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The Shadow Cost Of Parking Minimums: Evidence From Los Angeles County, Sofia Franco, W. Bowman Cutter, Skyler Lewis Aug 2020

The Shadow Cost Of Parking Minimums: Evidence From Los Angeles County, Sofia Franco, W. Bowman Cutter, Skyler Lewis

Pomona Economics

Minimum Parking Requirements (MPRs) are almost universal in U.S. cities and common in the rest of the world. In the U.S., parking requirements for commercial buildings commonly require 700 ft2 of parking for each 1000 ft2 of floor space. To the extent this is a binding requirement, MPRs could result in distortion in commercial development. MPRs require either the allocation of land for parking, or very costly substitution of structured parking for land. Therefore, MPR distortions are likely to increase with the value of land. A steep gradient in the cost of the MPRs leads to the possibility …


Chain Restaurant Calorie Posting Laws, Obesity, And Consumer Welfare, Charles J. Courtemanche, David Frisvold, David Jimenez-Gomez, Mariétou H. Ouayogodé, Michael Price Mar 2020

Chain Restaurant Calorie Posting Laws, Obesity, And Consumer Welfare, Charles J. Courtemanche, David Frisvold, David Jimenez-Gomez, Mariétou H. Ouayogodé, Michael Price

Institute for the Study of Free Enterprise Working Papers

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced a mandate requiring chain restaurants to post calorie counts on menus and menu boards. This paper investigates whether and why calorie posting laws work. To do so, we develop a model of calories consumed that highlights two potential channels through which mandates influence choice and outlines an empirical strategy to disentangle these alternatives. We test the predictions of our model using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to compare changes in body mass index (BMI), obesity, and consumer well-being in locations that implemented calorie-posting laws between 2008 and …