ایجاد شغل و ساخت و ساز مسکن : محدودیت در رشد استخدام در منطقه شهری

Differences in the supply of housing generate substantial variation in house prices across the United States. Because house prices influence migration, the elasticity of housing supply also has an important impact on local labor markets. I assemble evidence on housing supply regulations and examine their effect on metropolitan area housing and labor market dynamics. Locations with relatively few barriers to construction experience more residential construction and smaller increases in house prices in response to an increase in housing demand. Furthermore, housing supply constraints alter local employment and wage dynamics in locations where the degree of regulation is most severe.

A growing literature argues that labor migration is one of the primary mechanisms through which metropolitan areas adjust to changes in local economic conditions (Blanchard and Katz, 1992; Gallin, 2004; Topel, 1986). Prospective migrants choose a location by comparing the benefit to living in each area to the cost of moving. Because housing is a large share of the household budget, house prices have an important effecton the relative value of wages across geographic areas.1 As a result, areas with high house prices will attract fewer migrants holding other factors constant (Gabriel et al., 1993; Johnes and Hyclak, 1999). Because housing markets influence migration, local employment growth depends critically on the capacity of the construction industry to accommodate increases in housing demand. In places where residential construction responds to new demand without difficulty, workers will move into the area with little change in house prices. In contrast, if new construction is con-strained, an increase in demand will lead mostly to higher house prices, with little change in employment. Thus, the elasticity of housing supply is a key factor in determining how labor markets adjust to changes in local economic conditions.2

Land use restrictions and other government regulations have a substantial impact on housing and labor market dynamics in metropolitan areas across the United States. These regulations lower the elasticity of housing supply, consequently altering relative differences in house prices and patterns of labor migration across locations. As a result, employment growth is lower in places where the housing supply is more constrained. The empirical analysis in this paper showed that locations with a larger degree of housing supply regulation experience less residential construction and larger increases in house prices in response to an increase in labor demand. Moreover, housing supply regulations have a lasting effect on metropolitan area employment. In the long run, an increase in labor demand results in considerably lower employment in metropolitan areas with a low elasticity of housing supply. These results demonstrate that the interaction between the housing supply and local labor markets is an important determinant of regional patterns of employment growth. The impact of housing supply regulations likely extends beyond the effects on employment, wages and house prices discussed here. For example, as places with a large degree of regulation experience rising house prices, the composition of the population within these metropolitan areas may change. Because young people and minorities have a higher propensity to move (US Census Bureau, 2004), areas with many housing supply constraints may end up with a smaller share of people in these groups. Furthermore, high house prices may mean that only rich households can afford to move into a location while poorer households are forced out, leading to higher income inequality across locations (Gyourko et al., 2006). An additional effect of changing the composition of the local population may be that the skills of the local workforce will change, thereby altering the industrial composition of local firms as well