IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/11129.html

Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?

Author

Listed:
  • Edward L. Glaeser
  • Joseph Gyourko
  • Raven Saks

Abstract

Since 1950, housing prices have risen regularly by almost two percent per year. Between 1950 and 1970, this increase reflects rising housing quality and construction costs. Since 1970, this increase reflects the increasing difficulty of obtaining regulatory approval for building new homes. In this paper, we present a simple model of regulatory approval that suggests a number of explanations for this change including changing judicial tastes, decreasing ability to bribe regulators, rising incomes and greater tastes for amenities, and improvements in the ability of homeowners to organize and influence local decisions. Our preliminary evidence suggests that there was a significant increase in the ability of local residents to block new projects and a change of cities from urban growth machines to homeowners' cooperatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven Saks, 2005. "Why Have Housing Prices Gone Up?," NBER Working Papers 11129, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11129
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11129.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko & Raven Saks, 2003. "Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 2020, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    2. Edward L. Glaeser & Joseph Gyourko, "undated". "The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability," Zell/Lurie Center Working Papers 395, Wharton School Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center, University of Pennsylvania.
    3. 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.
    4. Glaeser, Edward L & Gyourko, Joseph & Saks, Raven, 2005. "Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 331-369, October.
    5. William A. Fischel, 2004. "An Economic History of Zoning and a Cure for its Exclusionary Effects," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(2), pages 317-340, February.
    6. Edward L. Glaeser & Claudia Goldin, 2006. "Corruption and Reform: Introduction," NBER Chapters, in: Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History, pages 3-22, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. François Ortalo-Magné & Andrea Prat, 2005. "The Political Economy of Housing Supply," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000954, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Ritashree Chakrabarti & Junfu Zhang, 2010. "Unaffordable housing and local employment growth," New England Public Policy Center Working Paper 10-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    3. Hilber, Christian A.L. & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2013. "On the origins of land use regulations: Theory and evidence from US metro areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 29-43.
    4. Joseph Gyourko & Christopher Mayer & Todd Sinai, 2013. "Superstar Cities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 167-199, November.
    5. Hilber, Christian A.L., 2010. "New housing supply and the dilution of social capital," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 419-437, May.
    6. N/A, 2007. "Real Convergence, Price Level Convergence and Inflation in Europe," Bruegel Working Papers 267, Bruegel.
    7. Leung, Charles Ka Yui & Teo, Wing Leong, 2011. "Should the optimal portfolio be region-specific? A multi-region model with monetary policy and asset price co-movements," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 293-304, May.
    8. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2017. "The Economic Implications of House Price Capitalization: A Synthesis," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 45(2), pages 301-339, April.
    9. Raphael W. Bostic & Stanley D. Longhofer & Christian L. Redfearn, 2007. "Land Leverage: Decomposing Home Price Dynamics," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 35(2), pages 183-208, June.
    10. Christian A. L. Hilber, 2019. "Immobilienpreise und Immobilienzyklen und die Rolle von Angebotsbeschränkungen [The impact of local supply constraints on house prices and price dynamics]," Zeitschrift für Immobilienökonomie (German Journal of Real Estate Research), Springer;Gesellschaft für Immobilienwirtschaftliche Forschung e. V., vol. 5(1), pages 37-65, November.
    11. Gottlieb, Paul D. & Rudel, Thomas & O'Neill, Karen & McDermott, Melanie, "undated". "Is agricultural zoning exclusionary?," 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 103562, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    12. Mariano Kulish & Anthony Richards & Christian Gillitzer, 2012. "Urban Structure and Housing Prices: Some Evidence from Australian Cities," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(282), pages 303-322, September.
    13. Frederic S. Mishkin, 2007. "Housing and the monetary transmission mechanism," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 359-413.
    14. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation Of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation And American History," NBER Working Papers 18825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Kulkarni, Nirupama & Malmendier, Ulrike, 2022. "Homeownership segregation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 123-149.
    16. Cai, Hongbin & Wang, Zhi & Zhang, Qinghua, 2017. "To build above the limit? Implementation of land use regulations in urban China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 223-233.
    17. Tikoudis, Ioannis & Verhoef, Erik T. & van Ommeren, Jos N., 2018. "Second-best urban tolls in a monocentric city with housing market regulations," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 117(PA), pages 342-359.
    18. Christophe Blot, 2006. "Peut-on parler de bulle sur le marché immobilier au Luxembourg ?," BCL working papers 20, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    19. Paciorek, Andrew, 2013. "Supply constraints and housing market dynamics," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 11-26.
    20. Grimes, Arthur & Liang, Yun, 2009. "Spatial determinants of land prices: Does Auckland’s metropolitan urban limit have an effect?," MPRA Paper 68803, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O2 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:11129. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.