Welfare Economics of Land Use Regulation

Despite the pervasive nature of land use planning and land use regulation, evaluation of the costs and benefits of these policies has received only limited attention. This paper presents an empirical methodology, based on clear microeconomic foundations, for the evaluation of benefits and costs of land use planning. The technique is applied to the Town and Country Planning System of the UK. Evaluation is presented of gross benefits from several land use planning activities, the net costs of land use planning, and the distributional consequences of these policies. The results show that these welfare and distributional impacts are considerable.