Andrea Herrera Bórquez
PhD candidate at LSE
About me
I’m Andrea Herrera, a PhD candidate in Economic Geography at the London School of Economics (LSE). I study how urban planning and transport infrastructure shape housing markets and the spatial distribution of people and economic activity, using quantitative spatial models. I am also interested in the spatial determinants of intergenerational mobility, spatial inequality, environmental issues, and gender disparities.
This is my CV.
Contact me at a.herrera5@lse.ac.uk
Research
Regulating the Skyline: Evidence from London's Protected Vistas.
Best Student Paper, 2025 Urban Economics Association North American Meeting.
Abstract
Planning authorities often impose height limits to protect beauty, heritage, and iconic views. I use London’s Protected Vistas—height retrictions that preserve views of key landmarks—to estimate effects on building height, prices, and welfare. A boundary discontinuity design shows that tall buildings (over 18 m, per GLA) are 3–7% shorter inside corridors, with no change in average height across all buildings and no change in the share of tall buildings; effects are stronger where permissible height is less than 60 m. Prices are about 4% higher inside. The price gap could reflect (i) enhanced private landmark visibility, (ii) amenities of lower-rise environments, or (iii) a supply effect under imperfect mobility. Using a building-level visibility index, I find no improvement in private views within corridors, ruling out the view-hedonic channel. I then use the reduced-form estimates to run counterfactuals in a quantitative spatial model that updates both feasible floorspace and a local amenity term. The model attributes about 85% of the local price change to the amenity channel, with the remainder to supply; removing the caps shifts development toward commercial use and raises aggregate welfare by about 0.2%, with small citywide changes in prices and composition.
The Effects of Transport Infrastructure on Housing Supply: The Role of Land-Use Regulation. With Hugo Silva and Kenzo Asahi.
Submitted.
Abstract
We estimate the impact of new transportation infrastructure on Santiago's housing market using historical microdata and instrumental variables. While subway and highway expansions generally boost residential floor space, housing units, and prices, the aggregate impact masks a heterogeneity driven by land-use regulations. In the wealthiest 20% of the city, highly restrictive regulations, such as low maximum Floor Area Ratios (FAR), effectively limit the impact on multi-family development. Conversely, in the remaining 80% of blocks, the zoning is more permissive, and the infrastructure investment leads to a substantial and homogeneous increase in residential floor space and housing units. These findings suggest that zoning in affluent areas prevents the densification that would otherwise follow major public investments, limiting the city's overall housing growth.