The Welfare Effects of Greenbelt Policy: Evidence from England

Hans Koster

No 19-023/VIII, Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute

Abstract: I measure the economic effects of greenbelts that prohibit new construction beyond a predefined urban fringe and therefore act as urban growth boundaries. I focus on England, where 13% of the land is designated as greenbelt land. I provide reduced-form evidence and estimate a quantitative equilibrium model that includes amenities, housing supply, a traffic congestion externality, agglomeration forces, productivity, and household location choices. Greenbelt policy generates positive amenity effects, but also strongly reduces housing supply. I find that greenbelts increase welfare because amenity effects are sufficiently strong. At the same time, however, greenbelts decrease housing affordability by limiting housing supply.

Keywords: housing; supply constraints; land use regulation; greenbelts; urban growth boundary; open space (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 R13 R30 R41 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://papers.tinbergen.nl/19023.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Welfare Effects of Greenbelt Policy: Evidence from England (2024)
Journal Article: The Welfare Effects of Greenbelt Policy: Evidence from England (2023)
Working Paper: The Welfare Effects of Greenbelt Policy: Evidence from England (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190023

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers from Tinbergen Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 ().