Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
10 Oct 2015 1 Comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: Auckland, housing affordability, land supply, land use planning, RMA, San Francisco, zoning
https://twitter.com/JoshZumbrun/status/652517712070082561/photo/1
"Your neighborhood could be next." San Francisco-wide mailer in support of Prop I, the Mission housing moratorium. http://t.co/PtN38JTaUM—
Jed Kolko (@JedKolko) October 10, 2015
@sival84 @MarketUrbanism @SFyimby More for thought: Permits vs prices for top ten tech hubs trulia.com/blog/trends/pr… http://t.co/yRvjVWDova—
Ralph B. McLaughlin (@housingnomix) October 01, 2015
22 Sep 2015 1 Comment
in politics - New Zealand, transport economics, urban economics Tags: Auckland, bikes, buses, commuting, cycling, trains, Wellington
Bugger all Aucklanders take the bus (6.5%) or train (1.8%) to work. More Wellingtonians take the train (6.4%) or the public bus (7.9%) than in Auckland but more walk or jog than take either of those two publicly funded and subsidised conveyances. Hardly anybody takes a bike to work these days.
Source: 2013 Census QuickStats about transport and communications.
Source: 2013 Census QuickStats about transport and communications
21 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: homeownership, housing affordability
21 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, television, transport economics, urban economics Tags: crime and punishment, evidence-based policy, law and order, local government, rational ignorance, rational rationality, road safety, Yes Minister
In responding to demands for police to crack down on windscreen washers, some of whom intimidate motorists to pay, the deputy mayor of Christchurch showed a cultured ignorance of youth courts. She has never read newspaper reports that show that youth court defendants are never named and their convictions are not held against them as adults. Furthermore, she is unaware of the spent convictions law in New Zealand that expunges most convictions after seven years, especially petty convictions.
17 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, urban economics Tags: Finland, Generation Rent, housing affordability, housing prices, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, Norway, Sweden, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.
16 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles, urban economics Tags: Generation Rent, housing affordability, housing prices, Japan, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, South Korea, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.
15 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: Australia, housing affordability, housing prices, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator
14 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, urban economics Tags: France, Generation Rent, Germany, housing affordability, housing prices, Italy, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.
13 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: British economy, British politics, housing affordability, housing prices, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, zoning
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed
Note: The house price index series is an index constructed with nominal house price data. The real house price index is an index calculated by deflating the nominal house price series with a country’s personal consumption expenditure deflator.
13 Sep 2015 1 Comment
in business cycles, economic history, global financial crisis (GFC), inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: expressive voting, housing affordability, inflation rates, median voter theorem, mortgage belt, mortgage rates, rational ignorance, rational rationality
Mortgage interest rates were last in the double digits in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since then, housing prices have exploded in New Zealand and barely paused for the recession in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed; Housing prices deflated by personal consumption expenditure deflator.
With house prices and mortgages several times what they used to be, the ability for any household income to absorb the sudden return of high mortgage interest rates because of a return of even moderate CPI inflation and double-digit mortgage rates is well-nigh impossible, politically.
Source: Reserve Bank of New Zealand Mortgage rates and Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015) Table C.5.
The chart above shows that the number of 25 to 44-year-olds in New Zealand who have more than 30% of their income going to housing expenses has doubled since 1988 to nearly a third of all households. The number of 45 to 64-year-olds who pay more than 30% of their income in housing expenses has quadrupled to 20%. That is a lot of voters who would be offended by mismanagement of monetary policy.
None of these households would have much left over to absorb an increasing mortgage interest rates. That is very different political arithmetic too the last time both mortgage rates and CPI inflation were in double digits, which was more than 20 years ago. Not many New Zealanders under the age of 40 or 45 have an adult memory of high inflation and high mortgage rates.
03 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, population economics, urban economics
31 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in urban economics Tags: New York City
This is one of the coolest pictures of Central Park: http://t.co/2eqmXLP4br—
Globe Pics (@Globe_Pics) August 17, 2015
28 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of crime, economics of love and marriage, labour economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, population economics, poverty and inequality, unemployment, urban economics, welfare reform Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, economics of the family, racial discrimination, single mothers, single parents, teen pregnancies
Did Mass Incarceration Destroy the Black Family? Not exactly. bit.ly/1f8jgXm http://t.co/1q2nKJnU9W—
City Journal (@CityJournal) August 13, 2015
21 Aug 2015 1 Comment
in job search and matching, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, transport economics, urban economics Tags: Auckland, bicycles, commuting times, compensating differentials, expressive voting, green rent seeking, Inner-city Left, New Zealand Greens, public transport, rational irrationality, search and matching, The fatal conceit, The pretense to knowledge
I am not surprised only 7% of Auckland’s take public transport to work considering it takes much longer than any other form of commuting.
The average commute by public transport is 40 minutes as compared to less than 25 in a car. 74% of Aucklanders drive to work and another 9% are a passenger in a car.
No information was available on those who bike to work because only 1% of Aucklanders bike to work. Only 2% of all New Zealanders take a bike to work. The sample size was therefore too small. Yet another reason to ban bikes at night. Few commute on this mode of transport in Auckland.
The near identical commuting distances irrespective of the mode of transport except walking is further evidence that people are quite discerning in balancing commuting times and job selection as per the theory of compensating differentials. Indeed, average commuting times in Auckland are much the same as the average commuting time in America.
The Auckland transport data showing people commute much the same distance by any mode of transport bar walking also validates Anthony Downs’ theory of triple convergence.
Improving the commuting times in one mode of transport will mean people simply take the mode of peak hour transport that is suddenly become less congested while others who were not going to commute at peak times or start commuting at peak times as Anthony Downs explains:
If that expressway’s capacity were doubled overnight, the next day’s traffic would flow rapidly because the same number of drivers would have twice as much road space.
But soon word would spread that this particular highway was no longer congested. Drivers who had once used that road before and after the peak hour to avoid congestion would shift back into the peak period. Other drivers who had been using alternative routes would shift onto this more convenient expressway. Even some commuters who had been using the subway or trains would start driving on this road during peak periods.
Within a short time, this triple convergence onto the expanded road during peak hours would make the road as congested as it was before its expansion.
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