Premium
‘Trophy Architects’ and Design as Rent‐seeking: Quantifying Deadweight Losses in a Tightly Regulated Office Market
Author(s) -
Cheshire Paul C.,
Dericks Gerard H.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
economica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.532
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1468-0335
pISSN - 0013-0427
DOI - 10.1111/ecca.12339
Subject(s) - economic rent , trophy , rent seeking , compensation (psychology) , economics , space (punctuation) , deadweight loss , value (mathematics) , microeconomics , public economics , market economy , law , computer science , welfare , psychology , machine learning , politics , political science , psychoanalysis , operating system
Britain tightly restricts the supply of office space, creating substantial economic rents, but its development restrictions are politically administered and therefore gameable, inducing rent‐seeking activity. We find that ‘trophy architects’ ( TA s)—prior winners of a lifetime achievement award—obtain more space on a given site apparently by signalling architectural merit. Analysis of 2039 office buildings shows that TA s build 14 stories taller, thereby increasing a representative site value by 152% and capturing potential economic rents of £148m. However, we argue that this apparent premium is merely compensation for the extra costs, risks and delays of using a TA to game the planning system; it is therefore an indirect measure of the deadweight costs of this form of rent‐seeking.