Elizabeth Read Brown
| Elizabeth Read Brown | |
|---|---|
| Born | Elizabeth Read April 8, 1902 Michigan, U.S. |
| February 10, 1987 (aged 84)February 10, 1987 (aged 84) | |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| 👩 Spouse(s) | Harry Gunnison Brown (m. 1950s; d. 1975) |
Elizabeth Read Brown (née Read; April 8, 1902 – February 10, 1987) was an American librarian and economist who wrote on land value taxation and tax reform. After a career as a university and public librarian, she published some twenty articles in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, most of them arguing for shifting the property tax from buildings to land values, and campaigned for local tax reform in Pennsylvania and Missouri. Her 1961 survey of how American college textbooks treated land value taxation was drawn on in later histories of economists' reception of Henry George.[1][2]
Early life and education
Elizabeth Read was born in Michigan on April 8, 1902, to J. Herbert and Eva (Lumley) Read.[1] She received bachelor's degrees from the institutions that are now Eastern Michigan University and Case Western Reserve University, and a master's degree in library science from the University of Michigan.[1]
Library career
Read worked as a librarian at the public library of Royal Oak, Michigan (1928–37), at Michigan State College (1937–46), at Albion College (1946–51), at the University of Michigan (1952) and at the University of Mississippi (1952–53).[1] At Mississippi she met the economist Harry Gunnison Brown, professor emeritus of the University of Missouri, whom she married.[1]
Economic writing and tax reform
Brown shared her husband's Georgist view that taxes on land values were preferable to taxes on buildings and improvements. While he completed his teaching career at Franklin & Marshall College and for some years afterwards, the couple promoted local tax reform throughout Pennsylvania; in 1965 they returned to Columbia, Missouri, where they continued to write together until his death in 1975.[1]
She wrote nineteen articles for the American Journal of Economics and Sociology and edited one more; six were co-authored with her husband, and all but four dealt with land value taxation.[1] The remaining four argued for free trade against contemporary calls for protection, and she also wrote on history and library science.[1] A central theme of her work was the application of land value taxation to contemporary problems. She argued that lowering tax rates on buildings while raising them on land values, whether developed or vacant, would give firms an incentive to locate in a community, help localities achieve their zoning objectives, discourage speculative holding of vacant urban sites, and counter urban decay, which she attributed in part to the general property tax. She frequently cited the experience of Australia, New Zealand and Pennsylvania.[1]
Textbook survey
In her most detailed article, "How College Textbooks Treat Land Value Taxation" (1961), Brown examined seventy-six general and introductory economics textbooks and found that only forty-one mentioned Henry George, Progress and Poverty or the single tax. Where the subject was treated, she found the presentation so biased that few students could recognize what she regarded as the relevance of land value taxation to current problems.[1][3] The historian Steven B. Cord drew on her findings in his 1965 study of economists' treatment of George, citing both her count of textbooks and her rebuttal of the textbook objection that the cost of administering a land value tax would be out of proportion to its yield.[2]
Later activity
In 1977 Brown joined the editorial board of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology.[1] Believing that her husband's contributions to economics had not been fully appreciated, she pressed for the reissue of his work, and in part because of her inquiries the University of Chicago Press reprinted his The Economics of Taxation (1924) in 1979.[1] In Missouri she campaigned for more equitable taxation and was active on public safety issues affecting children; the 83rd General Assembly of the Missouri legislature adopted a resolution recognizing her work.[1] She died on February 10, 1987.[1][4]
Selected works
- (with Harry Gunnison Brown) "Plant Location and Community Tax Policy". American Journal of Economics and Sociology 14 (1), October 1954: 55–57.
- "Tax Policy: Its Effects on Housing and Slums". American Journal of Economics and Sociology 16 (3), April 1957: 327–328.
- (with Harry Gunnison Brown) The Effective Answer to Communism. New York: Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, 1958.
- "Zoning Objectives and Tax Policy". American Journal of Economics and Sociology 18 (1), October 1958: 55–56.
- "Growing Urban Obsolescence and Tax Policy". American Journal of Economics and Sociology 19 (1), October 1959: 96–98.
- "How College Textbooks Treat Land Value Taxation". American Journal of Economics and Sociology 20 (2), January 1961: 147–167.
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Ryan, Christopher K. (2000). "Brown, Elizabeth Read (1902–87)". In Dimand, Robert W.; Dimand, Mary Ann; Forget, Evelyn L. A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-1-85278-964-0.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Cord, Steven B. (1965). "Henry George and Keynesian Economists, 1933–1964". Henry George: Dreamer or Realist?. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. JSTOR j.ctv5rdwgp.7. Search this book on
- ↑ Brown, Elizabeth Read (January 1961). "How College Textbooks Treat Land Value Taxation". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 20 (2): 147–167. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1961.tb00552.x.
- ↑ Lissner, Will (1987). "In Memoriam: Elizabeth Read Brown". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 46 (3): 383–384. doi:10.1111/j.1536-7150.1987.tb01981.x.
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