16 Sep 2015
by Jim Rose
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.
14 Sep 2015
by Jim Rose
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
by Jim Rose
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 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of regulation, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, urban economics
Tags: antimarket bias, child poverty, expressive voting, family poverty, green rent seeking, housing affordability, land use planning, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, NIMBYs, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, RMA, zoning
Nothing much has happening to child poverty before housing costs in New Zealand since the early 1980s. It is after housing costs poverty that is crucifying the children in New Zealand.

Source: 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 F6 and table F7.
From HES 2013 to HES 2014 median household income rose 5% in real terms (5% above the CPI inflation rate)…
On the AHC moving line measures, child poverty rates in HES 2014 are around the same as their peak after the GFC. A good amount of the rise from HES 2013 to HES 2014 is due to the large rise in the BHC median, as noted above, rather than a change in the numbers in low income per se.
Bryan Perry (2015, pp. 3, 7).
The parties that oppose measures to increase the supply of land and reduce the cost of housing through reform of the Resource Management Act and its many restraints on the supply of land are the New Zealand Labour Party and New Zealand Greens.
12 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics
Tags: Director's Law, expressive boating, green rent seeking, housing affordability, land supply, land use planning, Left-wing hypocrisy, NIMBYs, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, zoning
All homeowners have an incentive to stop new housing because if developers build too many homes, prices fall, and housing is many families’ main asset. But in cities with many Democrats and Green Party members, environmental concerns might also be a factor. The movement might be too eager to preserve the past.
Matthew Kahn

via Why Middle-Class Americans Can’t Afford to Live in Liberal Cities – The Atlantic.
06 Aug 2015
by Jim Rose
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, Richard Epstein, survivor principle
Tags: common law, economics of agriculture, food snobs, green rent seeking, land use conflicts, land use planning, law of nuisance, noise pollution, nuisance, old common law, organic farming, Richard Epstein, William Blackstone, zoning
Writing this blog of sound mind and sober disposition, I still have considerable sympathy with two organic farmers over a land use conflict they have with the neighbouring gun range.

Local land use regulations allows a gun club to set up 600 m away with competitive shooting days all day for 88 days a year. That is a voluntary self restraint. They could hold shooting competitions every day of the year. The local land use regulations allow the use of guns on rural land. The gun club used this absence of a prohibition on the use of guns in the frequency of use to set up a gun range to fire guns all day long on rural land.

Now here is the rub. There something wrong with the concept of quiet enjoyment of your land if a neighbour can fire off a large amount of noises continuously. The occasional noise, the occasional gunshot yes, but all day? I live near the airport, but I knew it was there when we bought the property and the lands was a little cheaper because of that.
https://youtu.be/34azi8qkiRs
The organic farmers are unusually pristine and prissy about what they want by neighbours to protect the sacredness of their more expensive snob food. I’m not too sure whether they would want to grant their neighbours an equal right to unusual land uses such as opening a gun range. That said, the organic farmers do have a point about a very noisy neighbouring land use that can be heard some distance away.
The organic farmers, of course, could have negotiated with their neighbours for covenants to restrict land use that undermine there are unusually pristine requirements for quiet enjoyment of their land and their neighbours land too. Easy to do when the land is first unused, but once economic activity accumulates, not so easy in terms of transaction costs and hold-outs.

HT: Environmental Law 101 | Hoover Institution.
15 Jul 2015
by Jim Rose
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, urban economics
Tags: green rent seeking, Inner-city Left, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, zoning
20 May 2015
by Jim Rose
in comparative institutional analysis, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice
Tags: capital gains tax, evidence-based policy, land supply, RMA, zoning
This week, the New Zealand government announced a special capital gains tax for investments in housing. Specifically, if a buyer sells the house within two years of buying it, and this house is not their home, the investor will be liable to income tax on any profit.

This solution also has been put forward by the left-wing political parties in New Zealand as their solution to the problem of restricted land supply in Auckland and other cities in New Zealand.
The introduction of a capital gains tax is a breakthrough for housing affordability. This solution of using a capital gains tax to dampen demand has been given its chance and it will fail.

Once a capital gains tax fails to make housing more affordable, political parties on the left and on the right can no longer put off confronting real solutions such as major reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA) to loosen restrictions on the supply of land in the big cities in New Zealand and in particular in Auckland.
15 May 2015
by Jim Rose
in development economics, economics of regulation, environmental economics, growth miracles, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, urban economics
Tags: green rent seeking, housing affordability The fatal conceit, land use regulation, offsetting behaviour, RMA, The pretence to knowledge, unintended consequences, urban planning, zoning
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