Urbanization under uncertainty and land use regulations: Theory and estimation (California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington).

摘要

This dissertation consists of three papers on land use economics and policies. The first two papers focus primarily on local land use policies and urban development. The third paper addresses the question how environmental amenities affect households' residential choices in a metropolitan area.; In the first paper, an option value approach is used to model land development decisions under uncertainty. A land use conversion model is estimated to examine the effect of land use regulations, benefit uncertainty, and other socioeconomic and spatial variables on urbanization and farmland development for counties in five western states (California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington). The empirical results confirm that risks associated with alternative land uses are important variables affecting land allocation. Agricultural zoning, state land use planning, and mandatory review of projects involving farmland conversion are most effective in controlling farmland development among all policies examined in this study.; In the second paper, a theoretical model is developed to analyze the interactions among residential development, land use regulations, and public financial impacts (public expenditure and property tax). A simultaneous equations system with self-selection and discrete dependent variables is estimated to determine the interactions for counties in the five western states. The results show that county governments are more likely to impose land use regulations when facing rapid land development, high public expenditure and property tax. The land use regulations, in turn, decrease land development, long-run public expenditure, and property tax at the cost of higher housing prices and short-run property tax.; The third paper examines equilibrium properties of local jurisdictions implied by the Tiebout-style model. A set of equilibrium conditions are derived from a general equilibrium model of local jurisdictions. The conditions are parameterized and empirically estimated in a two-stage procedure. The method is applied to communities in a Portland metropolitan area with an extension of public-good provision to include environmental amenities. The results suggest that the model can replicate many of the empirical regularities observed in the data. For example, the predicted income distributions across communities closely matched the observed distribution. The estimated income elasticity of housing demand is consistent with previous findings. One important finding of this paper is that the parameter estimates would be biased if environmental amenities are not considered.