Housing Markets and Vacant Land

Abstract: The paper examines land use in an urban zone. We propose a partial equilibrium model of housing markets with both vacant and built up land. The existing literature assumes building decisions to be irreversible and treats any given stock ofvacant land as an exhaustible resource. By way of c...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Link(s) zu Dokument(en):IHS Publikation
Hauptverfasser: Keuschnigg, Christian, Nielsen, Soren Bo
Format: IHS Series NonPeerReviewed
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Institut für Höhere Studien 1994
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Abstract: The paper examines land use in an urban zone. We propose a partial equilibrium model of housing markets with both vacant and built up land. The existing literature assumes building decisions to be irreversible and treats any given stock ofvacant land as an exhaustible resource. By way of contrast, we argue that vacant land is built upon in finite time rather than asymptotically, and reduces to a temporary phenomenon only. When housing stocks depreciate, previously built up land is released and may be rebuilt at any structural intensity dictated by the going market conditions. The continued replacement of existing structures allows to adjust the average structural intensity in the city even if all land is built upon. We explain analytically the long-run equilibrium with full land use and demonstrate numerically that vacant land may still be an important transitional phenomenon. In particular, we emphasize the implication for land prices.;