Why are many U.S. cities building less? Why have they insisted on a "thicket" of regulations that make housing hard to build? In a new #EconJMP with Beau Bressler (beaubressler.github.io), we study how much of the answer lies with a forgotten federal program that taught cities to restrict growth

Me and the boys watching the global trade war escalate today

This isn't the first time we've seen the Corinth/Dante estimates of the U.S. housing shortage - 20 million units! Sounds like a big number, but it's not a crazy number. The magnitude depends on at what point you'd consider the shortage "closed."

Here's a viral Tiktok chart on housing unaffordability in Canada, but it looked a bit weird to me. It's not as bad as when a viral U.S. chart compared rent growth with inflation-adjusted income. But here's my look into what is used as "income" here... www.tiktok.com/@thebeautyof...

Which zoning regulations shaped America's urban geography the most? It's easy to paint one culprit - density zoning limiting smaller homes - in broad strokes. Yet facts that pinpoint specific regs' role is hard to come by, even if those matter for legal and policy decisions. In a new paper...

Here is a question I kind of forced upon Joe and @arpitrage.bsky.social : if you look at within-metro areas with more immigrant residents than others, 1) Are immigrant households more rent burdened in the most foreign-born communities? 2) Is the relationship in (1) weakening over time?

This is not a fight I want to pick as my first Bluesky post, but I was thinking about the simmering "beef" between the antitrust guys and abundance guys. Once the insults stop flying, it's nice to see people agree there is room for cooperation. But also helpful to see where the disagreement lies...