Last month I wrote about the Government’s failure to repeal David Parker’s mad ‘te Mana o te Wai’ (literally meaning the mana of the water) requirements. A few days ago, the research team at the Taxpayers’ Union were sent the details on how the rules are playing it out in my local area: Otago. While…
PETER WILLLIAMS: The costs of Te Mana o te Wai are worse than we thought
PETER WILLLIAMS: The costs of Te Mana o te Wai are worse than we thought
29 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics
Fast Takes on *Build, Baby, Build*: Ed Glaeser
27 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, income redistribution, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply
Ed Glaeser is the chairman of Harvard’s Department of Economics. He’s also widely credited with reviving the entire field of Urban Economics. His 2018 “The Economics of Housing Supply” (with Joe Gyourko) in the Journal of Economic Perspectives was a major inspiration for my Build, Baby, Build. So in the latest “Fast Takes” interview, I…
Fast Takes on *Build, Baby, Build*: Ed Glaeser
Flooding Housing Policy
22 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, monetary policy
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment. Brian Easton writes – Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the […]
Flooding Housing Policy
BBB in the NYT
15 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
I pitch Build, Baby, Build in today’s New York Times. No illustrations, but a bunch of cool graphs cooked up by Sara Chodosh of the NYT data analytics team. The original title was “The Panacea Policy,” but now it’s “Yes in My Backyard: The Case For Housing Deregulation.” And for you, dear readers, it’s ungated!…
BBB in the NYT
Biden’s Desperate Vote-Buying Proposal for Nationwide Rent Control
15 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: rent control
I’m not a political pundit, but I’m guessing that yesterday’s despicable assassination attempt on Donald Trump increases the likelihood that he reclaims the White House. That’s probably not good news for trade policy (though Biden has been just as bad), but it will be very good news for housing policy. Not because of what Trump […]
Biden’s Desperate Vote-Buying Proposal for Nationwide Rent Control
DON BRASH: ANOTHER OUTSTANDING SPEECH FROM CHRIS BISHOP
13 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Four months ago, I described a speech by Chris Bishop in his capacity as Minister of Housing as perhaps the most important speech given by any Government minister since the election last year. He’s just given another, arguably even more important, laying out in words of one syllable what the Government plans to do…
DON BRASH: ANOTHER OUTSTANDING SPEECH FROM CHRIS BISHOP
Bryan Caplan on YIMBY in the NYT
12 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Here is one excerpt: What few appreciate is that the overregulation of housing has blocked a classic American path: moving to a higher-wage part of the country to secure a better life. A paper by the economists Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag shows that housing costs now routinely outweigh wage gains: While janitors and waiters do indeed […]
Bryan Caplan on YIMBY in the NYT
Zoning Matters for Rising Housing Costs, Especially After 1980
11 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of regulation, environmental economics, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
From a new working paper “The Price of Housing in the United States, 1890-2006” by Ronan C. Lyons, Allison Shertzer, Rowena Gray & David N. Agorastos (emphasis added): “Zoning was adopted by almost every city in our sample during the 1920s. We see a slightly steeper gradient over the next two periods (coefficients of .48 […]
Zoning Matters for Rising Housing Costs, Especially After 1980
Sadiq Khan to impose congestion charge on electric vehicles
08 Jul 2024 1 Comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, transport economics, urban economics Tags: British politics
By Paul Homewood Sadiq Khan is extending London’s congestion charge to all zero-emission vehicles from the end of next year.
Sadiq Khan to impose congestion charge on electric vehicles
Finally a great housing package
05 Jul 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, transport economics, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Chris Bishop has announced changes to housing laws which will make a huge difference to housing affordability. Almost every expert has said that to reduce pressure on house prices you need to both build up and build out. The NIMBYs oppose building up and the Greenies opposes building out. Phil Rayford in 2017 had some […]
Finally a great housing package
Guest Post: Funding Infrastructure
24 Jun 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, transport economics, urban economics
A guest post by Gary Lindsay responding to the speech by Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop: Chris Bishop’s speech regarding infrastructure has been a long time coming. It’s great that a government is finally serious about the massive infrastructure deficit that has been building since the major (necessary) cuts in 1984. Correcting a 40 year infrastructure […]
Guest Post: Funding Infrastructure
The Danish Mortgage System Avoids Lock-In
20 Jun 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, financial economics, law and economics, property rights, urban economics Tags: Denmark
Tyler and I have been promoting the Danish mortgage system for years. Recall that in the Danish system each mortgage is backed by a matching bond. As a consequence, mortgage holders have two ways to pay a mortgage: 1) hold the mortgage and pay the monthly payments or 2) buy the matching bond and, in […]
The Danish Mortgage System Avoids Lock-In
The Great Post-Pandemic Population Shift
26 May 2024 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, population economics, transport economics, urban economics Tags: land supply
A little more than half of America’s incorporated cities collectively lost 2.7 million residents between 2020 and 2023, according to estimates released by the Census Bureau earlier this week. New York City alone lost almost 500,000 residents, or 5.5 percent of its population, while the next 20 biggest losers together … Continue reading →
The Great Post-Pandemic Population Shift
Bish delivers for Wellington
13 May 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Chris Bishop announced: “I have agreed with the Council’s alternative recommendations in nine instances, relating to development around Adelaide Road, the walkable catchment around the City Centre Zone (including Hay St), character precincts, building heights and controls on the interface of the City Centre Zone and Moir and Hania Street, setbacks for 1-3 residential units, […]
Bish delivers for Wellington
Electricity barrier: net zero climate policy means the UK housing crisis is getting worse
05 May 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, Public Choice, public economics, transport economics, urban economics Tags: land supply
If there isn’t enough power for the new homes, where’s the power for all the soon-to-be mandatory electric vehicles supposed to come from? Net zero policy by climate obsessives is busy degrading the entire power grid to an increasingly part-time system. This is just one of the knock-on effects. – – – Our inadequate electricity […]
Electricity barrier: net zero climate policy means the UK housing crisis is getting worse
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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