Here is a nice video on the experience with price control in Ireland and Scotland. Hat tip: Marginal Revolution
Gaelic Price Control
Gaelic Price Control
05 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: rent control
DON BRASH: PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT SPEECH FROM THE NEW GOVERNMENT SO FAR
03 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: land supply, zoning
Last week, Housing Minister Chris Bishop gave perhaps the most important speech by the new Government since the election. In a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, he said he wanted the ratio of house prices to median household income to more than halve to between 3 and 5 over the next 10…
DON BRASH: PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT SPEECH FROM THE NEW GOVERNMENT SO FAR
The Uncompetitive Urban Land Markets Theory of Everything
03 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, income redistribution, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
The Housing Theory of Everything has one of those wonderful self-explanatory titles. A good title matters. The recent and thorough essay explains how the anglosphere’s unnecessarily expensive housing affects, well, everything. Or at least almost everything.Zoning makes it too hard to build houses where people want to build. Urban containment policies block new subdivisions, so…
The Uncompetitive Urban Land Markets Theory of Everything
The US Housing Market Is Very Quickly Becoming Unaffordable
27 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of regulation, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: land supply, zoning
In a post from July 2021, I discussed housing affordability and “zoning taxes” — in other words, how land use restrictions such as zoning were driving up the cost of housing in some US cities. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York stood out as the clear outliers, with “zoning taxes” adding several multiples […]
The US Housing Market Is Very Quickly Becoming Unaffordable
Statewide Rent Control Being Considered in Washington
27 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: rent control
Five things to know about WA proposal to limit rent hikes | The Seattle Times Isn’t rent control one of the most studied economic experiments? And hasn’t it been shown to be, over the long term, a disaster for everyone involved? What does economic evidence tell us about the effects of rent control? | Brookings […]
Statewide Rent Control Being Considered in Washington
Professional Sports and the Lack of Local Economic Payoffs
15 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, econometerics, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, sports economics, urban economics
I’m a sports fan, which in this case may represent a conflict of interest, because it means I’m conflicted about public subsidies going to sports stadiums. The economic evidence on this point is pretty clear: such subsidies can transfer how people spend their entertainment dollars from one area of a city to another, but the net…
Professional Sports and the Lack of Local Economic Payoffs
Lord Goldsmith given driving ban for four speeding offences – after backing 20mph limit
12 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, environmental economics, law and economics, transport economics, urban economics Tags: British politics
By Paul Homewood h/t Ian Magness Some things you could not make up! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/11/zac-goldsmith-banned-driving-caught-speeding/
Lord Goldsmith given driving ban for four speeding offences – after backing 20mph limit
Are cities for tourists or residents?
03 Jan 2024 1 Comment
in economics of regulation, industrial organisation, transport economics, urban economics
And at what margin? A new ideological struggle is brewing, yet we have not yet recognized it as such. The question is to what extent cities are for tourists, or for their current residents. Here is a report from Vermont: A Vermont town known for its autumn foliage has closed its roads to the public […]
Are cities for tourists or residents?
Predictably, the Rush to Electric Cars Is Imploding
22 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, transport economics, urban economics
Anyone who tells you these power grabs aren’t coming is telling you not to believe your own eyes.
Predictably, the Rush to Electric Cars Is Imploding
European Passenger Train Travel Declining
13 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in transport economics, urban economics
The media treat Americans to a constant drumbeat of how much better European passenger trains are and why we need to spend hundreds of billions or trillions improving our train system. The latest is a report that overnight trains are proving they can replace air travel by “play[ing] an important … Continue reading →
European Passenger Train Travel Declining
Wellington
11 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, urban economics
Yesterday’s Sunday Star-Times had an article built around some comments from me and from Infometrics economist Brad Olsen on the economic prospects of Wellington. The headline captured the gist of my contribution, “Sorry, Wellington, things could get worse and they probably will”. The question the journalist, Kevin Norquay, had posed to me a week ago […]
Wellington
How to Kill a Country
04 Dec 2023 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles, labour economics, public economics, urban economics Tags: ageing society, economics of fertility, population bomb, South Korea
Much of Seoul is a sea of high-rises. And not just Seoul: Busan and other cities in South Korea have lots of high rises. More than half of all South Korean households live in high rises, and well over 60 percent live in some kind of multifamily housing. Seoul: High … Continue reading →
How to Kill a Country
#endoil??!
27 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, transport economics, urban economics
Is Tokyo really a YIMBY success story?
23 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, urban economics Tags: Japan
It is common lore in YIMBY circles that Tokyo is such an inexpensive city because Tokyo/Japan has allowed so much freedom to build. Sometimes it is mentioned that Japanese building and regulatory decisions are made at higher levels than the strictly local, which lowers the power of the NIMBYs to restrict building. I don’t doubt […]
Is Tokyo really a YIMBY success story?
Remote Working Increases Productivity
22 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in transport economics, urban economics Tags: economics of pandemics
Last July, I noted that studies that claim that telecommuters are less productive than those in fixed workplaces were unpersuasive because they “mostly dealt with low-skilled jobs such as call centers and data entry.” I’m not the only one who thinks so. Writing in Business Insider, Ed Zitron noted last … Continue reading →
Remote Working Increases Productivity
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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