Gyourko, Joseph
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Publication Why is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in Housing Prices(2005-10-01) Glaeser, Edward L.; Gyourko, Joseph; Saks, RavenIn Manhattan, housing prices have soared since the 1990s. Although rising incomes, lower interest rates, and other factors can explain the demand side of this increase, some sluggishness in the supply of apartment buildings is needed to account for high and rising prices. In a market dominated by high-rises, the marginal cost of supplying more housing is the cost of adding an extra floor to any new building. Home building is a highly competitive industry with almost no natural barriers to entry, and yet prices in Manhattan currently appear to be more than twice their supply costs. We argue that land use restrictions are the natural explanation for this gap. We also present evidence that regulation is constraining the supply of housing in a number of other housing markets across the country. In these areas, increases in demand have led not to more housing units but to higher prices.Publication Urban Decline and Durable Housing(2005-04-01) Glaeser, Edward L.; Gyourko, JosephUrban decline is not the mirror image of growth, and durable housing is the primary reason the nature of decline is so different. This paper presents a model of urban decline with durable housing and verifies these implications of the model: (1) city growth rates are skewed so that cities grow more quickly than they decline; (2) urban decline is highly persistent; (3) positive shocks increase population more than they increase housing prices; (4) negative shocks decrease housing prices more than they decrease population; (5) if housing prices are below construction costs, then the city declines; and (6) the combination of cheap housing and weak labor demand attracts individuals with low levels of human capital to declining cities.