Research Matthew Turner

Bio: Matthew Turner is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. His current research focuses on the economics of land use and transportation and he is broadly interested in understanding the economics of environmental regulation. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of California, a Ph. D. in economics from Brown University, has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Hoover Institution, and is an associate editor at the Journal of Urban Economics and Regional Science and Urban Economics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies, and is regularly featured in the popular press.

Papers on urban economics:

• The effects of land transfer taxes on real estate markets: Evidence from a natural experiment in Toronto, with Gilles Duranton and Ben Dachis. Working paper, July 2009
• Sand in the Gears: Evaluating the effects of Toronto's land transfer tax, with Gilles Duranton and Ben Dachis. C.D.Howe working paper no 277, December 2008
  Media coverage (partial): Globe and Mail, Dec 10, 2008, Globe and Mail, Dec 9, 2008, Toronto Star, December 10, 2008, Vancouver Sun, December 10, 2008.
• The fundamental law of road congestion: Evidence from the US, with Gilles Duranton. Working paper Data appendix and supplemental results
• Urban growth and transportation, with Gilles Duranton. Working paper
• Decomposing the growth in residential land in the United States, with Henry Overman, and Diego Puga. Regional Science and Urban Economics, September 2008. Working paper, Science Direct, Data and documentation
  
• Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity,
  with Jean Eid, Henry Overman, and Diego Puga. Journal of Urban Economics, March 2008. Working paper, Science Direct
  Media coverage (partial):
  
  • Print: Ottawa Citizen, November 1, 2006. (also Vancouver Sun and National Post); Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2006 (also Chicago Tribune December 10, 2006); Washington Times, November 13, 2006; Science News, January 20, 2007.
  • Radio: CHML, Hamilton, `Health matters, with Jamie West’, November 11, 2006; CKNW, Vancouver `Newstalk, with John McCond’, November 1, 2006; AM680 Toronto, October 31, 2006; CBC Radio One, `The Current’, November 7, 2006; WTVN , Columbus Ohio , `Morning news with Bob Connors’, November 8, 2006.
• A simple theory of smart growth and sprawl, Journal of Urban Economics, January 2007. Science Direct Working paper
• Causes of sprawl: A portrait from space, with Marcy Burchfield, Henry Overman, and Diego Puga, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2006. Working paper Data and documentation
  Media coverage (partial):
  
  • Print and web: Discover Magazine, September 2006; Canada's National Post, May 2, 2006; Discovery Channel website, May 12, 2006; Business Week Online, May 11, 2006;
  • Radio: KNBR, San Francisco, California, `Bay area housing report, with Joseph Perkins’, November 11, 2006.

  An 11x17in poster showing urban development across the continental United States 1976-1992, based on data from this paper, is available as a PDF file (3,108 Kb.). To receive the poster, click on the thumbnail to the right of this text. Please do not post this file elsewhere. If you want to make it available to others, provide them with a link to this page.

• Landscape preferences and patterns of residential development, Journal of Urban Economics, January 2005. Science direct, Working paper
• Industrial development in cities, with J.V. Henderson and Ari Kuncoro, Journal of Political Economy, October 1995. JSTOR

Papers on political economy:

• The Value of Information in Public Decisions, with Arvind Magesan, September 2008. Working paper
• Cost benefit analyses versus referenda, with Martin Osborne, forthcoming Journal of Political Economy. Working paper.
• Meetings with costly participation: Reply, with Martin Osborne and Jeffrey S. Rosenthal. American Economic Review, September 2005.
• The usefulness of imperfect elections, with Loren Brandt. Economics & Politics, November 2007 Economics and Politics, Working paper: (The Usefulness of corruptible elections)
• Meetings with costly participation; An empirical analysis, with Quinn Weninger. Review of Economic Studies, January 2005. REStud, Ingenta, Working paper
• Local government behavior and property right formation in rural china, with Loren Brandt and Scott Rozelle. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, December 2004. Ingenta, JITE
• Meetings with costly participation, with Martin Osborne and Jeffrey S. Rosenthal. American Economic Review, September 2000. JSTOR, ProQuest
• Tradition and common property management, Canadian Journal of Economics, May 1999. JSTOR
• Parental altruism and common property management, Canadian Journal of Economics, November 1997. JSTOR

Papers on fisheries:

• Extinction by miscalculation: The threat to Sakinaw and Cultus Lake Sockeye, with Mart R. Gross, Pablo Montagnes, Mike Parkes, Paul Riis, and Barbara Roberts. Working paper
• Uncertainty and the choice of quota program in a multi-product fishery Working paper. An earlier version of this paper, which contains a good deal more detail, is also available. Earlier working paper
• Quota-induced discarding in heterogeneous fisheries, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, June 1997. Elsevier ScienceDirect, Ingenta
• Value-based ITQ's, Marine Resource Economics, Summer 1996. Download