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- Title
Warding off Development: Local Control, Housing Supply, and NIMBYs.
- Authors
Mast, Evan
- 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. Results from a variety of difference-in-differences estimators show that this decentralization decreases housing units permitted by 20%, with similar effects on multi- and single-family permits. Effects are larger in whiter and higher-income towns.
- Subjects
HOUSING; HOUSE construction; ELECTORAL reform; CITY councils; HOUSING market
- Publication
Review of Economics & Statistics, 2024, Vol 106, Issue 3, p671
- ISSN
0034-6535
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1162/rest_a_01192