IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/juecon/v132y2022ics0094119022000833.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cities Without Skylines: Worldwide Building-Height Gaps and their Possible Determinants and Implications

Author

Listed:
  • Jedwab, Remi
  • Barr, Jason
  • Brueckner, Jan K.

Abstract

There is a large literature on U.S. cities measuring the extent and stringency of land-use regulations and how regulatory and geographical constraints affect important outcomes such as housing prices and economic growth. This paper is the first to study the global extent and impact of regulatory and other constraints by estimating what we call building-height gaps. Using a novel data set on the year of construction and heights of tall buildings around the world, we compare the total height of a country’s stock of tall buildings to what the total height would have been if supply was more elastic, based on parameters from a benchmark set of countries. These gaps are larger for richer countries and for residential buildings than for commercial buildings in such countries. The gaps are driven by under-building in central areas of larger cities. These gaps are not compensated by tall building construction in peripheral areas of cities or less stringent limits on outward expansion beyond the existing boundaries of the cities. Countries with older, historic structures have larger gaps, likely due to more stringent height regulations and dispersed ownership that inhibits land assembly. Lastly, the gaps correlate strongly with international measures of housing prices, sprawl, congestion, and pollution.

Suggested Citation

  • Jedwab, Remi & Barr, Jason & Brueckner, Jan K., 2022. "Cities Without Skylines: Worldwide Building-Height Gaps and their Possible Determinants and Implications," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:132:y:2022:i:c:s0094119022000833
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2022.103507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119022000833
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jue.2022.103507?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brueckner, Jan K., 2007. "Urban growth boundaries: An effective second-best remedy for unpriced traffic congestion?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 263-273, November.
    2. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Barr, Jason, 2022. "The economics of skyscrapers: A synthesis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    3. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2006. "Urban growth and housing supply," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 71-89, January.
    4. Paul C. Cheshire & Gerard H. Dericks, 2020. "‘Trophy Architects’ and Design as Rent‐seeking: Quantifying Deadweight Losses in a Tightly Regulated Office Market," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 87(348), pages 1078-1104, October.
    5. Katharina Knoll & Moritz Schularick & Thomas Steger, 2017. "No Price Like Home: Global House Prices, 1870-2012," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 331-353, February.
    6. Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Daniel McMillen, 2017. "Tall Building and Land Values: Height and Construction Cost Elasticities in Chicago, 1870 - 2010," CESifo Working Paper Series 6730, CESifo.
    7. Gyourko, Joseph & Hartley, Jonathan S. & Krimmel, Jacob, 2021. "The local residential land use regulatory environment across U.S. housing markets: Evidence from a new Wharton index," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    8. Bertaud, Alain & Brueckner, Jan K., 2005. "Analyzing building-height restrictions: predicted impacts and welfare costs," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 109-125, March.
    9. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2019. "Housing Constraints and Spatial Misallocation," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-39, April.
    10. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Ross, Stephen L., 2015. "Change and Persistence in the Economic Status of Neighborhoods and Cities," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1047-1120, Elsevier.
    11. Liu, Crocker H. & Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2020. "Employment density and agglomeration economies in tall buildings," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    12. Caldera, Aida & Johansson, Åsa, 2013. "The price responsiveness of housing supply in OECD countries," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 231-249.
    13. Nicolas Gendron-Carrier & Marco Gonzalez-Navarro & Stefano Polloni & Matthew A. Turner, 2022. "Subways and Urban Air Pollution," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 164-196, January.
    14. Jan K. Brueckner & Shihe Fu & Yizhen Gu & Junfu Zhang, 2017. "Measuring the Stringency of Land Use Regulation: The Case of China's Building Height Limits," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(4), pages 663-677, July.
    15. Albert Saiz, 2010. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1253-1296.
    16. Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco & Turner, Matthew A., 2018. "Subways and urban growth: Evidence from earth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 85-106.
    17. Jackson, Kristoffer (Kip), 2018. "Regulation, land constraints, and California’s boom and bust," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 130-147.
    18. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2008. "The attenuation of human capital spillovers," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 373-389, September.
    19. Wu, Jing & Gyourko, Joseph & Deng, Yongheng, 2016. "Evaluating the risk of Chinese housing markets: What we know and what we need to know," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 91-114.
    20. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2005. "Urban Decline and Durable Housing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(2), pages 345-375, April.
    21. Nathaniel Baum-Snow, 2020. "Urban Transport Expansions and Changes in the Spatial Structure of U.S. Cities: Implications for Productivity and Welfare," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(5), pages 929-945, December.
    22. Albouy, David & Ehrlich, Gabriel, 2018. "Housing productivity and the social cost of land-use restrictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 101-120.
    23. Jason Barr & Jingshu Luo, 2021. "Growing Skylines: The Economic Determinants of Skyscrapers in China," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 210-248, August.
    24. Nathaniel Baum-Snow, 2007. "Did Highways Cause Suburbanization?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 775-805.
    25. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    26. Barr, Jason & Cohen, Jeffrey P., 2014. "The floor area ratio gradient: New York City, 1890–2009," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 110-119.
    27. Jedwab, Remi & Pereira, Daniel & Roberts, Mark, 2021. "Cities of workers, children or seniors? Stylized facts and possible implications for growth in a global sample of cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    28. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven E. Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 329-333, May.
    29. Ihlanfeldt, Keith R., 2007. "The effect of land use regulation on housing and land prices," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 420-435, May.
    30. Joseph Gyourko & Albert Saiz & Anita Summers, 2008. "A New Measure of the Local Regulatory Environment for Housing Markets: The Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 45(3), pages 693-729, March.
    31. Edward Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2018. "The Economic Implications of Housing Supply," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-30, Winter.
    32. Brueckner, Jan K. & Singh, Ruchi, 2020. "Stringency of land-use regulation: Building heights in US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    33. Liu, Crocker H. & Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2018. "The vertical city: Rent gradients, spatial structure, and agglomeration economies," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 101-122.
    34. Edward Glaeser & Wei Huang & Yueran Ma & Andrei Shleifer, 2017. "A Real Estate Boom with Chinese Characteristics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 93-116, Winter.
    35. Barr, Jason & Tassier, Troy & Trendafilov, Rossen, 2011. "Depth to Bedrock and the Formation of the Manhattan Skyline, 1890–1915," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1060-1077, December.
    36. Matthew A. Turner & Andrew Haughwout & Wilbert van der Klaauw, 2014. "Land Use Regulation and Welfare," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1341-1403, July.
    37. Brueckner, Jan K., 1987. "The structure of urban equilibria: A unified treatment of the muth-mills model," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: E. S. Mills (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 20, pages 821-845, Elsevier.
    38. Gyourko, Joseph & Molloy, Raven, 2015. "Regulation and Housing Supply," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1289-1337, Elsevier.
    39. Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt & Daniel P. McMillen, 2018. "Tall Buildings and Land Values: Height and Construction Cost Elasticities in Chicago, 1870–2010," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(5), pages 861-875, December.
    40. Edward Ludwig Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, 2003. "The impact of building restrictions on housing affordability," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, issue Jun, pages 21-39.
    41. Mariaflavia Harari, 2020. "Cities in Bad Shape: Urban Geometry in India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2377-2421, August.
    42. Saks, Raven E., 2008. "Job creation and housing construction: Constraints on metropolitan area employment growth," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 178-195, July.
    43. Bertaud, Alain & Malpezzi, Stephen, 2001. "Measuring the Costs and Benefits of Urban Land Use Regulation: A Simple Model with an Application to Malaysia," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 393-418, September.
    44. Brueckner, Jan K. & Sridhar, Kala Seetharam, 2012. "Measuring welfare gains from relaxation of land-use restrictions: The case of India's building-height limits," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1061-1067.
    45. Barr, Jason M., 2016. "Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan's Skyscrapers," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199344369, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hiroyuki Usui, 2024. "Relative spatial variability in building heights and its spatial association: Application for the spatial clustering of harmonious and inharmonious building heights in Tokyo," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 51(4), pages 987-1002, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Barr, Jason, 2022. "The economics of skyscrapers: A synthesis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    2. Remi Jedwab & Jason Barr & Jan K. Brueckner, 2020. "Cities without Skylines: Worldwide Building-Height Gaps and Their Implications," CESifo Working Paper Series 8511, CESifo.
    3. Brueckner, Jan K. & Singh, Ruchi, 2020. "Stringency of land-use regulation: Building heights in US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    4. Larson, William & Yezer, Anthony & Zhao, Weihua, 2022. "Urban planning policies and the cost of living in large cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    5. Gyourko, Joseph & Molloy, Raven, 2015. "Regulation and Housing Supply," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1289-1337, Elsevier.
    6. Jedwab, Remi & Loungani, Prakash & Yezer, Anthony, 2021. "Comparing cities in developed and developing countries: Population, land area, building height and crowding," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    7. Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. & Barr, Jason, 2022. "Viewing urban spatial history from tall buildings," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Parkhomenko, Andrii, 2023. "Local causes and aggregate implications of land use regulation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    9. Anthony Yezer & William Larson & Weihua Zhao, 2018. "An Examination of the Link between Urban Planning Policies and the High Cost of Housing and Labor," Working Papers 2018-6, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    10. Gyourko, Joe & Krimmel, Jacob, 2021. "The impact of local residential land use restrictions on land values across and within single family housing markets," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    11. Molloy, Raven, 2020. "The effect of housing supply regulation on housing affordability: A review," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Michael D. Eriksen & Anthony W. Orlando, 2022. "Returns to Scale in Residential Construction: The Marginal Impact of Building Height," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 50(2), pages 534-564, June.
    13. Howard, Greg & Liebersohn, Jack, 2021. "Why is the rent so darn high? The role of growing demand to live in housing-supply-inelastic cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    14. Wenbin Huang, 2022. "Government Land Regulations and Housing Supply Elasticity in Urban China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(4), pages 122-148, July.
    15. Molloy, Raven & Nathanson, Charles G. & Paciorek, Andrew, 2022. "Housing supply and affordability: Evidence from rents, housing consumption and household location," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    16. Sebastian Eichhorn & David Pehlke, 2022. "Unintended effects of regional planning in Germany," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(2), pages 933-950, June.
    17. H. Spencer Banzhaf & Kyle Mangum, 2019. "Capitalization as a Two-Part Tariff: The Role of Zoning," NBER Working Papers 25699, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Zhang, Junfu, 2023. "JUE Insight: Measuring the Stringency of Land Use Regulation Using a Shadow Price Approach," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    19. Cun, Wukuang & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 2022. "A spatiotemporal equilibrium model of migration and housing interlinkages," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    20. A Accetturo & A. R Lamorgese & S Mocetti & D Pellegrino, 2021. "Housing supply elasticity and growth: evidence from Italian cities," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 367-396.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    International Buildings Heights; Land Use Regulations; Geographical Constraints; Housing Supply; Housing Prices; Sprawl; Congestion; Pollution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R3 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets
    • R33 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Nonagricultural and Nonresidential Real Estate Markets
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy
    • R5 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O50 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:juecon:v:132:y:2022:i:c:s0094119022000833. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622905 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.