Real Estate & Planning Research Seminar by Professor Hans Koster, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Title: Land use regulation, homeownership, and the cost of NIMBYism

Abstract: (joint with Brian Greaney, Christian Hilber, Gabriel Loumeau, Andrii Parkhomenko)

We examine how homeownership influences land use regulation and, consequently, impacts welfare and spatial sorting. Utilising panel data from England and employing the Right-to-Buy policy as an exogenous shifter in local homeownership, we first establish that a higher homeownership share is associated with (i) a higher share of refused planning applications, (ii) reduced construction, (iii) a lower share of developed land, and (iv) higher house prices, all supporting the ‘homevoter hypothesis'. Building on these findings, we set up a dynamic spatial equilibrium model in which increased regulatory restrictiveness results in decreased construction activity but possibly elevated amenity levels. We conduct counterfactual analyses by eliminating the political influence of local homeownership to evaluate the welfare costs of NIMBYism, which appear to be sizable.

Bio: Hans Koster (1987) is Full Professor of Urban Economics and Real Estate in the Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He received his Ph.D. in 2013 with a dissertation on the economics of urban spatial structure. Hans is also a Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute, a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). His research focuses on the economic analysis of cities, regions, and the environment. Key interests include housing affordability, the spatial concentration of firms and households, the effects of place-based policies, urban inequality and segregation, and the dynamics of retail and commercial real estate markets. His work typically combines large-scale datasets with advanced econometric methods. Hans has received several academic distinctions, including the August Lösch Prize, the Urban Land Institute Prize, and the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award. In the ESB Dutch Economist Rankings (which have been discontinued as of 2023), he was placed 10th in 2023, 14th in 2022, 21st in 2021, and 24th in 2020. See www.urbaneconomics.nl for more info.