The paper found that there was the prevalence of undeveloped lands mainly held by speculators and individuals constrained by financial challenges to develop their parcels. The Wa Municipal Assembly is unable to implement the policy guideline on charging rent on undeveloped lands due to lack of adequate information and generally unwillingness to implement this provision. Besides, the current guideline is too prohibitive and cannot be implemented in its current form. However, there is a window of opportunity for the Assembly to build data on undeveloped lands and moderately begin the implementation of the policy guideline.

Urban growth in Ghana is characterised by leapfrog development with many patches of undeveloped land in and around cities. The property taxation policies largely do not focus on undeveloped land or unimproved site value. In Ghana, property rate policy on the tax base excludes undeveloped land. However, government policy guidelines prescribe the charging of rent on these lands by local authorities. This paper provides a comprehensive discussion on the revenue potential of undeveloped urban land and why local government authorities have not been able to harness this potential. The paper has therefore recommended ways local authorities can use to mobilise revenue from undeveloped urban land.

There is limited research in rating undeveloped urban land especially looking at it from the perspective of policy and implementation as well as current practices. The paper shed light on the prevalence of undeveloped urban land and the guidelines that exist help local governments mobilise revenue from these lands. It contributes to the understanding that local government can harness the revenue potential of undeveloped land if policy design and implemented regarding these lands is enhanced. The paper also provides a good background and framework for further studies.