Flashback Saturday – City size, variety, and consumer surplus
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in June 2016.
In the 1990s, in the early years of the information technology revolution, economist Robert Solow famously commented that “you can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”…
12 Comments The Economics of Urbanisation – Summer School course in Amsterdam
Introduction: This is a guest post from former blogger, Stuart Donovan, who now spends much of his time caring for his warrior princess, Alexandra, and tending to his voracious worm farm. And doing his PhD. In this post, Stuart summarises a course in urban economics he is giving in Amsterdam later this year.…
The causes and economic consequences of rising regional housing prices (part 3)
This is a post from Peter Nunns. See Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
In the first two posts in this series I introduced the postgraduate research project I’ve been working on, which looks at the causes and economic consequences of rising regional housing prices in New Zealand, and outlined the role of scarcity in driving house prices up, especially in Auckland.…
Viewshaft E10: “The full cost could easily be double”
This is a follow up guest post from Geoff Cooper, Director of Economics at PwC, on work he’s done looking at viewshafts. You can read the first post here.
I’ve had a lot of feedback on the results of our study into Viewshaft E10.…
Viewshaft E10: A Billion Dollar View on Auckland
This is a guest post from Geoff Cooper, Director of Economics at PwC, on work he’s done looking at viewshafts.
The Journal of New Zealand Economic Papers recently published ‘City With A Billion Dollar View’ by Geoff Cooper (Princeton University, but now at PwC) and Kabira Namit (World Bank).…
Flashback Saturday: If you want more consumption choices, live near lots of other people
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in March 2015.
One of the many reasons that people choose to live in cities is that cities offer variety. As Stu Donovan has argued before, being around more people sometimes seems inconvenient, but it also exposes you to new ideas, new people, and new consumption choices.…
Flashback Saturday: Demographia fails Urban Economics 101
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in March 2015.
Every year since 2005, pro-sprawl think-tank Demographia has published a new edition of its “International Housing Affordability Survey“. They report a “median multiple” measure of housing affordability that compares median house prices to median household incomes within a number of cities, mostly in the English-speaking world.…
Flashback Saturday: Alain Bertaud in Auckland
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in September 2014.
Back in July former World Bank urban planner Alain Bertaud and his wife Marie-Agnes, a fellow professional in the field, came down to New Zealand at the invitation of the NZ Initiative and the Minister of Finance’s office to deliver a series of talks on urban economics.…
Flashback Saturday: Apartments, proximity, and living space
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Peter was originally published in June 2016.
Housing is a normal good. That is, it’s something that people tend to want more of as their incomes increase.
“More” doesn’t necessarily mean “larger”.…
Flashback Sunday: Auckland Unbound
Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Patrick was originally published in December 2014.
Last month I was asked to write an article for Metro Magazine on transport in Auckland, it ran in the December issue and now can be seen on Metro’s site here.…
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