NYU Real Estate Institute's Round Table Discussion of Land- and Building-Price Indices A meeting was held at New York University’s Real Estate Institute on October 25 to discuss the virtues and pitfalls of constructing a land-price index to distinguish between land and building values. The Institute’s Associate Dean Ken Patton had invited Michael Hudson and the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation to assemble an economic team to discuss the pros and cons of the Georgist position regarding land-values with the Institute’s faculty and real estate industry representatives. The discussion was moderated by Schalkenbach’s Executive Director, Christopher Williams. Prior to the meeting, Dr. Hudson, President of the Institute for the Study of Long-term Economic Trends (ISLET) had circulated a discussion paper spelling out the statistical problems of constructing real estate value indices at the macroeconomic ...

Some Prefatory Remarks to the N.Y.U. Real Estate Institute discussion, Oct. 25, 2001 Economic theory focuses on labor and capital, yet the largest category of tangible assets is not industrial plant and machinery earning profits, but real estate, and its primary objective is to make capital gains. Most new entries into the Forbes or Fortune lists of the richest men consist of real estate billionaires, or similar individuals coming from the fuels and minerals industries or natural monopolies. Those who have not simply inherited long-standing family fortunes have gained their wealth by borrowing money to buy assets that have soared in value. The Federal Reserve Board publishes an annual balance sheet of the economy’s assets and liabilities showing real estate to comprise two-thirds of America’s tangible assets. Land represents most of this ...