No Debt High Growth Low Tax

Governments around the world are wrestling with the problem of enormous debts, low growth, high unemployment and a gap between the demands of public expenditure and what can be raised through taxation. This problem has been acute since the financial crisis, but has been a hallmark of Western economies for decades. Only a few countries have been able to avoid this pattern, mostly those blessed with natural resources such as oil. However, there are two small islands without resources which have enjoyed high growth and low taxation: Hong Kong and Singapore. They have no public debts, they generally run a budget surplus and enjoy investment income. Here lies a model for generating public revenu that could be adopted in other countries to allow a shift in taxation from production and consumption to the Economic Rent of land, as advocated by Adam Smith over two hundred years ago. 

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