Housing bubbles and land planning corruption: evidence from Spain’s largest municipalities

• Antonios Marios Koumpias ^[1] ; Jorge Martínez-Vázquez ^[2] ; Eduardo Sanz-Arcega ^[3]
  1. [1] University of Michigan Dearborn, Dearborn, Michigan
  2. [2] Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
  3. [3] University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

  Mostrar afiliaciones +
• Localización: Applied economic analysis, ISSN 2632-7627, Vol. 30, Nº. 89, 2022, págs. 132-150
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify to what extent the housing bubble in the early-to-mid 2000s in Spain exacerbated land planning corruption among Spain’s largest municipalities.

    Design/methodology/approach The authors exploit plausibly exogenous variation in housing prices induced by changes in local mortgage market conditions; namely, the rapid expansion of savings banks (Cajas de Ahorros). Accounting for electoral competition in the 2003–2007 and 2007–2009 electoral cycles among Spanish municipalities larger than 25,000 inhabitants, the authors estimate a positive relationship between housing prices and land planning corruption in municipalities with variation in savings bank establishments using instrumental variables techniques.

    Findings A 1% increase in housing prices leads to a 3.9% points increase in the probability of land planning corruption. Moreover, absolute majority governments (not needing other parties’ support) are more susceptible to the incidence of corruption than non-majority ones. Two policy implications to address corruption emerge: enhance electoral competition and increase scrutiny over land planning decisions in sparsely populated.

    Originality/value First empirical evidence of a formal link between the 2000s housing bubble in Spain and land planning corruption.