We examine the impact of city council members with real estate backgrounds on housing supply in California between 1995 and 2019. Using candidate occupation data and a close-elections regression discontinuity design, we find that electing a developer increases approved housing units by 68% during their term, especially for multifamily projects. The effect operates primarily through discretionary zoning approvals and does not persist beyond the developer’s term, suggesting limited impact on broader regulatory reform. These findings offer new causal evidence on how policymakers’ professional backgrounds shape land-use decisions and contribute to a long-standing debate on the political origins of housing supply constraints.
Elisabet Viladecans-Marsal is a Professor at the School of Economics, University of Barcelona and a Researcher at the Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB).