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This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. The first, and main point, about whether the supply would appreciably drop the price

This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. The first, and main point, about whether the supply would appreciably drop the price is a great example of where it is needed. Has there been any study of the elasticity of house pricing? Give us the range, and then we know roughly how much housing it would take to drop the price by $10/sf. Then let's see how much extra housing we could build, and what the bottlenecks are. Now we are having a conversation. Otherwise it is just intuition mongering (which, by the way, is a useful and noble exercise as well, but it is not complete). Edit - I found some: http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/pdf/HQ_REStat80.pdf http://urbanpolicy.berkeley.edu/pdf/HQ_REStat80.pdf http://budgeting.thenest.com/price-elasticity-affect-housing-industry-23106.html http://budgeting.thenest.com/price-elasticity-affect-housing... https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R2846.pdf https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R284... Berkeley and Rand, so trying to cover different views.

Analemma_ 9y ago
> This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. It sounds like she's just articulating the arguments of both sides, rather than taking a stance herself, so I don't know how much quantitative analysis would really improve it.
jobu 9y ago
> This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. The article does actually mention quantitative analyses some, and why critics dismiss it: Critics think advocates put too much trust in quantitative analyses which try to estimate the effect of supply on prices. (Like this one [1] which estimates that adding 5,000 new units each year would be enough to stabilize real prices.) Such studies inevitably make dubious simplifying assumptions, and it’s all too easy to set up an analysis to get the conclusion you want. [1] http://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html http://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employmen...
- projectramo 9y ago
  I don't think the quant analysis eliminates debate (i.e. it will have advocates and critics). However, it does focus the debate on better issues. The question of housing may hang on exactly how much new housing is introduced by allowing people to kill more birds, for instance. Without the quantification, you might still be arguing about how much green space should be mandated. (These examples are pulled out of thin air). To put my point another way, the absence of criticism is not a benefit of quant analysis.
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Analemma_ 9y ago

> This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. It sounds like she's just articulating the arguments of both sides, rather than taking a stance herself, so I don't know how much quantitative analysis would really improve it.

jobu 9y ago

> This post could benefit greatly from a little more quantitative analysis. The article does actually mention quantitative analyses some, and why critics dismiss it: Critics think advocates put too much trust in quantitative analyses which try to estimate the effect of supply on prices. (Like this one [1] which estimates that adding 5,000 new units each year would be enough to stabilize real prices.) Such studies inevitably make dubious simplifying assumptions, and it’s all too easy to set up an analysis to get the conclusion you want. [1] http://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employment-construction-and-cost-of-san.html http://experimental-geography.blogspot.com/2016/05/employmen...

projectramo 9y ago
I don't think the quant analysis eliminates debate (i.e. it will have advocates and critics). However, it does focus the debate on better issues. The question of housing may hang on exactly how much new housing is introduced by allowing people to kill more birds, for instance. Without the quantification, you might still be arguing about how much green space should be mandated. (These examples are pulled out of thin air). To put my point another way, the absence of criticism is not a benefit of quant analysis.

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