Game of zones: the economics of conservation areas

Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Kristoffer Moeller, Sevrin Waights and Nicolai Wendland

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Provided there are positive external benefits attached to the historic character of buildings, owners of properties in designated conservation areas benefit from a reduction in uncertainty regarding the future of their area. At the same time, the restrictions put in place to ensure the preservation of the historic character limit the degree to which properties can be altered and thus impose a cost to their owners. We test a simple theory of the designation process in which we postulate that the optimal level of designation is chosen so as to Pareto-maximize the welfare of local owners. The implication of the model is that a) an increase in preferences for historic character should increase the likelihood of a designation, and b) new designations at the margin should not be associated with significant house price capitalization effects. Our empirical results are in line with these expectations.

Keywords: designation; difference-in-difference; RDD-DD; England; gentrification; heritage; property value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H23 H31 R40 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 70 pages
Date: 2013-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/58349/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Game of zones: The political economy of conservation areas (2016)
Working Paper: Game of Zones: The Economics of Conservation Areas (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:58349

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