Tall Buildings and Land Values: Height and Construction Cost Elasticities in Chicago, 1870–2010

Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt; Daniel P. McMillen

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00734

Tall Buildings and Land Values: Height and Construction Cost Elasticities in Chicago, 1870–2010

Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt¹; Daniel P. McMillen²

¹ London School of Economics and Political Science and Centre for Economic Policy Research · ² University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2018 open access

Despite unprecedented vertical growth in large cities, the economics of skyscrapers remain understudied. We combine data on tall buildings with a panel of land prices covering 140 years to analyze the determinants of urban heights. We provide estimates of the land price elasticity of height, the height elasticity of construction cost, and the elasticity of substitution between land and capital for tall buildings. The land price elasticity of height increased substantially over time, and it is larger for commercial than for residential buildings, which suggests that the supply side helps to produce the typical segregation of urban land uses.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00734
Volume: 100 (5)
Pages: 861-875
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
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