Lobbying, political competition, and local land supply: recent evidence from Spain
Abstract
We analyze whether local land supply is influenced by the degree of political competition, and interpret the findings as being indicative of the influence wielded by land development lobbies. We use a new database including both political and land supply data for more than 2,000 Spanish municipalities for the period 2003-2007. In Spain, land use policies are largely a local responsibility with municipalities having periodically to pass comprehensive land use plans. The main policy variable in these plans, and the one analyzed here, is the amount of land classified for potential development. We measure local political competition as the margin of victory of the incumbent government. We instrument this variable using the number of votes obtained by parties represented in local government when standing at the first national legislative elections following the re-establishment of democracy, and the number of votes they actually obtained regionally at the national legislative elections. The results indicate that stiffer political competition does indeed reduce the amount of new land designated for development. This effect is found to be most marked in suburbs, in towns with a high percent of commuters and homeowners, and in municipalities governed by the left.Download Info
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Paper provided by Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) in its series Working Papers with number 2010/45.Length: 45 pages
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2010/10/doc2010-45
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Related research
Keywords: Land use regulations; urban growth controls; political economy.;Other versions of this item:
- Solé-Ollé, Albert & Viladecans-Marsal, Elisabet, 2012. "Lobbying, political competition, and local land supply: Recent evidence from Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 10-19.
- Albert Sole-Olle & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2010. "Lobbying, political competition, and local land supply: recent evidence from Spain," Working Papers in Economics 248, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
- H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
- Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
- R52 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Land Use and Other Regulations
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2010-10-30 (All new papers)
- NEP-CDM-2010-10-30 (Collective Decision-Making)
- NEP-PBE-2010-10-30 (Public Economics)
- NEP-POL-2010-10-30 (Positive Political Economics)
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Albert Solé-Ollé & Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal, 2011. "Local spending and the housing boom," Working Papers 2011/27, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
- Elena Costas-Pérez & Albert Solé-Ollé & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2011.
"Corruption scandals, press reporting, and accountability. Evidence from Spanish mayors,"
Working Papers
2011/9, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
- Elena Costas & Albert Sole-Olle & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2011. "Corruption scandals, press reporting, and accountability. Evidence from Spanish mayors," Working Papers in Economics 255, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
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