iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

⭐ New Zealand polling update⭐ As we wait on new polling data following the recent budget here in New Zealand, I thought I'd crank the handle on my model that aggregates political polling data and infers the "average" levels of support for individual parties.

2243

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The post finishes by observing how improving infrastructure in New Zealand's remote / rural communities can also deliver tangible value to urban areas, by providing access to obscenely beautiful natural environments. Like Wharariki Beach.

130

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Infrastructure "cross-subsidies" from urban to rural areas are already happening, of course, and have happened for eons. For me, the focus should be on ensuring New Zealand has a sufficiently large and prosperous urban core to sustain these cross-subsidies into the future.

151

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The post discusses how adopting policies to strengthen the urban core, such as upzoning to enable housing, can support remote, rural communities. How? Well, it spreads the fixed costs of providing infrastructure over more people, reducing costs per person. E.g. the road to Rangiwhakaoma.

151

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Main takeaways: - the evidence suggests upzoning in Auckland led to more supply and lower rents - these findings hold under plausible assumptions and are very robust to changes in those assumptions - all available evidence indicates upzoning had large effects The conclusions sum up where we stand.

130

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

🚨 urban economics research siren 🚨 In this recently published (open access) paper in "Land Use Policy", my co-author (Matthew Maltman) and I review critiques of the economic evidence on the effects of upzoning in Auckland. We find these critiques have little to no merit. doi.org/10.1016/j.la...

1138

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

And just like in Auckland, the synthetic control method shows rents falling soon after the reforms with the size of the effect growing with time. Honestly, this is beautiful.

120

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Like Auckland, the paper presents data showing a big spike in housing permits especially for apartments and townhouses.

100

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Kia ora from Island Bay, Wellington, New Zealand, where the clouds are doing something a little special.

2794

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Pleased to confirm that we have absolutely, positively arrived in Wellington, New Zealand. And it was "on a good day", as they say. In a few weeks, I'll get busy trying to help make this place into a shining city on a hill. But for now, bring on the summer holidays.

5281

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

That paper reports a very strong bid-rent curve for Auckland that is consistent with a monocentric city model (cf Figure 2)

000

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

🚨urban economics research siren🚨 This new paper analyses the effects of upzoning in Auckland by first specifying and second estimating an urban economic model. The results imply upzoning led to: - a 24% increase in floorspace; and - a 15 to 27% fall in house prices. Paper here: t.co/VhlUfIgsTD

521552

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF THIS PLACE

172

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

If I'm to follow Nietzsche's advice and celebrate the maggots in the bread of life, then I want to do it while enjoying this sort of scenery at least some of the time.

140

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Find yourself a country that looks at you the way New Zealand does.

100

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

I'm giving a keynote address, alongside the Minister, David Levinson, Geoff Cooper, and Stephanie Ward. In my talk, I'll draw on urban economics research to highlight the myriad ways in which transport affects the location choices of people and firms ("land use"). Some obvious, some less so.

060

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

The theme for the Conference is "Transport’s role in economic and social prosperity". The conference program looks like a cracker -- check it out using this link: www.transportknowledgeconference.co.nz/_files/ugd/6...

120

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

An interesting junction has been reached: Interest rates in New Zealand are typically higher than Australia but, with today's cut, the positions have shifted. And with the RBNZ predicting further cuts while the RBA holds, the interest rate gap between NZ and AU looks set to widen before it narrows.

170

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

P.p.s. X also has higher variance in the quality of replies, such as this thing of beauty from "Prof Mark Barber OBE"

160

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Sir, I believe you cited cf footnote 2

070

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

In the conclusion, we advise people not to fall for a false equivalency on zoning reforms. There is: 1) strong evidence upzoning in Auckland helped to boost housing supply and reduce rents; and 2) no credible evidence they did not. IMHO cities should not delay but instead upzone today!

1172

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

The strong evidence that upzoning led to more housing and lower rents in Auckland aligns with: 1) a large body of literature that uses different methods in other settings; and 2) the views of a large majority of economists. Auckland's experience is really ... positive but unsurprising!?!

1160

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

In the intro, we note: "... all reasonable methods find that the AUP had economically and statistically significant effects. The consistency of this finding implies that the impacts of upzoning are robust ..." Jump to Figure 8 and the associated text for some of the juicy deets.

1121

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Our paper reviews these studies of upzoning in Auckland through the lens of informal critiques that have been levelled via blog posts and social media. Per the abstract, we find that these critiques have little to no merit: They misunderstand the papers’ methods and rely on inappropriate analyses.

1120

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

In this working paper that was published today, Matthew Maltman and I review some of the economic evidence on the effects of ✨upzoning✨in Auckland in 2016. tldr: We find remarkably robust evidence that upzoning led to more housing and lower rents in Auckland. Wow! www.motu.nz/our-research...

622655

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

at the heart of much of the discourse on affordable housing lies an unrecognised tension in values.

061

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

over on X, New Zealand's housing Minister is publicly going into bat in support of proposed policy reforms that seek to make housing more affordable by removing regulations on minimum areas for apartments and balconies. x.com/peter_tulip/...

2173

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

if you're passionate about cities and want to learn more about urban economics and its policy implications, then please consider using the form below to register your interest in the short courses that I run each year. forms.office.com/pages/respon...

183

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

We live in a bougie suburb. Our dual lawyer neighbours moved into their newly renovated character Queenslander and chucked so much good stuff into a skip out the front. Including but not limited to this classy Bundy rum.

340

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Drinking rum (that your spouse pulled from your neighbours' skip) on the rocks in early Brisbane summer while packing to move to Wellington is good, no further discussion will be entered into.

3270

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

I love the fresh smell of market based economies.

060

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

I find it quite funny that all of Australia's eastern seaboard, which is home to 15-20 million people, has perfectly sunny Blue Skies right now, except for my home of Brisbane.

130

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

One year ago I got to defend my PhD dissertation at the VU Amsterdam to a sharp shooting committee consisting of Edward Glaeser, Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Hans Koster, Frank van Oort, and Anet Weterings. Amazing and humbling experience; thinking about it gives me little tingly shivers even today.

010

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Remarkable plot shows actual installed renewable energy capacity (red) versus predictions (grey) over time.

2101

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 28/10/2023

Difficult to capture the beautiful textures of Slovenia, but here's a couple of my attempts.

030

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 28/10/2023

Further details: Strudelj, schnapps, and sunshine (20 degrees!)

010

Stu Donovan @studonovan.bsky.social · 28/10/2023

Good morning! You may not recognize or necessarily like it, but this is what peak 🗻 autumn 🍁 cycle 🚲 tour in Slovenia 🇸🇮 performance looks like. Further details to follow.

260