Results

CentrePiece article

Take-away findings from food delivery apps

Do delivery apps reduce or enhance the attraction of cities?...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

Economics Observatory:

Why don't we have nicer buildings?

The benefits of distinctive urban architecture extend far beyond the buildings themselves, but the costs are borne by the developers. This can lead to underinvestment in high-quality design - and it raises the question o...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...

CentrePiece article

Geographical thinking

Making the industrial strategy work in Manchester...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Unpacking the restaurant experience: how food delivery technology favors the affluent urban core

We study how technological innovation has transformed the valuation of consumption services, using the sudden national expansion of food delivery services (FDS) in China as a natural experiment. Using a Bartik-style inst...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...

Chapter

Immigration, diversity and innovation in cities and regions

in A Research Agenda for Migration and Innovation

This chapter investigates the interplay between immigrant diversity and innovation, emphasizing the urban and regional dimensions where these effects are most pronounced. Cities and urban areas are pivotal to the generat...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Paternity leave in Spain

Between 2017 and 2021, Spain progressively extended paternity leave from 2 to 16 weeks, equalizing it with maternity leave and introducing mandatory weeks. A 2018 reform also allowed fathers to split their leave. Using a...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...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating transport improvements in spatial equilibrium

The recent development of quantitative urban models provides a new set of tools for evaluating transport improvements. Conventional cost-benefit analyses are typically undertaken in partial equilibrium. In contrast, quan...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Large-scale land acquisitions: Trees, trade and structural change

Large-scale land acquisitions are a key component of agricultural foreign direct investment. In 2023 alone, nearly 6% of the world's arable land was acquired globally. This paper examines their impact on agricultural pro...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

A practical guide to shift-share instruments

A recent econometric literature shows two distinct paths for identification with shift-share instruments, leveraging either many exogenous shifts or exogenous shares. We present the core logic of both paths and practical...Read more...

Journal article

PloS ONE:

Agglomeration costs limit sustainable innovation in cities in developing economies

Theory and evidence from developed economies suggests that innovation activities benefit from agglomeration economies associated with urban economic density. However, despite the fact that eighteen of the world?s top twe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantitative urban economics

This paper reviews recent quantitative urban models. These models are sufficiently rich to capture observed features of the data, such as many asymmetric locations and a rich geography of the transport network. Yet these...Read more...

Government consultation

Scottish parliament: Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee

Christian Hilber gives evidence to the Housing inquiry....Read more...

Journal article

World Development:

Institutional transition: Social cohesion and demand for land titles in urban Tanzania

In much of urban Africa, demand for statutory property rights remains low even when governments coordinate land titling programmes and reduce the costs of registration. This paper studies the Residential Licence programm...Read more...

Blog

Centre for cities:

City Talks: Why we are seeing a boom in urban economics research (Podcast)

We are constantly finding out more about where people live and work, how people move around, where businesses choose to locate, and where people spend their money - all of which adds more depth to our picture of cities. ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Valuing consumption services as technology transforms accessibility: Evidence from Beijing

Home delivery reduced the value of cities as locations to access variety in durable consumption goods. Food delivery services (FDS) are doing the same for restaurants. Home-streaming of sports or home-delivered restauran...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...

CEP discussion paper

Identifying agglomeration shadows: long-run evidence from ancient ports

We examine "agglomeration shadows" that emerge around large cities, which discourage some economic activities in nearby areas. Identifying agglomeration shadows is complicated, however, by endogenous city formation and "...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

Putting quantitative models to the test: an application to Trump's trade war

The primary motivation behind quantitative modeling in international trade and many other fields is to shed light on the economic consequences of policy changes. To help assess and potentially strengthen the credibility ...Read more...

Journal article

AEA Papers and Proceedings:

The linear algebra of economic geography models

We provide sufficient statistics for nominal and real wage exposure to productivity shocks in a constant elasticity economic geography model. These exposure measures summarize the first-order general equilibrium elastici...Read more...

Journal article

Town Planning Review:

Pushing water uphill: containment policies doomed to fail

London has had a green belt for seventy years making it the `canary in the coal mine? for `zero land take?. Because of strong demand for housing space, rising prosperity underlies rising urban land demand so rigid physic...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

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy :

Local retail prices, product variety, and neighborhood change

We study how local grocery markets within a city are affected by changes in housing markets. Our empirical strategy exploits a shift in the spatial distribution of construction activity induced by a large-scale, place-ba...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Environmental Psychology:

Working memory and fluid intelligence are differentially related to categories of urban fabric in older adults: Results from the Berlin aging study

Urbanization is Globally increasing at a rapid rate but its consequences for mental health, including cognitive functioning, are not well understood. In particular, little is known about the effects of different morpholo...Read more...

Journal article

Urban Studies:

Unbundling tenure security and demand for property rights: evidence from urban Tanzania

Rapid urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa occurs with little land registration, and government-led regularisation schemes often find limited uptake of title deeds by residents. In theory, there could be private and public...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...

Blog

Vox EU:

Urban-biased structural change

Economic activity in high-income countries has shifted towards services and away from manufacturing. But research remains scant on the patterns of structural change within countries across urban and rural areas. Using mi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The skyscraper revolution: global economic development and land savings

Tall buildings are central to facilitating sustainable urbanization and growth in cities worldwide. We estimate average elasticities of city population and built area to aggregate city building heights of 0.12 and -0.17,...Read more...

Journal article

AEA Papers and Proceedings:

The local labor market effects of modern manufacturing capital: evidence from France

Using an event study methodology and comprehensive micro data from the French manufacturing sector, we analyze the local labor market effects of investments in modern manufacturing capital, including modern automation te...Read more...

Chapter

The What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth: some lessons from the first ten years

in The What Works Centres: lessons and insights from an evidence movement

What can policy do to increase local economic growth? This is a question that has challenged decision makers and academics for decades. It's also a fundamental question today, when the UK government has made economic gro...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

Quantitative urban models: from theory to data

Economic activity is highly unevenly distributed within cities, as reflected in the concentration of economic functions in specific locations, such as finance in the Square Mile in London. The extent to which this concen...Read more...

Journal article

Regional Studies:

Inclusive innovation in cities: from buzzword to policy

'Inclusive innovation' has become an increasingly important subnational policy agenda. This paper reviews this agenda, critiques its current usage and presents a new framework for how the concept can be applied by city g...Read more...

Journal article

Urban Studies:

Progressive cities: urban-rural polarisation of social values and economic development around the world

In contrast to the conservative values of rural populations, cities are often seen as bulwarks of more tolerant, liberal and progressive values. This urban-rural divide in values has become one of the major fault lines i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economics of cities: from theory to data

Economic activity is highly unevenly distributed within cities, as reflected in the concentration of economic functions in specific locations, such as finance in the Square Mile in London. The extent to which this concen...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...

Chapter

Housing policy and affordable housing

in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance

Lack of affordable housing is a growing and often primary policy concern in cities throughout the world. The main underlying cause for the "affordability crisis," which has been mounting for decades, is a combination of ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Policies for affordable housing: options and obstacles

The crisis of housing affordability has been mounting for decades, driven by growing demand for properties in desirable areas where supply is limited. Numerous policies have been enacted across countries, but many are in...Read more...

Blog

UCLA Housing Voice:

Skyscrapers with Gabriel Ahlfeldt (podcast)

Skyscrapers! We can't help but find them fascinating. Some cities are full of skyscrapers, and others have none. Developers built a 70-story tower on that parcel, but the proposed building just down the street is only 30...Read more...

CEP occasional paper

Housing policy and affordable housing

Lack of affordable housing is a growing and often primary policy concern in cities around the world. The main underlying cause for the 'affordability crisis', which has been mounting for decades, is a combination of stro...Read more...

Journal article

Regional Science and Urban Economics:

Introduction to the special issue: "Urban economics and history"

Read more...

Journal article

Regional Science and Urban Economics:

History and urban economics

This article reviews recent literature using insights from history to answer central questions in urban economics. This area of research has seen rapid growth in the past decade, thanks to new technologies that have made...Read more...

Journal article

Regional Science and Urban Economics:

Viewing urban spatial history from tall buildings

Micro-geographic data capturing the spatial distribution of economic activity within cities in history are difficult to access. This paper discusses how tall and durable buildings can be exploited as a source of "big dat...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Human Resources:

The urban wage premium in imperfect labor markets

Using administrative data for West Germany, this paper investigates whether part of the urban wage premium stems from fierce competition in thick labour markets. We first establish that employers possess less wage-settin...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Epidemics and rapacity of multinational companies

Do multinationals engage in rent-seeking behaviour in developing countries during crises? With a difference in discontinuity approach, we use the Ebola epidemic in Liberia as a natural experiment on the sharp increase in...Read more...

Journal article

Urban Studies:

Incubators, accelerators and urban economic development

We combine theory and evidence on incubator and accelerator programmes and their effects on urban economic development. These structured co-working programmes have grown rapidly. However, a rich descriptive literature re...Read more...

Journal article

Health and Place:

Income-related health inequality in urban China (1991-2015): the role of homeownership and housing conditions

Unprecedented economic growth has been experienced over the several decades worldwide, but such rapid economic growth wasn't accompanied by equally-substantial improvement in health, especially health inequalities betwee...Read more...

Journal article

Urban Studies:

Critical commentary: The city and the virus

Cities around the world are the epicentres of the coronavirus pandemic: both in the first wave, as the disease spread from East Asia, and now, as many countries enter a third wave of infections. These spatial patterns ar...Read more...

Journal article

Land Economics:

Urban land use fragmentation and human wellbeing

We study how land use fragmentation affects the life satisfaction of city dwellers. To this end, we calculate fragmentation metrics based on exact geographical coordinates of land use from the European Urban Atlas and of...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The amplifying effect of capitalization rates on housing supply

We provide empirical evidence that increases in housing rental income lead to a larger supply response than price increases of the same percentage value. We rationalize this differential in supply responsiveness with an ...Read more...

Journal article

Landscape and Urban Planning:

Urban green is more than the absence of city: structural and functional neural basis of urbanicity and green space in the neighbourhood of older adults

The relationship between urbanization, the brain, and human mental health is subject to intensive debate in the current scientific literature. Particularly, since mood and anxiety disorders as well as schizophrenia are k...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

Suburbanization in the USA, 1970-2010

The second half of the 20th century saw large-scale suburbanization in the USA, with the median share of residents who work in the county where they live falling from 87% to 71% between 1970 and 2000. We introduce a new ...Read more...

CEP Covid-19 analysis

City of dreams no more, a year on: worklessness and active labour market policies in urban India

This report provides key findings from a new field survey to assess the long-term impact of Covid-19 on urban workers in low-income areas of India. The survey took place during February and March 2021, just before the s...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Planning ahead for better beighborhoods: long-run evidence from Tanzania

Africa?s demand for urban housing is soaring, even as it faces a proliferation of slums. In this setting, can modest infrastructure investments in greenfield areas where people subsequently build their own houses facilit...Read more...

Blog

Grantham Institute blogs:

The answer to housing's stubborn carbon emissions problem: green offsets

Paul Cheshire and Christian Hilber propose 'green offsets' to reduce property taxes in a way that is strictly scaled to energy efficiency, as a simple intervention to address the UK's urgent need to reduce its residentia...Read more...

External report

Pancakes to pyramids: city form to promote sustainable growth (English)

Towns and cities are economic and social microcosms in which large numbers of people and firms interact. These interactions largely shape how a city looks, how it functions, and how it grows. But how exactly does this ma...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

VoxEU:

Why housing is built in flood-prone coastal areas

Despite the higher susceptibility to floods and a growing climate crisis, more than 10% of the world's population live in low-elevation coastal zones, and that percentage is growing. Yatang Lin, Thomas McDermott and Guy ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The local economic impacts of regeneration projects: evidence from UK's single regeneration budget

Many governments aim to improve the labour market outcomes of people living in deprived areas through "place-making" initiatives. Economists are often sceptical about the effectiveness of such policies, but empirical evi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why have house prices risen so much more than rents in superstar cities?

In most countries ? particularly in supply constrained superstar cities ? house prices have risen much more strongly than rents over the last two decades. We provide an explanation that does not rely on falling interest ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Economics of skyscrapers

Many tall buildings appear to be out of scale given contemporary perceptions. But according to Gabriel Ahlfeldt and Jason Barr, the vast majority have a solid economic case for their construction....Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... City of dreams no more: Covid-19 in urban India

The pandemic has decimated livelihoods in urban India and created a new underclass of workers who are being pushed into poverty. A CEP report by Shania Bhalotia, Swati Dhingra and Fjolla Kondirolli calls for a national w...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

The use of designer reputation to build tall in London

Height exemptions are made easier when a world-famous architect is involved, but the process carries hidden costs, writes Paul Cheshire....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The crisis and job guarantees in urban India

This paper uses a new field survey of low-wage areas of urban India to show that employment and earnings were decimated by the lockdown resulting from the Covid-19 crisis. It examines workers? desire for a job guarantee ...Read more...

Blog

Economics Observatory:

Will coronavirus cause a big city exodus?

Big cities thrive because of the economic and social benefits of proximity - but proximity also helps to spread Covid-19. Does this mean an end to the big city revival of recent years? Much will depend on how quickly we ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Land tenure and land-use in a developing city: a quantitative spatial model applied to Kampala, Uganda

Land rights and tenure systems are an important factor behind poor housing and inefficient land-use in developing country cities. In Kampala, Uganda, four systems of land tenure coexist, allowing a detailed study of the ...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 Covid-19 analysis

City of dreams no more: the impact of Covid-19 on urban workers in India

Many developing economies have large informal sectors and growing urban youth populations, who lack basic social protections at work. The CEP surveyed 8,500 workers aged 18 to 40 in urban India to understand their experi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Globalisation and urban polarisation

External trade affects the internal spatial structure of an economy, promoting growth in some cities or regions and decline in others. Internal adjustment to these changes has often proved to be extremely slow and painfu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The economics of skyscrapers: a synthesis

This paper provides a synthesis of the state of knowledge on the economics of skyscrapers. First, we document how vertical urban growth has gained pace over the course of the 20th century. Second, we lay out a simple the...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The role of demand in land re-development

Vacant, previously-developed land in cities can generate negative externalities on surrounding areas, and is often the target of policies to promote re-development. This paper provides estimates of the price sensitivity ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Flooded cities

Does economic activity move away from areas that are at high risk of recurring shocks? We examine this question in the context of floods, which displaced more than 650 million people worldwide in the last 35 years. We st...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

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

Mortgage credit expansion policies - such as UK's Help to Buy (HtB) - aim to increase access to and affordability of owner-occupied housing and are widespread around the world. We take advantage of spatial discontinuitie...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

The energy costs of historic preservation

We explore the impact of historic 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 p...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Environmental Economics and Management:

Ease vs. noise: long-run changes in the value of transport (dis)amenities

For a complete cost-benefit analysis of durable infrastructures, it is important to understand how the value of non-market goods such as transit time and environmental quality changes as incomes rise in the long-run. We ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Urban Economics:

Measuring urban economic density

At the heart of urban economics are agglomeration economies, which drive the existence and extent of cities. This paper estimates urban agglomeration effects, exploring simple and very nuanced measures of economic densit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Dirty density: air quality and the density of American cities

We study whether urban density affects the exposure of city dwellers to ambient air pollution using satellite-derived measures of air quality for the contiguous United States. For identification, we rely on an instrument...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Ease versus noise: long-run changes in the value of transport (dis)amenities

For a complete cost-benefit analysis of durable infrastructures, it is important to understand how the value of non-market goods such as transit time and environmental quality changes as incomes rise in the long-run. We ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The urban wage premium in imperfect labour markets

Using administrative data for West Germany, this paper investigates whether part of the urban wage premium stems from fierce competition in thick labour markets. We first establish that employers possess less wage-settin...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

Review of Economics and Statistics:

Tall buildings and land values: height and construction cost elasticities in Chicago, 1870-2010

Despite unprecedented vertical growth in large cities, the economics of skyscrapers remain understudied. We combine data on tall buildings with a panel of land prices covering 140 years to analyze the determinants of urb...Read more...

Journal article

Review of International Economics:

Globalization and urban polarization

External trade affects the internal spatial structure of an economy, promoting growth in some cities or regions and decline in others. Internal adjustment to these changes has often proved to be extremely slow and painfu...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Does additional spending help urban schools? An evaluation using boundary discontinuities

This study exploits spatial anomalies in school funding policy in England to provide new evidence on the impact of resources on student achievement in urban areas. Anomalies arise because the funding allocated to Local E...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Location, search costs and youth unemployment: experimental evidence from transport subsidies

Do high search costs affect the labour market outcomes of jobseekers living far away from jobs? I randomly assign transport subsidies to unemployed youth in urban Ethiopia. Treated respondents increase job search intensi...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

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

CESifo Economic Studies:

Weights to address non-parallel trends in panel difference-in-differences models

Causal inference using the difference-in-differences (DD) method relies on the untestable assumption of parallel counterfactual trends across units that are assigned to different treatments. To facilitate the application...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Who gets the urban surplus?

High productivity in cities creates an economic surplus relative to other areas. How is this divided between workers and landowners? Simple models with homogenous labour suggest that it accrues largely-or entirely-in the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does gentrification displace poor households? An 'identification-via-interaction' approach

My theoretical model motivates an `identification-via-interaction? (IvI) approach that separates the causal impact of gentrification on poor exits from endogenous channels. In the empirical analysis, I create a measure o...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Identity, non-take-up and welfare conditionality

We study a model in which poor individuals of different types request a service and may suffer from the discrepancy between the service provider's beliefs and their true type. The utility loss resulting from such a discr...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Empty homes, longer commutes

In areas of Britain where there are empty houses, planners typically allocate less land for development and make it more difficult to build or adapt houses. Research by Paul Cheshire, Christian Hilber and Hans Koster exp...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Empty homes, longer commutes: the unintended consequences of more restrictive local planning

We investigate the impact of land use regulation on housing vacancy rates. Using a 30-year panel dataset on land use regulation for 350 English Local Authorities (LAs) and addressing potential reverse causation and other...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...