The economics of conservation area designation

Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Kristoffer Moeller, Sevrin Waights and Nicolai Wendland

ERSA conference papers from European Regional Science Association

Abstract: Provided that 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 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: Heritage; Hedonic Modelling; Difference-in-Difference; Gentrification; England; Value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R40 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www-sre.wu.ac.at/ersa/ersaconfs/ersa13/ERSA2013_paper_00087.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Game of Zones: The Economics of Conservation Areas (2013)
Working Paper: On prisoner's dilemmas and gilded cages: The economics of heritage preservation (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa13p87

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