Land Use and Economic Mobility: You Could Have Read It Here First

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal contains a great page 3 article on how stricter land use regulations are slowing the growth of housing in areas that need it most. Laura Kusisto reports on a developer’s fight to build middle‐​class housing in downtown San Francisco, but she notes that similar problems can be seen in wealthy communities from New York and Connecticut to San Diego and Portland, Ore. She also cites academic research on the topic:

According to research by Daniel Shoag, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard University, and Peter Ganong, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a decadeslong trend in which the income gap between the poorest and richest states steadily closed has been upended by growth in land‐​use regulations.


Moving to a wealthier area in search of job opportunities has historically been a way to promote economic equality, allowing workers to pursue higher‐​paying jobs elsewhere. But those wage gains lose their appeal if they are eaten up by higher housing costs. The result: More people stay put and lose out on potential higher incomes.

For on‐​the‐​ground reporting, you need newspapers. But you could have read about that paper twice in Cato Institute publications. Regulation magazine editor Peter Van Doren wrote about it in Winter 2013–2014 in his “Working Papers” column on new research (page 78). 


And just two months ago a summary version of the paper appeared in the Research Briefs in Economic Policy series edited by Jeff Miron, director of economic studies. 


I hope state and local policymakers will take note of the findings in this paper.


Stay tuned to the Cato Institute for more ahead‐​of‐​the‐​curve ideas.