virtual special issue editorial essay the shitty rent business what s the point of land rent theory in this introduction to a virtual special issue on land rent we sketch out the history of land rent theory encompassing classical political economy marx s political economy the marginalist turn and subsequent foundations for urban economics and the marxist consensus around rent theory during geography s spatial turn we then overview some of the contemporary strands of literature that have developed since the break down of this consensus namely political economy approaches centred on capital switching institutionalism of various stripes and the rent gap theory we offer a critical urban political economy perspective and a particular set of arguments run through the review first land is not the same as capital but has unique attributes as a factor of production which require a separate theorisation second since the 1970s consensus around land rent and the city dissipated the critical literature has tended to take the question of why how the payment exists at all for granted and so has ignored the particular dynamics of rent arising from the idiosyncrasies of land amongst the talk of an anthropocene and planetary urbanisation it is surprising that the economic fulcrum of the capitalist remaking of geography has fallen so completely off the agenda it is time to bring rent back into the analysis of land cities and capitalism

property market efficiency an institutional economics perspective this paper reassesses the debate around property market efficiency and introduces an institutional perspective it considers property market efficiency in terms of the specific characteristics of property itself and the processes through which property is used and traded it argues that the institutional dimension fundamentally alters the concept of efficiency and leads to a partial and contingent judgement on achieved efficiency instead of seeking a judgement on whether the property market as an entity is efficient the institutional approach allows the possibility that property market process may be efficient for some market participants but not for others it also introduces a time dimension suggesting the need to assess the adaptability of property market process as economic and social conditions change

exploring the notional property developer as a policy construct this paper explores how far policy makers understand the structure of the development industry the perceived characteristics of developers and the extent to which such actors can be considered policy responsive if these matters are poorly understood the effectiveness of planning policy may be undermined especially where the private sector is responsible for undertaking most development the paper is based upon empirical research on the scottish executive s perceptions of and policy stances towards developers between 1999 and 2007 it finds that the executive appeared to have only limited understanding of what drives the development process or motivates individual developers and seemed unfamiliar with important differences within the industry sectorally and geographically instead the notional property developer was incorrectly conceived as a malleable and potentially compliant partner with shared objectives to the state the paper calls for a more thorough understanding of the development industr

evaluation of investor behaviour in urban regeneration the financing of urban regeneration and levering of private sector investment remains a major policy issue this article utilising the results of a behavioural survey analyses the motivations of

the role and behaviour of commercial property investors and developers in french urban regeneration the experience of the paris region summary this paper provides an analysis of the factors underlying private investment decisions concerning property development with specific reference to urban regeneration in the french context it is based on the results of a behavioural survey and mca analysis of the behaviour patterns and motivations of active private investors and developers in the french commercial property markets and their involvement in french urban regeneration initiatives the pattern of investment and development activity over the 1997 2002 french property market recovery period has been studied and a typology of actors set up based on their investment policy for these property markets the findings indicate that property investors in urban regeneration essentially seek speculative developments and short term investments

financialisation the valuation of investment property and the urban built environment in the uk the financialisation literature has been criticised for its limited empirical base and its failure adequately to link the everyday world with that of high finance the paper addresses these shortcomings by examining the calculative practice of property valuation the way that valuations are performed affects their results and therefore the operation of the property market the paper traces the evolving influence of finance capital on the valuation of commercial property in the uk by constructing a historiography of investment valuation since 1960 traditional approaches to valuation have been increasingly challenged by those derived from financial economics however the former remains the dominant method for undertaking market valuation its grounding in comparison a centring and standardising process offers an explanation for some of the changes in the urban built environment that are ascribed to financialisation this suggests that a more detailed and historically sensitive interpretation of financialisation is required

the roles of the state and the market in establishing property rights it is an old saw of the economics profession that markets require a clear assignment of initial entitlements to most resources and well enforced rules of contract governments intent on fostering a market economy should thus make sure to put an effective legal system in place one in which property rights are unambiguous secure and freely alienable even if the state gets some of the initial entitlements wrong it is often added the coase theorem instructs us that the parties if free to contract will correct this by appropriate private agreements the experience of postcommunist countries in eastern europe is a good reminder that economists tend to assume a can opener when one is needed indeed the statement that property and contract rights must be put in place assumes away one of the most interesting and intricate questions concerning economic development the creation of a system of enforceable entitlements to the diverse and complex forms of wealth characteristic of a modern society is itself a process subject to economic laws as i shall argue here it is in fact largely a product of market forces rather than governmental fiat

disruptive change in the taxi business the case of uber in most cities the taxi industry is highly regulated and utilizes technology developed in the 1940s ride sharing services such as uber and lyft which use modern internet based mobile technology to connect passengers and drivers have begun to compete with traditional taxis this paper examines the efficiency of ride sharing services vis a vis taxis by comparing the capacity utilization rate of uberx drivers with that of traditional taxi drivers in five cities the capacity utilization rate is measured by the fraction of time a driver has a fare paying passenger in the car while he or she is working and by the share of total miles that drivers log in which a passenger is in their car the main conclusion is that in most cities with data available uberx drivers spend a significantly higher fraction of their time and drive a substantially higher share of miles with a passenger in their car than do taxi drivers four factors likely contribute to the higher capacity utilization rate of uberx drivers 1 uber s more efficient driver passenger matching technology 2 the larger scale of uber than taxi companies 3 inefficient taxi regulations and 4 uber s flexible labor supply model and surge pricing more closely match supply with demand throughout the day

london and property markets a long term view this paper examines the relationship between investment in built structures economic growth and economic cycles in the uk from the middle of the 19th century and relates its findings to the development of london a rising price of built structures relative to investment in equipment has existed throughout virtually all of the time period this it is argued has encouraged suburbanisation in addition a long term rise in demand for housing is putting additional pressure on living space in the city london has benefited however from the high level of building investment in modern economies particularly in attracting key building intensive activities like financial services long phases of building activity are shown in the data and they are argued to have a destabilising effect on london s economic growth these relationships between the relative price of investment goods long phases of higher and lower activity in their provision and the london economy reinforce the need for a london wide planning a

congestion function specification and the publicness of local public goods abstract this paper is about the measurement of congestion within the median voter demand framework the model of congestion traditionally used in the literature and four others are compared and tested in a median voter framework the results show that a more flexible functional form which imposes fewer a priori restrictions on the data does at least as good a job of explaining variations in local government expenditures furthermore it is shown that measured publicness of local public goods depends entirely on the a priori restrictions imposed on the congestion function

common interest development and the changing roles of government and market in planning world wide common interest development cid and its governance homeowners associations hoas are developing rapidly however numerous conflicts have given rise to the need to redefine govern

choice of foreign market entry mode impact of ownership location and internalization factors firms interested in servicing foreign markets face a difficult decision with regards to the choice of an entry mode the options available to a firm include exporting licensing joint venture and sole venture several factors that determine the choice of a specific foreign market entry mode have been identified in previous literature these factors can be classified into three categories ownership advantages of a firm location advantages of a market and internalization advantages of integrating transactions this study examines the independent and joint influences of these factors on the choice of an entry mode multinomial logistic regression model is employed to test the hypothesized effects

new institutional economics in the post socialist transformation debate the paper suggests that there is a tension between the basic tenant of new institutional economics nie and the manner in which it has been applied in the debate on post socialist transformation this tension is explored in the context of four main perspectives on nie i property rights ii transaction costs economics iii new economic history and iv evolutionary economics there are two main arguments the first is that the transformation phase should be seen as open ended rather than a closed process where the pure market is the inevitable end result the second is that although the nie literature touches on most of the issues which are relevant to post socialist transformation the insights that it offers are still too general for policy guidance

the real estate markets players institutions and territories revealing the parties the processes and the institutions and consequently both the diversity and contingency of the real estate markets the existing increasing literature emphasises the contemporary numerous links and interdependencies between real estate land value planning and town planning policy and even the financial system this paper is an attempt to understand all the real estate markets from the most peripheral ones where the urban rent is the lowest to the most dense city centres to gain a better understanding of the real estate market a process of firstly deconstruction and then reconstruction is used the process of deconstruction involves identifying various market trends according to property type principally residential buildings players and institutions territorial situations and temporalities based on research conducted in switzerland we then developed a meta synthesis inspired by fernand braudel whose works put as much emphasis on day to day economic activity as on long term activity and on local as well as global issues

policy review section in this policy review section gerry stoker of the institute of local government studies presents a critical review of the role of urban development corporations udcs in comparing the experience of the udcs consideration is given to the varying nature of the land and property market in each udc area to the relationship with local authorities and other local bodies and the regeneration strategies pursued by the udcs this is followed by an assessment of the impact of the udcs in economic social and political terms in the second article john britton of the university of toronto examines the theoretical case for interventionist public policies to assist the innovation process in small and medium sized enterprises these arguments are supported by a review of the experience of various national support programmes introduced in the uk in particular the manufacturing advisory service introduced in 1978 and the design advisory service launched in 1982

land tenure issues in economic development land property and construction are reckoned to account for around 20 per cent of the gross domestic product of many nations the relationship between people and the land is complex and differs between nations depending on their history culture and legal system many countries especially those in transition from command to market driven economies are re engineering their cadastral and land registration systems in order to provide cheaper faster and more secure ways of transacting land this paper focuses on the importance of land tenure arrangements and the need to manage information about land and property in support of land markets and sustainable development

technological learning and renewable energy costs implications for us renewable energy policy abstract this paper analyzes the relationship between current renewable energy technology costs and cumulative production research development and demonstration expenditures and other institutional influences combining the theoretical framework of learning by doing and developments in learning by searching with the fields of organizational learning and institutional economics offers a complete methodological framework to examine the underlying capital cost trajectory when developing electricity cost estimates used in energy policy planning models sensitivities of the learning rates for global wind and solar photovoltaic technologies to changes in the model parameters are tested the implications of the results indicate that institutional policy instruments play an important role for these technologies to achieve cost reductions and further market adoption

assessing institutional relations in development partnerships the land development corporation and the hong kong government prior to 1997 this paper interprets and develops contemporary notions of partnership in relation to hong kong s land development corporation it demonstrates how such agencies are likely to become overdependent on their private sector partners or ineffective in policy delivery unless endowed with adequate powers and resources in this context it suggests that the ldc s capacity to promote urban renewal was undermined particularly by the institutional requirement to assemble redevelopment sites in multiple ownership principally through negotiation while seeking to explain this weakness in relation to the socio cultural context of hong kong it warns that in applying the western experience of partnership elsewhere full account must be taken of local circumstances and constraints

institutions in british property research a review this paper surveys approaches to the study of institutions as used in recent commercial property research in britain institutional analysis can be approached from mainstream economics power str

land use planning and the housing market a comparative review of the uk and the usa this paper provides a review of some of the key articles and research examining the relationship between planning regulation and its impact on the housing market in the uk and the us in both count

foreign investors influence on the real estate market capitalization rate evidence from a small open economy abstractthis article adds to the scarce literature on the influence of international investment flows on local real estate values we hypothesize that a greater foreign investor presence in a real estate market results in a lower capitalization rate and examine whether this holds true in the helsinki cbd office market in finland this market provides an interesting case study by being part of a small open economy in which the presence of foreign investors has substantially varied over time the dynamic ols estimations using data for the period 1990 2015 provide support for the hypothesis the baseline results show a highly statistically significant negative impact of foreign investor participation on the capitalization rate the point estimates indicating that a 10 point growth in the share of foreign buyers of the total transaction volume decreases the cap rate by approximately 30 basis points

housebuilder networks and residential land markets the commercial prospects of speculative housebuilders depend crucially on successful land acquisitions this paper presents new evidence revealing the importance housebuilders attach to networks with other important actors in securing future land supplies since networks depend on trust reputation and voluntary collaboration they indicate the importance of social relations within the industry the paper argues that uk speculative housebuilders rely more on networks than markets to source land and that they structure those networks to enhance their own competitive positions reflecting granovetter s belief in the strength of weak ties the paper emphasises the breadth not depth of housebuilder networks and contends that social relations within the industry are primarily dependent on pragmatic considerations of mutual self interest

countering decline of industrial sites do local economic development policies target the neediest places local economic development is a much used tool for the regeneration of urban areas although the designation and effectiveness of local economic development policies has been studied extensively in

the role of the inner city in the development of manufacturing industry the first section of the paper surveys the evidence relating to the hypothesis that the inner city acts as a nursery for new manufacturing firms and shows that there is little direct confirmatory evidence the second and third sections report on two research studies of new firm foundation in london in the first study it is shown that few manufacturing firms have been set up in inner london in recent years the majority being in the inner city industries of printing clothing etc in the second the founders of new manufacturing firms not in the inner city industries were located and interviewed to find out the reasons for their choice of location the two studies together tend to refute the inner city nursery hypothesis

does land property structure affect local development patterns evidence from a greek tourist area this paper attempts to clarify the institutional context and local framework of landed property relations in the local development patterns of a rural space converted into an urban tourist resort on the island of rhodes greece through the diachronic analysis of cadastral data on land property ownership and non market land property transfers and acquisitions direct and indirect state policies land property structures inherited from the past formal and informal institutions enabled agents to establish enterprises of varying types and size socially dispersed landownership is a structural resource that through agency influences local development patterns and land property is repeatedly implicated in the local production and reproduction system

urban regeneration and the development industry healey p 1991 urban regeneration and the development industry reg studies 25 97 108 this paper examines a key assumption of urban policy in britain in the 1980s this assumption is that urba

market value without a market perspectives from transaction cost theory the concept of market value is central to the property valuation profession world wide while the valuers themselves still remain hugely influential in the market there is increasing evidence of w

technology appropriation in a de growing economy this article proposes a concept of technology appropriation as a means of ideological repurposing of technology in a de growing economy its economic and institutional foundations are set forth using an endogenous theory of economic development in the spirit of marx schumpeter and veblen technological and institutional change lead interdependently to the emergence of socio technical complexes which are subject to ideological appropriation these complexes are analyzed as actor networks from an ontological perspective and exemplified using special cases in the information and communication technologies icts the approach contributes to synthesizing critical political economy with actor network theory technology appropriation is elaborated as a means of repurposing existing technologies in terms of recombination with an emphasis on the strategy of habilitation this political economic strategy delivers new insights for a solidary mode of economic reproduction in a low carbon de growing economy

informal urban property markets and poverty alleviation a conceptual framework in the context of increasing urbanisation growth of informal settlements and the urbanisation of poverty this article suggests a conceptual framework to link urban informal property markets and p

the present state of institutional economics after articulating the institutionalist paradigm and its principal facets the article examines the present status converging interests and possible future of institutional economics emphasis is on related schools of thought and especially european and other developments along evolutionary and holistic lines of analysis and on a new generation of u s and especially european authors among more specific themes are the importance of power technology social change social control organizations and institutions in governing economic performance the work of european authors is expected to become increasingly important owing to their concern with subject matter and policy issues rather than sectarian questions c 1995 academic press ltd copyright 1995 by oxford university press

territorial competition and property market process an exploratory analysis this paper argues that the emerging research on territorial competition should be supplemented by an explicit consideration of the role of real property and property market process in shaping urb

detrending stylized facts and the business cycle the stylized facts of macroeconomic time series can be presented by fitting structural time series models within this framework we analyse the consequences of the widely used detrending technique popularised by hodrick and prescott 1980 it is shown that mechanical detrending based on the hodrick prescott filter can lead investigators to report spurious cyclical behaviour and this point is illustrated with empirical examples structural time series models also allow investigators to deal explicitly with seasonal and irregular movements that may distort estimated cyclical components finally the structural framework provides a basis for exposing the limitations of arima methodology and models based on a deterministic trend with a single break

institutions in theories of land markets illustrated by the dutch market for agricultural land theories of land markets should be intellectually sound and should be able to explain and predict market outcomes such as price and volume of transactions changes in these and locations of different land uses theories based on neo classical economics which largely ignore the role of institutions are not intellectually sound because it is known that markets cannot work without institutions nor do these theories predict outcomes satisfactorily moreover they assume market mechanisms and do not investigate them critically this paper explores how institutions may be taken into account in theories of land markets and whether that leads to better theories both of market outcomes and of market processes new institutional economics provides the tools to investigate how the interactions between market actors are influenced by institutions and the old institutional economics emphasises how institutions influence the motivations and preferences of those actors the conclusion is that there cannot be a general theory of land markets only theories with a limited applicability and scope such theories can be used to explain the effects of small changes and to predict the effects of marginal changes in institutions in that latter use these theories can be used for designing land policy how institutions can be incorporated into theory is illustrated by analysing the dutch market for agricultural land this shows how institutions affect the outcomes in that market and the consequences for the transformation of land from agriculture to urban use

a transitional institution for the emerging land market in urban china chinese economic reforms since 1978 have been a continuous process of fundamental institutional change the new institution of ambiguous property rights over state owned urban land evolves from the

a theory of entrepreneurship and institutional uncertainty abstract uncertainty and institutions are each vital concepts in entrepreneurship research however little work has been done to combine them into a consistent conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamic aspects of entrepreneurial action uncertainty and institutional change using insights from new institutional economics we develop a model that explains the institutional uncertainty resulting from conflicts between institutions on different levels of social activity we further explain how entrepreneurs can both cause and mitigate this uncertainty through market and institutional action finally we focus on a special case of institutional uncertainty regime uncertainty wherein entrepreneurs are left without reliable means to overcome uncertainty in political institutions

performing housing markets this paper offers an interpretation of how housing markets work which complements more traditional economic approaches building on a wider movement within cultural economy and economic sociology it considers how housing markets are variously performed in the power filled negotiations of buyers sellers and market professionals this is part of a larger undertaking but here the focus is particularly on the role of legal financial and information intermediaries in shaping local cultures of property exchange this is a social rather than economic analysis of housing markets it is a qualitative rather than a quantitative study it is designed to shed light on how markets are made though it might in the end change the way they are modelled

institutions as knowledge capital ludwig m lachmann s interpretative institutionalism the paper revisits the socioeconomic theory of the austrian school economist ludwig m lachmann by showing that the common claim that lachmann s idiosyncratic read eclectic and multidisciplinary approach to economics entails nihilism is unfounded it reaches the following conclusions 1 lachmann held a sophisticated institutional position to economics that anticipated developments in contemporary new institutional economics 2 lachmann s sociological and economic reading of institutions offers insights for the problem of coordination 3 lachmann extends contemporary new institutional theory without simultaneously denying the policy approach of comparative institutional analysis

blockchain and the evolution of institutional technologies implications for innovation policy abstract for the past century economists have proposed a suite of theories relating to industrial dynamics technological change and innovation there has been an implication in these models that the institutional environment is stable however a new class of institutional technologies most notably blockchain technology lower the cost of institutional entrepreneurship along these margins propelling a process of institutional evolution this presents a new type of innovation process applicable to the formation and development of institutions for economic governance and coordination this paper develops a replicator dynamic model of institutional innovation and proposes some implications of this innovation for innovation policy given the influence of public policies on transaction costs and associated institutional choices it is indicated that policy settings conductive to the adoption and use of blockchain technology would elicit entrepreneurial experiments in institutional forms harnessing new coordinative possibilities in economic exchange conceptualisation of blockchain related public policy an innovation policy in its own right has significant implications for the operation and understanding of open innovation systems in a globalised context

institutions and the resource curse countries rich in natural resources constitute both growth losers and growth winners we claim that the main reason for these diverging experiences is differences in the quality of institutions more natural resources push aggregate income down when institutions are grabber friendly while more resources raise income when institutions are producer friendly we test this theory building on sachs and warner s influential works on the resource curse our main hypothesis that institutions are decisive for the resource curse is confirmed our results contrast the claims of sachs and warner that institutions do not play a role

evolution of economy and environment an application to land use in lowland vietnam abstract this paper analyses the interactions between land use institutions and culture in the context of climatic extremes in vietnam although there has been a long history of examining the evolutionary nature of markets and institutions within an institutional economics framework developing the institutional economic approach to include society environment interactions allows examination of processes which facilitate and constrain economic development for example this approach is used here to explain adaptation processes whereby climatic risk affects collective responses these responses form an evolutionary link between institutions culture resources and the physical environment the paper argues that historically climatic risks have been a factor in technological and political response within the agrarian society of vietnam in the sense that climatic extremes have acted as triggers to some significant social upheavals in the past century the impacts of colonialism political change and related changes in social organisation have significantly altered the social basis of resilience to climate extremes

a note on the publicness of local goods evidence from new york state municipalities for more than a decade now the non publicness of goods provided by local governments has been an accepted result in the median voter demand literature mcmillan wilson and arthur 1981 found that publicness was exhausted in ontario towns of more than 10 000 inhabitants but that there were still unexploited economies to collective provision in smaller towns using the original bergstrom and goodman 1973 model and new york state data i find that there is even less evidence of publicness in small towns than in large ones my results call into question the mcmillan wilson and arthur hypothesis une note sur le degre de materialite publique d usage des biens locaux le cas des municipalites de b etat de new york depuis plus d une decennie l un des resultats de la litterature specialisee analysant le comportement de demande du voteur median a ete que les biens fournis par les gouvernements locaux n etaient pas des biens publics mcmillan wilson et arthur 1981 ont montre que le degre de materialite publique d usage etait limite dans le cas des villes de plus de 10 000 habitants en ontario mais qu il existait des economies inexploitees emanant de la fourniture publique dans le cas des plus petites villes a partir du modele de bergstrom et goodman 1973 et de donnees pour l etat de new york l auteur en arrive a la conclusion qu il y a encore moins de materialite publique d usage dans les petites villes que dans les grandes ces resultats remettent en question l hypothese mcmillan wilson et arthur in contrast to the strict samuelsonian dichotomy of pure public and pure private goods the tiebout 1956 and buchanan 1965 models plot goods along a continuum of congestability goods provided by local governments or collectively purveyed and consumed in clubs are described as lying somewhere between the two polar cases the median voter demand model as developed by borcherding and deacon i would like to thank wallace oates william oakland suk kang and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper they are of course exonerated from association with such errors as may still remain canadian journal of economics revue canadienne d economique xix no 3 august aout 1986 printed in canada imprime au canada 0008 4085 86 568 573 1 50 canadian economics association this content downloaded from 157 55 39 102 on mon 03 oct 2016 05 08 06 utc all use subject to http about jstor org terms publicness of local goods 569 1972 and bergstrom and goodman 1973 incorporates this hypothesis observed levels of local public expenditures are said to reflect the preference of the median voter however the empirical models also include a congestion function intended to reflect the effect of collective consumption on individual enjoyment the function used in the literature is of the form

urban safety in vancouver allocation and production of a congestible public good this paper is a simultaneous exploration of the within city production of safety with the endogenous allocation of public inputs police three issues are central one is an examination of the local government allocation function second is that safety is specified as a congestible public service consistent with club theory finally the model is estimated using a survey measure of crime these innovations are due to a unique data set containing observations by neighborhoods in the city of vancouver the results are crucial for illustrating crime deterrence as well as the local public good nature of safety

evaluating the links between housing change and economic change housing policy has been a long standing and significant element in the regeneration of cities housing change is seen as an important element of regeneration in itself but is further seen to have wider impacts on the economy of urban areas the dimensions of these impacts are explored in the paper and a framework for evaluating the scale of the spillover effects from housing policy is discussed evidence is drawn largely from the glasgow and scottish experience evidence of the role of housing in facilitating a city response to economic restructuring is argued to be weak but rational policy development requires that it be better understood

longitudinal monitoring of housing renewal in the urban core reflections on the experience of glasgow s merchant city this paper is broadly concerned with monitoring the development of markets for new and converted housing in city centres over the longer term and with assessing the implications for housing renewal strategies these themes are addressed through a case study of housing market trends in glasgow s merchant city which is generally recognised as an important example of housing led city centre regeneration the analysis places the merchant city experience in context by comparing the relative performance of selected segments within the wider glasgow housing market the results indicate that the weakened performance of the merchant city sub market in the face of economic and housing market recession is part of a more general phenomenon affecting other competing inner area segments the findings also draw attention to the need for more detailed understanding of the linkages between economic forces demographic trends housing preferences and stock characteristics in evaluating the performance of local housing sy

spatial patterns of residential development abstract a simple dynamic model of residential development with durable housing where all households are identical and all developers have perfect foresight is studied it is shown that unlike the case of static models it is quite possible that house size decreases and thus population density increases with distance from the city center and that the house rent curve has positive gradient in certain area

fluctuations in uncertainty this review article tries to answer four questions i what are the stylized facts about uncertainty over time ii why does uncertainty vary iii do fluctuations in uncertainty matter and iv did higher uncertainty worsen the great recession of 2007 2009 on the first question both macro and micro uncertainty appears to rise sharply in recessions on the second question the types of exogenous shocks like wars financial panics and oil price jumps that cause recessions appear to directly increase uncertainty and uncertainty also appears to endogenously rise further during recessions on the third question the evidence suggests uncertainty is damaging for short run investment and hiring but there is some evidence it may stimulate longer run innovation finally in terms of the great recession the large jump in uncertainty in 2008 potentially accounted for about one third of the drop in gdp

the publicness of local public goods evidence from ontario municipalities recent studies of local public good provision report publicness parameter estimates of about one indicating private good characteristics this empirical investigation of a wider range of communities obtains parameter estimates of significantly less than one indicating a high degree of publicness exists in smaller municipalities and within the service areas of individual public facilities comprising the supply network in larger centres it is argued that the observed values of the publicness parameters have no normative significance as to the merits of public versus private provision la materialite publique d usage des biens publics locaux resultats d une etude de municipalites ontariennes les etudes recentes sur l approvisionnement de biens publics locaux indiquent des coefficients de materialite publique d usage autour de l unite c est a dire que les biens publics locaux ont de fortes caracteristiques semblables aux biens prives ce memoire presente les resultats d un enquete empirique d un large eventail de communaut6s locales et en arrive a des valeurs pour le coefficient de materialite publique d usage qui sont bien moins que l unite et qui donc indiquent un haut degre de materialite publique d usage dans les petites municipalites mais aussi dans les zones de service d infrastructures particulieres parc bibliotheque poste de pompier etc qui forment le reseau d approvisionnement de biens publics dans les grands centres les auteurs suggerent que les valeurs observees de ces coefficients de materialite publique d usage n ont aucune portee normative et donc ne sauraient arbitrer les merites relatifs d un approvisionnement prive ou public de certains biens

financing property s contribution to regeneration attracting investment and finance into inner city and other renewal areas poses particular difficulties and is frequently reliant on strong public sector commitment through special incentives or other mechanisms to provide the conditions to lever private sector activity this paper initially links the concept of market failure and the rationale for regeneration and examines policy responses from uk european and us perspectives followed by a consideration of public and private sector financing approaches international perspectives draw particularly upon the use of tax based mechanisms in regeneration notably those used in the us in the european context the paper highlights implications for regeneration stemming from the interpretation of state aid rules and competition policy conclusions reflect upon the complexity of regeneration and the importance of the different stakeholders within the regeneration process

managing urban land the case for urban partnership zones multiple ownership of land can act as a significant barrier to brownfield redevelopment despite renewed interest in compulsory purchase it is unlikely to become the normal remedy for multiple ownership owing to its cost and complexity drawing on international experience and recent research this article proposes the concept of an urban partnership zone in which existing landowners would be entitled to participate alongside the local authority and a chosen development partner in a joint venture redevelopment company combined with greater planning certainty and other benefits this innovation would enable the development process to operate more rapidly without immediate compulsory purchase

a theoretical framework for the functioning of the dutch property market in this article a theoretical framework will be presented to aid understanding of the functioning of property markets more particularly the dutch property market it will be argued that traditional urban economic theories are not able to explain the structure and processes of the built environment in the dutch case we are confronted with two problems first to find a way in which urban economic theories designed for a context of cities in great britain and the us can be used to explain urban development that takes place in the different context of dutch cities and secondly to formulate a set of hypotheses appropriate for the dutch property market the hypotheses concern the strategies of individual actors on the property market and the underlying factors it is concluded that in general the relation between institutional structure and property development has been neglected both because of insufficient attention from economic scientists and because empirical research is very complicated

on measuring congestion of local public goods abstract using data for fire protection services this brief paper provides empirical evidence in large part demonstrating the existence of the zoo effect identified by oates the zoo effect implies an upward bias in the measurement of congestion in local public good provision resulting from the lack of a range or quality of service measure the introduction of a quality measure is found to reduce estimates of the degree of congestion in fire protection services

cycles and steps in british commercial property values this paper examines cyclical behaviour in commercial property values over the period 1956 to 1996 using a structural times series unobserved components approach the influence of the transition to short rent reviews during the late 1960s and the short and long term impacts of the 1974 and 1990 property crashes are also incorporated into the analysis via dummy variables it is found that once these variables are taken into account a fairly regular cyclical pattern can be discerned with a period of about 7 8 years furthermore the 1974 and 1990 property crashes are shown to have had a major long term impact on property value growth presumably via their influence on investors expectations

north s institutionalism and the prospect of combining theoretical approaches the distinction between new and old institutional economics may be unhelpful in depicting those theorists who defy clear categorisation one such writer is douglass north who is associated with the new institutionalism but who deviates from the neoclassical principles which supposedly form the foundations of this school the paper analyses his work to show how he combines both mainstream and alternative ideas in attempting to reconcile individual agency with social structure north suggests that institutions provide the constraints under which decisions are made but that individuals and organisations can alter those constraints while his work is an attempt to advance interdisciplinary research it fails to provide a fully integrated theoretical approach

the new institutional economics and the theory of behaviour under uncertainty the new institutional economics nie is diverse in terms of the theory of behaviour under uncertainty some views are close to neoclassical economics but others are similar to those held by heterodox economists distinctions between procedural and substantive uncertainty weak and strong uncertainty and ambiguity and fundamental uncertainty help to identify different approaches to uncertainty in nie regarding the influence of institutions on economics behaviour not all nie focuses on institutions as constraints and takes individuals as given the dominant views of rationality in nie are standard neoclassical maximization and bounded rationality but alternative notions have also been defended

a specification test for choosing the right public good price this article compares statistically three popular public good price definitions the bias of parameter estimates under the wrong definition is derived and calculated one definition is found to be clearly inferior whereas bias estimates indicate little difference between the two remaining definitions public good demand elasticities and their variances are calculated to demonstrate the importance of choosing the right price definition

institutional polycentrism entrepreneurs social networks and new venture growth what is the interrelationship among formal institutions social networks and new venture growth drawing on the theory of institutional polycentrism and social network theory we examine this question using data on 637 entrepreneurs from four different countries we find the confluence of weak and inefficient formal institutions to be associated with a larger number of structural holes in entrepreneurial social networks while the effect of this institutional order on the revenue growth of new ventures is negative a network s structural holes have a positive effect on revenue growth furthermore the positive effect of structural holes on revenue growth is stronger in an environment with a more adverse institutional order i e weaker and more inefficient institutions the contributions and implications of these findings are discussed abstract from author