…you can’t get anything built because of these statutes,” Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist with extensive experience in and around the energy sector, told the DCNF about Congressional gridlock on permitting reform.
Biden’s Signature Climate Law Has a Major Achilles’ Heel — And Dems Are Making It Worse
Biden’s Signature Climate Law Has a Major Achilles’ Heel — And Dems Are Making It Worse
31 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: land supply, solar power, wind power, zoning
Do Me a Personal Favor: Please Pre-Order *Build, Baby, Build* Now
22 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: land supply, zoning
I started writing Build, Baby, Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation, in the early weeks of Covid. Now, with the kind cooperation of the Cato Institute, my second non-fiction graphic novel releases on May 1, 2024. That’s less than six weeks away.The official coverPlease forgive my laughable arrogance, but I assure you that…
Do Me a Personal Favor: Please Pre-Order *Build, Baby, Build* Now
Even Lowerer Hutt
07 Mar 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, regulation, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
One annoying thing about writing a Saturday column for the Stuff papers is never knowing whether a piece will show up in print.I’d thought this one was a banger. I’ll be talking about related issues tomorrow night as part of a panel for A City for People. 🟨🟪 Our speaker line up has dropped! 🟪🟨Join us on…
Even Lowerer Hutt
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
Why Britain’s economy is failing
04 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: British politics, land supply, zoning
In the past five years, the number of applications to connect to the electricity grid — many of them for solar energy generation and storage — has increased tenfold, with waits of up to 15 years. The underinvestment is restricting the flow of cheap energy from Scottish wind farms to population centers in England and adding to […]
Why Britain’s economy is failing
Liberal Hypocrisy is Fueling American Inequality. Here’s How. | NYT Opinion well worth watching
04 Nov 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of regulation, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, top 1%, zoning
Upzoning with Strings Attached
21 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: offsetting behavior, unintended consequences, zoning
The subtitle of this paper is: “Evidence from Seattle’s Affordable Housing Mandate.” Here is the abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of a major municipal residential land use reform on new home construction and developer behavior. We examine Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, which relaxed zoning regulations while also encouraging affordable housing construction in […]
Upzoning with Strings Attached
Disney’s Special Tax District in Florida, Explained | @WSJ
26 Apr 2022 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, movies, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, television Tags: zoning
Land supply is everything to housing affordability
17 Jan 2022 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, law and economics, libertarianism, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, public economics, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
The Loophole Behind NYC’s Skinny Skyscrapers – Cheddar Explains
12 Dec 2021 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, Public Choice, urban economics Tags: zoning
The architecture trend dividing London’s elites
27 Nov 2021 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, environmental economics, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: land supply, zoning
The great cost of NIMBYism
31 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
How the US made affordable homes illegal
27 Sep 2021 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, discrimination, economic history, economics of regulation, income redistribution, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, zoning
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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