Results

Blog

LSE British Politics:

Without radical planning reform, Burnham cannot build the houses he's promising

Governments keep promising to build more houses, and keep failing to do so. Now, Andy Burnham has upped the challenge by promising not just more houses, but specifically more council houses since World War II. Paul Chesh...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Why waste segregation policies fail ? and how training makes them work

Reducing landfill use cuts greenhouse gas emissions and costs less...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Tall buildings lead to more compact and productive cities

Land-use regulations, including height limits, affect housing affordability and urban productivity. This column analyses over 11,000 urban agglomerations and 300,000 tall buildings to explore the effect of height restric...Read more...

Blog

VoxDev:

Why waste segregation policies fail - and how training makes them work

Citizen training that builds households' practical capability to segregate waste can deliver large, persistent and socially amplified improvements in waste management, making it a highly cost-effective climate policy in ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Allocating land for housing in Tanzania

The economics of greenfield urban planning...Read more...

Blog

Nature:

We need to predict the people disasters will hit, not just the places

Local authorities can deal with natural hazards more effectively if they know ahead of time who will be affected, writes Jonathan Colmer....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economics of greenfield urban planning

Urban planning has shaped cities for millennia, demarcating property rights and mitigating coordination failures, but its rigidities often conflict with market-driven development, which reflects preferences. Although pla...Read more...

Government consultation

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Written evidence submitted by Paul Cheshire to the planning and infrastructure bill committee...Read more...

Journal article

LSE Public Policy Review:

Explaining variation in child penalties: the role of gender norms and policies

This paper contributes to understanding global variation in child and marriage penalties by focusing on the role of patriarchal control, gender norms, and public policies. We introduce a new measure of gender norms, the ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Spending public money to create happier lives

Choosing policies that most improve wellbeing would radically change government priorities. David Frayman, Christian Krekel, Richard Layard, Sara MacLennan and Isaac Parkes explain the science behind the new approach....Read more...

CEP report

Value for money: How to improve wellbeing and reduce misery

The government spends billions on our behalf. How do we want this money to be spent? This report reviews a range of policies and asks the fundamental question which should be asked of every policy: Does it deliver value ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Regional Science:

Within-city roads and urban growth

In this paper we study the role of within-city roads layout in fostering city growth. Within-city roads networks have not been studied extensively in economics although they are essential to facilitate human interactions...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Labour's planning reforms - how to make housing targets work

Labour promised serious reforms to the planning system while in opposition. What it has proposed now that it's in Government, including reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework, is very far from a fundamental re...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

Labour's planning reforms - building on grey belts and missed opportunities

Perhaps the proposal that people are most aware of when it comes to Labour's planning reform plans, the one that hit the headlines, is the idea of potentially re-defining small areas of green belts as "grey belt land". T...Read more...

CEP election analysis

Housing and planning

The housing affordability crisis not only restricts access to decent housing, or housing at all, but it has adverse effects on equality, social cohesion, retirement planning, productivity and economic growth....Read more...

CentrePiece article

The economic costs of the failing planning system

Paul Cheshire began to investigate the economic effects of the UK?s planning system 40 years ago. Here he draws on a recent public lecture ? and panel discussion with Stephen Aldridge, Kate Barker and Simon Wolfson ? to ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

Britain can promote private investment and economic growth. Here's how

The UK investment ecosystem needs rewiring across the board to increase firms' desire to invest in productive and sustainable assets, and to enhance their ability to do so. Paul Brandily, Mimosa Distefano, Krishan Shah, ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

(In)convenient stores? What do policies pushing stores to town centres actually do?

England's Town Centre First Policy, introduced in 1996, restricted the opening of new retail and other 'traditional town centre activities' to 'Town Centre' (TC) locations. The aim was to halt the decay of high streets. ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The economics of skyscrapers: a synthesis

We document that skyscraper growth since the end of the 19th century has been driven by a reduction in the cost of height, increasing urbanization, and rising incomes. These stylized facts guide us in developing a compet...Read more...

Blog

CEP Urban and Spatial Programme Blog:

Planning for the future: some solutions for our housing crisis at last?

The white paper, Planning for the future, published in early August 2020 represents the first serious attempt to reform our dysfunctional land use planning system since its inception. Although the Barker report?s diagnos...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

The preservation of historic districts - Is it worth it?

Read more...

Journal article

CESifo Economic Studies:

Take me to the centre of your town! Using micro-geographical data to identify town centres

? The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Ifo Institute, Munich. All rights reserved. We often talk about 'Town Centres' (TCs), but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

The economic consequences of family policies: lessons from a century of legislation in high-income countries

By the early 21st century, most high-income countries have put into effect a host of generous and virtually gender-neutral parental leave policies and family benefits, with the multiple goals of gender equity, higher fer...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Colonial Legacies: Shaping African Cities

Differential institutions imposed during colonial rule continue to affect the spatial structure and urban interactions in African cities. Based on a sample of 318 cities across 28 countries using satellite data on built ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Using Micro-Geography Data to Identify Town-Centre Space in Great Britain

We often talk about `Town Centres?, but defining their location and extent is surprisingly difficult. Their boundaries are hard to pin down and intrinsically fuzzy. Nevertheless, the British government introduced very sp...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Preservation of Historic Districts - Is it Worth it?

I investigate the welfare effect of conservation areas that preserve historic districts by regulating development. Such regulation may improve quality of life but does so by reducing housing productivity ? the efficiency...Read more...

CEP election analysis

UK Housing and Planning Policies: the evidence from economic research

Housing affordability is a key concern of an ever-larger fraction of UK voters who are crammed into artificially limited space. At the same time, a lot of wealth lies in housing assets and there are many vested interests...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Turning houses into gold: the failure of British planning

Britain?s crisis of housing affordability is nothing to do with foreign speculators, according to Paul Cheshire. Rather, it is a result of decades of misguided planning policies that constrain the supply of land and turn...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

On the Measurement of Trade Costs: Direct vs. Indirect Approaches to Quantifying Standards and Technical Regulations

In this article, we review the literature on the measurement of trade costs in international trade with a special emphasis on nontariff measures and in particular on standards and technical regulations. We distinguish `d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Capital Controls or Exchange Rate Policy? A Pecuniary Externality Perspective

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, a new policy paradigm has emerged in which old-fashioned policies such as capital controls and other government distortions have become part of the standard policy toolkit...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

On the Origins of Land Use Regulations: Theory and Evidence from US Metro Areas

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group (via increasing property pric...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

On the Origins of Land Use Regulations: Theory and Evidence from US Metro Areas

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints benefit the former group (via increasing property pric...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Policy Paper

Urban Containment, Housing Affordability and Price Stability - Irreconcilable Goals

The planning goals of urban containment and now densification conceive of houses in terms of physical units and of land `supply? as the area allocated for housing by the planning system; estimates of `demand? are driven ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Presence of Informal Labour Markets

Recessions and policy interventions in labour markets in developing countries are characterized not only by changes in the unemployment rate, but also by changes in the proportion of formal or protected jobs. This reallo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Owners of Developed Land versus Owners of Undeveloped Land: Why Land Use is More Constrained in the Bay Area than in Pittsburgh

We model residential land use constraints as the outcome of a political economy game between owners of developed and owners of undeveloped land. Land use constraints are interpreted as shadow taxes that increase the land...Read more...