Why California is so expensive: It’s not just the weather, it’s the regulation

The state of California has some of the most expensive housing in the country. In new research, Kristoffer (Kip) Jackson investigates why homes in the Golden State have come to cost so much. He finds that it’s down to how land use is regulated; each new land-use regulation reduces a Californian city’s housing supply by 0.2 percent per year. In addition, regulation has a spillover effect, with neighboring cities increasing their own regulations in response to those of others in order to avoid taking on all of a region’s new development.