In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkably well in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simple rank-size rule known as Zipf's law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is the "churning" of industries...

Larger cities typically give rise to two opposite effects: tougher competition among firms and higher production costs. Using an urban model with substitutability of production factors and pro-competitive effects, I study the response of the market outcome to city size, land-use regulations, and...

Campaigns to address high housing costs by reforming urban planning to allow more housing have had some notable successes, but they continue to face considerable opposition. Proposals often involve top-down preemption of municipal zoning decisions by higher authorities such as state...

We set out an open, monocentric city with residential structures and reflect on how changes to an amenity index affects the city. On the production side, the shock is represented by a productivity improvement and a local wage increase and on the consumption side the shock is represented by an...

Despite interest in the impact of land use regulations on housing construction and housing prices, little is known about the drivers of these policies. The conventional wisdom holds that homeowners have an influence on restrictive local zoning. In this paper, we contend that the party...

Das sozioökonomische Wachstum und die raumstrukturellen Veränderungen der letzten ca. 50 Jahre haben Spuren hinterlassen. Dabei zeigt sich ein Spannungsfeld, denn die Bereitstellung von Flächen für urbane Nutzungen geht mit Nutzungskonflikten hinsichtlich der Ressource Boden einher. Im...