Results

CEP discussion paper

Is data privacy a losing game? Evidence from Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy

We study the impact of Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy, which requires apps to obtain explicit user permission before cross-app tracking, on the mobile gaming industry. Using SensorTower US data on the top...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...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal:

Green belts and the inefficient allocation of land

Land is an economic resource, so the efficiency with which it is used is essentially an economic problem. This paper, therefore, approaches the issue from an economic perspective. Having surveyed the economic definitions...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economics of architecture

We illustrate the coordination problem in the provision of distinctive architectural design that arises from design externalities within a quantitative model. To quantify the model, we conduct a quantitative review of a ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Cultural exception?

Why book publishing contradicts conventional wisdom about competition....Read more...

Blog

LSE Europp:

Cultural exception? Why regulating the book market contradicts conventional wisdom about competition

Fixing retail book prices is a common policy in Europe, but how does preventing competition affect booksellers and buyers? Christos Genakos, Lorien Sabatino and Tommaso Valletti find that when the ability to offer custom...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Land use regulation, homeownership and wealth inequality

We examine the role that housing market regulatory restrictiveness plays in differentially affecting the net wealth of owners and renters over time, and its contribution to wealth inequality. In tightly regulated desirab...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why delay? Understanding the construction lag, aka the build out rate

We explore the determinants of the speed of residential development after dwelling construction starts. Using a sample of over 140,000 residential developments in England from 1996 to 2015 and employing an instrumental v...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Cleaner Production:

The interplay between innovation, standards and regulation in a globalising economy

To examine the different roles of regulation and standards in the age of globalisation, we hypothesize and investigate the relation of regulation and national and international standards on the one hand with innovation i...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

On the economic impacts of mortgage credit expansion policies: evidence from help to buy

We take advantage of two spatial discontinuities in Britain's Help to Buy (HtB) scheme to explore the effectiveness and distributional implications of mortgage credit expansion policies. Employing a Difference-in-Discont...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review :

The impact of regulation on innovation

We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data, where there is a sharp...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... How citizens help expose environmental wrongdoing

Does enabling citizens to complain about public services provide an effective way of improving government services, or should we be concerned about the accuracy and reliability of such reports? Jonathan Colmer, Mary Evan...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Environmental citizen complaints

Citizen complaints feature prominently in public oversight contexts. The nature and effects of complaints, however, are controversial and poorly understood. Here, we exploit novel administrative data on over 130,000 envi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Accidents will happen: (de)regulation of health and safety legislation, workplace accidents and self employment

In 2015, the UK government exempted "low-risk" self-employed workers from legislation on workplace safety. This reversed a move two decades earlier that incorporated the self-employed more fully into the same regulatory ...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...

External report

Labour market inequality

Wage and earnings inequality has been on the rise in the UK since the late 1970s / early 1980s, and with faster increases than comparator countries it is now one of the countries with the highest levels of wage and earni...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

The value of online gig economy platforms

The gig economy and online labour platforms often trade off increased flexibility for lower employment security. Christopher Stanton and Catherine Thomas show how traditional labour market regulations, such as minimum wa...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Are bigger banks better? Firm-level evidence from Germany

The effects of large banks on the real economy are theoretically ambiguous and politically controversial. I identify quasi-exogenous increases in bank size in postwar Germany. I show that firms did not grow faster after ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The impact of regulation on innovation

It is widely feared that private sector innovation is constrained by 'red tape'. Philippe Aghion and colleagues test that view on data from France, where firms of more than 50 employees face far heavier regulatory obliga...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Local economic conditions and the nature of new housing supply

We explore the effects of local economic conditions on the type and size of newly constructed housing units in a city. Exploiting the 1984?2004 metro area samples of the American Housing Survey and US Census building per...Read more...

Blog

UK in a Changing Europe:

Trade after Brexit: the initial numbers

Thomas Sampson argues that, although the full effects of Brexit won't be known for many years, regulatory divergence is likely to further reduce trade, as firms face the challenge of satisfying different regulations in t...Read more...

Journal article

Real Estate Economics:

Offices scarce but housing scarcer: estimating the premium for London office conversions

British planning is among the most restrictive in the world and has been restrictive for longer than elsewhere. Restrictive regulation substantially increases the costs of office space and, especially in London, increase...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Regulation chills minor (but not radical) technological innovations

While there is suggestive evidence that regulations may have a stifling effect on innovation, there is as yet no rigorous economic framework to quantify the magnitude of such regulatory effects on innovation and the aggr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of regulation on innovation

We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data where there is a sharp ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are bigger banks better? Firm-level evidence from Germany

The effects of large banks on the real economy are theoretically ambiguous and politically controversial. I identify quasi-exogenous increases in bank size in post-war Germany. I show that firms did not grow faster after...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The grandkids aren't alright: the intergenerational effects of prenatal pollution exposure

Using newly linked survey and administrative data we provide early evidence that regulation- induced improvements in prenatal air quality have intergenerational effects on human capital accumulation in the United States....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union emissions trading scheme

In theory, market-based regulatory instruments correct market failures at least cost. However, evidence on their efficacy remains scarce. Using administrative data, we estimate that, on average, the EU ETS - the world's ...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

'Trophy architects' and design as rent-seeking: quantifying deadweight losses in a tightly regulated office market

Britain tightly restricts the supply of office space, creating substantial economic rents, but its development restrictions are politically administered and therefore gameable, inducing rent-seeking activity. We find tha...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Generalized linear competition: from pass-through to policy

Economic policy and shifts in input market prices often have significant effects on the marginal costs of firms and can prompt strategic responses that make their impact hard to predict. We introduce "generalized linear ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Offices scarce but housing scarcer: estimating the premium for London office conversions

The British system of land use planning is one of the most restrictive in the world. It substantially increases the costs of office space (Cheshire & Hilber, 2008; Cheshire & Dericks, 2020) and, especially in London, inc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The best versus the rest: divergence across firms during the global productivity slowdown

We document that labor productivity of the globally most productive firms ? the ?frontier? ? has diverged from all other firms ? the ?rest? ? throughout the 2000s. This divergence remains after controlling for capital in...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

The preservation of historic districts - Is it worth it?

Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Housing Economics:

Institutional settings and urban sprawl: evidence from Europe

This article explores the role of institutional settings in determining spatial variation in urban sprawl across Europe. We first synthesize the emerging literature that links land use policies and local fiscal incentive...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Housing Economics:

Housing in Europe: a different continent ? a continent of differences

This article provides the introduction to the special issue on `Housing in Europe: a different continent ? a continent of differences? in the Journal of Housing Economics in 2018. Europe is a large continent with a long ...Read more...

Journal article

National Institute Economic Review:

Broken market or broken policy? The unintended consequences of restrictive planning

This paper summarises the evidence from recent research relating to the British Planning system's impact on the supply of development. Planning serves important economic and social purposes but it is essential to disting...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economic impacts of constraining home investments

We investigate how political backlash against wealthy investors in high-amenity places affects local residents. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment: the `Swiss Second Home Initiative?, which banned the construction of ...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Industrial Economics:

The impact of maximum markup regulation on prices

Markup regulation is a common, yet understudied type of regulation. We analyze the repeal of maximum wholesale and retail markup regulation in an oligopolistic and vertically nonintegrated market. By comparing the prices...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Medical marijuana laws and mental health in the United States

The consequences of legal access to medical marijuana for individual welfare are a matter of controversy. We contribute to the ongoing discussion by evaluating the impact of the staggered introduction and extension of me...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Equity crowdfunding and early stage entrepreneurial finance: damaging or disruptive?

Equity crowdfunding (ECF) offers founders of new ventures an online social media marketplace where they can access a large number of investors who, in exchange for an ownership stake, provide finance for business opportu...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Energy Costs of Historic Preservation

We explore the impact of historical preservation policies on domestic energy consumption. Using panel data for England from 2006 to 2013 and employing a fixed effects-strategy, we document that (i) rising national energy...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Towards a new UK industrial strategy

The regulation of business has been a rollercoaster ride for the UK over the past 20 years. Drawing on their work with the LSE Growth Commission, Anna Valero and Richard Davies outline an opportunity to build a new syste...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The hospital as a multi-product firm: the effect of hospital competition on value-added indicators of clinical quality

There is increasing international interest in using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) to assess health care provider performance. PROMs are a fundamental advance on existing indicators of health care quality in t...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Firm size distortions and the productivity distribution: evidence from France

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies it to France where man...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Housing Market Impacts of Constraining Second Home Investments

We investigate how political backlash against wealthy second home investors in high-amenity places ? tourist areas or superstar cities ? affects local residents. We develop a general equilibrium model and exploit a quasi...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...

CentrePiece article

Regulatory reform in Greece: the benefits of removing maximum mark-ups

Regulations that impose maximum mark-ups are intended to protect consumers from firms exercising market power. But a study by Christos Genakos and colleagues suggests that they can have the opposite effect: when Greece l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating the impact of Sunday trading deregulation

During the past few decades a number of European countries lifted the regulations that restricted the opening hours of shops on Sunday. In this paper we examine the impact of Sunday trade deregulation on employment, expe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of maximum markup regulation on prices

Markup regulation is a common yet understudied type of regulation. We analyze the repeal of maximum wholesale and retail markup regulation in an oligopolistic and vertically non-integrated market. By comparing the prices...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Trophy architects and the `dark matter' of London?s planning system

A quarter of London?s skyscrapers are designed by architects who have already won a lifetime achievement award and whose work thus has the imprimatur of `iconic design?; this compares with just 3% in Chicago. According t...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Local Economic Conditions and the Nature of New Housing Supply

We present a modified open monocentric city model that assumes that land is available for conversion into new housing throughout the city. The model predicts that positive local income shocks (i) increase the city?s shar...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of mandatory entitlement to paid leave on employment in the UK

I evaluate the impact of the UK Working Time Regulations 1998, which introduced mandatory paid holiday entitlement. The regulation gave (nearly) all workers the right to a minimum of 4 weeks of paid holiday per a year. W...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

'Iconic Design' as Deadweight Loss: Rent Acquisition by Design in the Constrained London Office Market

Britain?s land use regulation (planning) system imposes very tight restrictions on the supply of office space so creating substantial rents. An unmeasured part of the costs associated with these restrictions likely comes...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

The state of the UK economy: Diagnosis, prognosis and recommended treatment

The UK economy has experienced a prolonged period of weakness over the last five years. John Van Reenen writes that the real problems for the UK are inadequate long-run investment in infrastructure, innovation and human ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Land Use Regulation and Productivity - Land Matters: Evidence from a UK Supermarket Chain

We use store-specific data for a UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning on store output. Exploiting the variation in policies between England and other UK countries, we isolate the impact of Town Centre ...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

UK Spending Review 2013: A triumph of politics over reason?

The UK?s Spending Review has been forced on the British Chancellor because weak economic growth has blown a hole in the deficit reduction programme. John Van Reenen welcomes the partial reversal of the hugely damaging cu...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

Small isn?t always beautiful: The cost of regulation on French firms

France has a raft of labour-market regulations that kick in for firms with 50 workers or more. Luis Garicano and John Van Reenen use this threshold to identify the economic effects of size-contingent regulations. Such po...Read more...

Blog

LSE European Politics and Policy Blog:

No Triple Dip does not mean a good recovery for the UK

John Van Reenen reacts to the news this week that the UK has avoided economic contraction in the last quarter. Whilst Osborne may see this as cause to celebrate, there is nothing commendable about an economy that continu...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

Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France

We show how size-contingent laws can be used to identify the equilibrium and welfare effects of labor regulation. Our framework incorporates such regulations into the Lucas (1978) model and applies it to France where man...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Economics Implications of House Price Capitalization: A Synthesis

In this article I argue that the extent to which fiscal variables are capitalized into house prices has important economic implications. I synthesize an emerging literature that explores the conditions under which public...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Land use planning: the impact on retail productivity

The restrictions that planning policies impose on retail development have significantly reduced the productivity of supermarkets, according to Paul Cheshire and colleagues....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Seesaw in the Air: Interconnection Regulation and the Structure of Mobile Tariffs

Interconnection rates are a key variable in telecommunications markets. Every call that is placed must be terminated by the network of the receiving party, thus the termination end has the characteristic of an economic b...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Evaluating the Effects of Planning Policies on the Retail Sector: Or do Town Centre First Policies Deliver the Goods?

Few studies conceive of land as a productive factor but British land use policies may lower total factor productivity (TFP) in the retailing industry by (i) restricting the total availability of land for retail, thereby ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Can pay regulation kill? Panel data evidence on the effect of labor markets on hospital performance

In many sectors, pay is regulated to be equal across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. When the competitive outside wage is higher than the regulated wage, there are likely to be falls in quality. We exploit pane...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...

CEP discussion paper

Can Pay Regulation Kill? Panel Data Evidence on the Effect of Labor Markets on Hospital Performance

Labor market regulation can have harmful unintended consequences. In many markets, especially for public sector workers, pay is regulated to be the same for individuals across heterogeneous geographical labor markets. We...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Testing the 'Waterbed' Effect in Mobile Telephony

This paper examines the impact of regulatory intervention to cut termination rates of calls from fixed lines to mobile phones. Under quite general conditions of competition, theory suggests that lower termination charges...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...

CEP discussion paper

Company Start-Up Costs and Employment

I study the role of company start-up costs for employment performance. The model is search equilibrium with a new concept for firms. Agents have an innate managerial ability and make a career choice to become either mana...Read more...