Oh, it works alright... to distort the markets, delay the popping of some bubbles and to inflate other bubbles. See e.g. the effect on the S&L's in the 80's as a result of the elimination of the commercial mortgage interest deduction. (History lesson: commercial property became a much less profitable investment and indeed often a boat anchor, owners defaulted in scads, big banks absorbed the losses while smaller S&Ls, with much lower cash reserve requirements, crashed).
But what do I know. Conventional wisdom is that tax policy doesn't influence behavior, and if there's one thing we know about the CW, is that it's teh troof.
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Oh, it works alright... to distort the markets, delay the popping of some bubbles and to inflate other bubbles. See e.g. the effect on the S&L's in the 80's as a result of the elimination of the commercial mortgage interest deduction. (History lesson: commercial property became a much less profitable investment and indeed often a boat anchor, owners defaulted in scads, big banks absorbed the losses while smaller S&Ls, with much lower cash reserve requirements, crashed).
But what do I know. Conventional wisdom is that tax policy doesn't influence behavior, and if there's one thing we know about the CW, is that it's teh troof.
Whatever else we may ever disagree about...
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