Research
Working papers
Neutralizing NIMBYs: Effect of Community Voice in Land Use Decisions Job Market Paper
Zoning regulations restrict the size and use of new real estate development. Developers wishing to build larger projects must undergo discretionary review, which entails public hearings, and may ultimately end with rejection. Incumbent residents value having a voice in the approval process, arguing that they can shape their neighborhoods and prevent undesirable development. This paper uses data from Los Angeles to study the role of community discretion in land use decisions. First, I document new facts about new development applications and approvals. Second, I evaluate the impact of reducing discretion on the characteristics and impacts of proposed and built projects. I leverage the rollout of the Transit-Oriented Communities (TOC) program, which reduced discretion over the approval of qualifying multifamily projects near public transit stops. I show that housing supply increased near major public transit stops. In particular, more buildings with over 50 units were developed, due to the TOC program’s provision to reduce discretion over buildings of that size. I estimate whether the projects built under the policy would have been approved or rejected under the discretionary review regime. Finally, I describe the general equilibrium effects of upzoning or reducing community discretion in some neighborhoods, but not others.
Environmental Externalities of Urban Growth: Evidence from the California Wildfires New draft coming soon!
Human activity is the primary cause of wildfires in California, suggesting that land development may affect the probability of ignition and create environmental externalities. This paper quantifies these externalities using geospatial data and finds that housing development has a non-monotonic effect on the probability of ignition. Converting 2.5 acres of wildland into low-density development at the urban fringe increases the annual probability of wildfire ignition by 0.34-0.67 percentage points, compared to an average yearly probability of 1.74 percent. The probability of ignition decreases at higher rates of land development under weaker drought conditions. Suppression costs also increase with nearby development; each new housing unit near an ignition site generates up to \$23,774 in expected annual suppression costs for small fires. Policy simulations show that limiting greenfield development while relaxing urban supply constraints reduces wildfire-related costs, while restricting supply without offsetting infill development may worsen risk. These results highlight the importance of coordinated land use policy to mitigate wildfire externalities as climate change intensifies fire conditions.
Equilibrium Effects of Eviction Protections: The Case of Legal Assistance (with
Rob Collinson, John Eric Humphries, Scott Nelson,
Winnie van Dijk, and Daniel Waldinger) R&R, AER
“Right-to-counsel” programs provide free legal assistance to tenants in eviction court. Legal assistance can delay or prevent eviction. However, large-scale legal assistance programs can also generate costs for tenants due to equilibrium rental market responses. In this paper, we study how right to counsel impacts rental markets when implemented at scale, and quantify the policy’s impact on tenant welfare. Leveraging the geographic rollout of New York City’s program, we find listed rent prices rose by $22-$38/month within two years of policy implementation, with larger increases in areas with higher baseline eviction rates. We do not find evidence that landlords adjusted on other margins, such as tenant screening or improvements to habitability. Guided by these results, we develop a framework to evaluate the policy’s welfare implications for tenants, incorporating the trade-off between protection from eviction and higher rent prices. We quantify the parameters of our framework using linked data on eviction court cases, rental housing listings, and tenant earnings trajectories. Despite the direct benefits and insurance value of stronger eviction protections, the estimated price increases are large enough to generate a small net reduction in ex-ante tenant welfare.
Work in Progress
Impact of Subnational Responses to a National Crisis: Evidence from Brazil
(with Juan Pablo Chauvin and
Edward Glaeser)
Time to Approve and Approval Uncertainty in Real Estate Development
(with Rachel Pomerantz)
The lack of housing is one of the most pressing problems facing American cities. Careful research of the process through which new housing is built can hopefully point towards solutions. In most jurisdictions in the US, new housing must be approved by local authorities before being built. How does uncertainty in the approval process affect the supply of new housing and housing cycles? There are two important dimensions of uncertainty in the application process: whether the project will be approved and when that decision will come (Glaeser and Gyourko 2018).
This paper studies the time to approval in the construction of residential housing using data from the city of Los Angeles. First, we present novel facts about the approval of housing entitlements.
Then, we build a model of the housing market that features an uncertain application process to demonstrate the impact on housing cycles.
Finally, we use our empirical results and model to study whether eliminating uncertainty in the time to decision or the likelihood of approval is more important in the supply of new housing.
Other writings
Who's Talking about their COVID-19 Research? Gender and Research During a Pandemic
(with
Alex Albright, Kristen McCormack, and Isabel Harbaugh Macdonald), June 2020