Warding off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mast, Evan
• 署名单位: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01192
• 发表日期: 2024-05
• 页码: 671-680
• 关键词: representation; POLITICS

摘要

Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how increased local control affects housing production by exploiting a common electoral reform-changing from at-large to ward elections for town council. These reforms, which are not typically motivated by housing markets, shrink each representative's constituency from the entire town to one ward. Results from a variety of difference-in-differences estimators show that this decentralization decreases housing units permitted by 20%, with similar effects on multi- and single-family permits. Effects are larger in whiter and higher-income towns.