TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Ward,Bryce A.
TI  - The Causes and Consequences of Land Use Regulation: Evidence from Greater Boston
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12601
PY  - 2006
Y2  - October 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12601
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12601.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Bryce Ward
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge MA 02138
E-Mail: bward@fas.harvard.edu
AB  - Over the past 30 years, eastern Massachusetts has seen a remarkable combination of rising home prices and declining supply of new homes.  The reductions in new supply don't appear to reflect a real lack of land, but instead reflect a response to man-made restrictions on development.  In this paper, we examine the land-use regulations in greater Boston.  There has been a large increase in the number of new regulations, which differ widely over space.  Few variables, other than historical density and abundant recreational water, reliably predict these regulations.  High lot sizes and other regulations are associated with less construction.  The regulations boost prices by decreasing density, but density levels seem far too low to maximize total land value.
ER  -