This paper studies how various land-use regulations interact to affect housing supply and affordability. We use cross-sectional variation across space from a novel parcel-level zoning data and a boundary discontinuity design at regulation boundaries to obtain causal estimates for the effect of various zoning regulations on the supply of different types of housing, single-family house prices, multifamily rents, and households' willingness-to-pay for higher density. We find that relaxing density restrictions (minimum lot size and maximum dwelling units), either alone or jointly with relaxing other regulations, is most effective at increasing supply, particularly of multifamily properties, and reducing rents and house prices. Conversely, enabling multifamily zoning or relaxing height regulations alone has little impact. Our results suggest that the small-scale reforms in zoning regulations proposed around the country can increase housing affordability. However, a fall in multifamily rents is often accompanied by a reduction in single-family house prices, complicating the political economy of land-use reform.
The objective of this paper is to introduce models to determine an effective, feasible, and cost-efficient strategy for Saudi Arabia's water supply system to meet its projected demand in 2025. This paper uses cost minimizing and production maximizing approaches to build the models. The water management system is divided into three processes-desalination, distribution, and wastewater treatment. For desalination and wastewater treatment aspects of the water supply, we use a Cobb-Douglas production maximization model. The model determines the optimal levels of different inputs that maximize the production of usable water, given the Saudi Arabia government's budget constraints. For the water distribution model, a cost function is minimized with the 2025 water demand constraint and is used to determine the optimal diameter of the pipes and hydraulic head. Using the desalination process model, the paper found that the optimal level of input of electricity is 4.9 billion kW h and the maximized water output is estimated at 3.3 billion m 3 . In addition, using the wastewater treatment model, the paper found that the optimal level of electricity input is 26.5 billion kW h annually and the maximized level of water production is 7.7 billion m 3 . The water distribution model estimates that, given the 2025 water demand in Saudi Arabia, the set-up and operating cost of the water distribution grid is approximately $68.88 million. The model also estimates that a minimum pipe diameter of 5.37 m and hydraulic head of 1186.14 m is required to meet the demand of three sectors-agriculture, industry, and domestic.
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