Land Use Regulation

Abstract

Land use regulation and zoning laws are all around us. From neighborhood covenants to local Madison (Wisconsin) law forbidding buildings to be taller than the Capitol—these types of restrictions show their effect on both current homebuyers and the general public every day. Keith Ihlanfeldt’s paper, “The Effect of Land Use Regulation on Housing and Land Prices,” was published in 2007 in the Journal of Urban Economics to investigate the effects of land use restrictions on housing and vacant land prices, as well as on house and lot sizes. Literature on this topic previously existed, but Ihlanfeldt felt it had many shortcomings and uncertainties, and wanted to further analyze the topic with a new and improved model. His main goals of the paper were to find out whether increased land use regulation restrictions did in fact have a monetary effect (and if so, in what ways) on developed houses and vacant land.