Calendrier du 27 juin 2024
brown bag Travail et Économie Publique
Du 27/06/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30
PSE- 48 boulevard Jourdan, 74014 Paris, salle R1-15
PAUL-VENTURINE Julia ()
Mayors strike back: Evidence from the removal of floor area ratios in France
écrit avec Guillaume Chapelle (CYU, LIEPP) and Camille Urvoy (Mannheim)
Land use regulations have been pointed out as a major factor of housing scarcity, contributing to high prices and reducing agglomeration economies. Yet most studies use aggregated measures at the municipalities level and little is known about the impact of specific regulatory tools at a fine scale. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the removal of all floor to area ratios (FAR) by decision of the central state in 2014 in France. FAR limits housing surface on a plot according to the plot surface. Its removal aimed at increasing density by allowing more construction. To identify its impact on the Paris metropolitan area, we use a difference-in-difference framework comparing housing blocks where a maximum FAR existed before the reform with close blocks where no FAR existed.
Yet, we find that most treated areas did not see a significative change in housing density compared to non-treated ones. Using a panel of disaggregated land use regulations, we explain that it triggered an endogenous regulatory backlash from the mayors. They quickly compensated for the disappearance of FAR using alternate tools that still were available such as maximum heights and area coverage. Treated residential areas saw a small but insignificant decrease in their density compared to untreated ones, while treated semi-residential areas — that gather single-family housing and low-rise multi-family units — saw a significant decrease in density compared to non-treated areas of the same type. Indeed, they were the most at risk of densification. We interpret this impact as suggesting that mayors revised their local plans to reassure their constituents against the threat of devaluation of their house if more density were to be allowed. Ours results confirm that the home voter hypothesis and NIMBYsm are still important drivers of land use restrictions today. They also contribute to the debate optimal governance level for housing policies.
TOM (Théorie, Organisation et Marchés) Lunch Seminar
Du 27/06/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30
R2-20
WEBER Giacomo (PSE)
Coarse Agents and Intergroup Phenomena
This paper proposes a framework for analyzing intergroup phenomena. We consider heterogeneous agents divided into two groups. Agents are paired to play normal-form two-player games under complete information. When opponents belong to the same group (in-group), players form correct expectations about their behavior. Conversely, players form coarse expectations when their opponent is from the out-group. In equilibrium, these coarse expectations must coincide with the average behavior observed in the out-group. We apply this framework to an organizational setting where the groups represent subdivisions, and each game corresponds to a team task. These tasks are assumed to exhibit strategic complementarities. An omniscient designer assigns agents to teams in a way that maximizes the overall probability of task success. Our study focuses on the optimal assignment strategy, emphasizing the role of coarse expectations. We also discuss further economic applications