Andrea Herrera Bórquez
PhD Student in Economic Geography at LSE.
About me
Hi, I’m Andrea Herrera, an Economic Geography PhD candidate specializing in Urban Economics. I am studying the effects of urban planning and transport infrastructure on housing outcomes and the spatial distribution of economic activity and people using Quantitative Spatial Models. I am interested in learning about the spatial determinants of intergenerational mobility, spatial inequalities, segregation, and gender inequalities.
This is my CV.
Contact me at a.herrera5@lse.ac.uk
My research
Working papers
Regulating the Skyline: Evidence from London’s Protected Vistas. [JMP]
Using London’s Protected Vistas policy as a natural experiment, this paper examines how height restrictions affect building heights, property prices and welfare in the city. The policy’s sightline-based boundaries reduce the typical boundary endogeneity concerns. A border discontinuity design reveals that while average heights are unchanged, buildings over 18 meters within Protected Vistas are about 6% shorter, especially in areas with stricter limits. Post-WWII and commercial buildings are most affected, while residential and pre-WWII structures are not. Property prices within Vistas are 2.6% higher. A spatial model suggests lifting restrictions would shift local development toward commercial use, increase local employment, and raise aggregate welfare by 0.2%.
The Effects of Transport Infrastructure on Housing Supply: The Role of Land-Use Regulation. Co-authored with Kenzo Asahi and Hugo Silva. [Working Paper]
We study the impact of new transportation infrastructure on housing supply using historical and micro data from Santiago and exploiting instrumental variables. We find that subway and highway expansions increase residential floor space substantially, but when we account for land-use regulation, we see two contrasting dynamics in the city. In the wealthiest quintile, the effect is negligible for more than 95% of the blocks due to their initial stringent regulation. However, in blocks in the first four quintiles of wealth, the impact on housing supply is substantial and homogeneous concerning the initial regulation. We provide evidence that the transport infrastructure triggers regulation to become more permissive everywhere but in the wealthiest neighborhoods. We quantify how land-use regulation limits housing supply, thus restraining welfare gains from transport infrastructure improvements.