Levying the Land: Land-based instruments for public revenue and their applicability to developing countries

Local governments are thirsty for financial resources. Land-based revenue instruments are of obvious interest. This set of instruments is by no means a monolithic one. There are many alternative tools, often with major differences in what they can achieve and how well they are likely to operate.

This paper presents a conceptual framework for classifying land-based instruments, in order to enable well-targeted discussion of sometimes confusingly look-alike instruments. It then looks at reported experience with these tools among several advanced-economy countries. For each instrument, the advantages and disadvantages for adoption by developing countries are pointed out.

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