Land-Use Regulation and Growth

I want to piggy-back here on Mark’s great post on urban planning and the poor. I’ve been playing around with some state-level data on local land-use regulations and cost of living. The last decade in the U.S. has been one of very slow productivity growth. As a result, fast-growing states tend to be those with low growth in cost of living. This explains not just states like Texas but North Dakota as well (and at the other end, California). Take a look at the list of states with highest annualized real personal income growth over 2000 to 2007 (the deflator, a state cost of living index, comes from the newest, 2009 Berry et al. data, which explains why the series ends at 2007):

1. Louisiana – 2.8%
2. Wyoming – 2.8%
3. North Dakota – 2.6%
4. South Dakota – 2.1%
5. Oklahoma – 1.9%
6. Arkansas – 1.8%
7. Mississippi – 1.5%
8. Nebraska – 1.5%
9. Montana – 1.5%
10. Kansas – 1.4%

Surprised? These are hardly “knowledge economies.” In some cases, mining or energy accounts for strong growth, and indeed in multiple regression mining share of GDP in 2000 does strongly explain subsequent real personal income growth (per capita or total). And in Louisiana’s case Hurricane Katrina chased away a lot of low-income people. But part of the story is elastic housing supply leading to low growth in house prices during the 2000-2007 bubble. A better measure of state economic success is arguably total rather than per capita income growth, which rewards states that attract people. Here are those numbers:

1. Wyoming – 3.6%
2. Nevada – 3.1%
3. Florida – 3.0%
4. South Dakota – 2.8%
5. Arizona – 2.8%
6. Arkansas – 2.6%
7. Texas – 2.6%
8. North Dakota – 2.6%
9. Oklahoma – 2.5%
10. Louisiana – 2.5%

Again, these states have in common slow growth in housing prices during the bubble. And what explains slow growth in housing prices? Land-use regulation. I use the Gyourko et al. land-use regulation variable to predict both cost of living in 2000 and growth in cost of living over 2000-2007. It is an extremely strong predictor of both (statistical significance>99.99%). When net 2000-2007 in-migration (% of 2000 population) is regressed on both 2000 cost of living and the land-use regulation index along with controls (economic and personal freedom, 2000 accommodations GDP per capita), both are highly statistically significant and negative. When total personal income growth is regressed on migration, controls, and the land-use regulation index, land-use regulation is insignificant while migration is highly significant and positive. No surprise there – land-use regulation doesn’t reduce total factor productivity, but it does discourage labor inflows.

So here’s the big story of growth in those states that have experienced it in the last decade: lack of land-use regulation –> slow growth in cost of living –> more in-migration –> more income growth. Highly regulated states like California (-0.4% annual growth), Oregon (0.1%), Massachusetts (0.1%), and New Jersey (0.3%) could learn something. If we are entering a “great stagnation,” we may have to squeeze increases in living standards out of lower prices rather than innovation for a while.