Warding Off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs

Evan Mast

No 20-330, Upjohn Working Papers from W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

Abstract: Local control of land-use regulation creates a not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) problem that can suppress housing construction, contributing to rising prices and potentially slowing economic growth. I study how increased local control affects housing production by exploiting a common electoral reform—changing from “at-large” to “ward” elections for town council. These reforms, which are not typically motivated by housing markets, shrink each representative’s constituency from the entire town to one ward. Difference-in-differences estimates show that this decentralization decreases housing units permitted by 24 percent, with 47 percent and 12 percent effects on multi- and single-family units. The effect on multifamily is larger in high-homeownership towns.

Keywords: Housing supply; land-use regulation; NIMBYism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H77 R31 R38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
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 (12)

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