This paper was presented an OECD working group of city measurement, in Paris, in November 2006. It presents the rationale for, and a method for measuring, the ‘Functional Urban Region’ of London which establishes an estimate of its true economic extent, independent of its actual or...

Office space in Britain is the most expensive in the world and regulatory constraints are the obvious explanation. We estimate the ‘regulatory tax’ for 14 British office locations from 1961 to 2005. These are orders of magnitude greater than estimates for Manhattan condominiums or office...