SERC: Spatial Economics Research Centre

Thank you for visiting our blog.  A little over 13 years ago (17 June 2008) the first posts on this blog helped launch the Spatial Economics Research Centre (SERC) . And in the 468 posts since ...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-final-blog-post.html

BY PAUL CHESHIRE The white paper, Planning for the future , published in early August 2020 represents the first serious attempt to reform our dysfunctional land use planning system since its in...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2020/10/planning-for-future-some-solutions-for.html

BY PAUL CHESHIRE AND CHRISTIAN HILBER To speculate usefully about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Britain’s housing markets one needs a clear analytical understanding of how our hou...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2020/04/covid-19-crashing-economy-so-what-will.html

BY PAUL CHESHIRE, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY, LSE. To any reasonable observer, the evidence that Britain is suffering from a housing shortage of crisis proportions seems clear-cut. It is ...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2019/12/housing-no-shortage-is-it-nonsense.html

Air pollution tends to be worst in large cities and their urban cores. As a result, it is urban air pollution that makes the headlines when the media report on pollution and its effects (see, fo...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2019/08/dirty-density-air-quality-and-density.html

BY CHRISTIAN HILBER, LSE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT c.hilber@lse.ac.uk In May 2016 the local residents of St. Ives approved a referendum that stops newly built houses in town f...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2019/08/why-banning-construction-of-second.html

The dominance of the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is a defining feature of the United States’ housing market. For a brief period in the mid-2000s, however, this dominance was challenged by the...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2019/04/financial-innovation-in-mortgage.html

Britain has an extensive canal and navigable river network, which played a vital role in transporting goods from the Industrial Revolution through the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th Centur...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2019/04/valuing-environmental-benefits-of.html

Recent political developments in the US and Europe have led to renewed interest in the large and persistent regional disparities which plague our societies. These disparities have been partly ...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/12/do-foreign-migrants-grease-wheels-of.html

Investment in second homes has been surging around the world . This surge has triggered a serious political backlash in many countries, especially in tourist areas and superstar cities. The ba...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-economic-impacts-of-constraining.html

What makes cities productive? For a long time, researchers have known that city size matters a lot – people who live in larger cities tend to earn more and be more productive. People (and fi...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/11/measuring-urban-economic-density.html

Modern metropolitan areas include vast concentrations of economic activity, with Greater London and New York City today accounting for around 8.4 and 8.5 million people, respectively. These in...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-making-of-modern-london.html

and Hans Koster ] Are you paying attention? In many situations research suggests not. For example, when we buy things online, on average we respond more to the purchase price than to the shipp...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/10/how-much-will-households-pay-to-avoid.html

POSTED BY MAX NATHAN, BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY AND CEP I’ve written a new CEP Discussion Paper on co-working, incubators, accelerators and what they mean for local economic development policy ...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/10/incubators-accelerators-and-local.html

As a species we are very well honed not to face unpleasant facts. We mock the ostrich but humans have head-burying down to an art. Worried you might have cancer? Don’t worry the doctor – s...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/09/there-is-housing-crisis-there-are-not.html

BY STEVE GIBBONS, STEPHAN HEBLICH AND TED PINCHBECK Did pulling up nearly half of Britain’s railways in the 1950s, 60s and 70s affect where people chose to live? Did it bring about the demis...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-beeching-axe-consequences-of.html

Land demand is high in cities. Cities have access to good jobs, people and specialized consumption services. High demand and the limited supply of urban land translate into high land prices. In ...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/07/turning-brownfields-around-role-of.html

BY GERARD DERICKS & HANS KOSTER The Blitz lasted from Sept 1940 to May 1941, during which the Luftwaffe dropped 18,291 tons of high explosives and countless incendiaries across Greater London. A...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/06/did-blitz-enhance-londons-economy.html

Posted by Neil Lee, Department of Geography and Environment and SERC Inclusive Growth - a concern with the pace and pattern of growth - has become a new mantra in local economic development. Th...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/06/inclusive-growth-in-cities-good.html

BY STEVE GIBBONS The ‘Bedroom Tax’ – or ‘under occupancy penalty’ or ‘removal of the spare room subsidy’ as it has been called officially – is a highly controversial part of th...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-bedroom-tax-how-did-families-react.html

BY SEVRIN WAIGHTS Gentrification is an ambiguous term, which roughly speaking means the replacement of poor residents in a community by the rich, and a related change in the character of the c...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/05/does-gentrification-displace-low-income.html

Posted by Paul Cheshire The assertion that there is no actual shortage of houses seems to be gaining, if not traction, then at least supporters. Ian Mulheirn, of the consultants Oxford Economic...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/03/housing-happy-self-delusion-of-no.html

HOMEOWNERS AND PEOPLE NEARBY BENEFIT, THOUGH THE IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIETY ARE LESS CLEAR, WRITES GABRIEL AHLFELDT Opinions on conservation areas are split. Proponents would argue that conserva...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/03/who-benefits-from-neighbourhoods.html

POSTED BY PAUL CHESHIRE, CHRISTIAN HILBER, AND HANS KOSTER We have argued for a very long time that the fundamental problem with housing in Britain is a lack of supply: we have been underbuild...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2018/03/empty-homes-longer-commutes-unintended.html

Do local politicians target their voters when making policy decisions? In other words, DID YOUR MAYOR BUILD THAT PARK NEXT DOOR TO PLEASE HER VOTERS? This question has been discussed by econom...

http://spatial-economics.blogspot.com/2017/10/distributive-politics-inside-city.html