토지의 기회비용과 일반균형 공간모형

Anas and Rhee (2006)[“Curbing Excess Sprawl with Congestion Tolls and Urban Boundaries,” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 36: 510-541] claim that the urban growth boundary (UGB) reduces welfare no matter how small it may be. They set the opportunity cost of land to zero, and consequently they ignored the opportunity cost of land saved by the UGB. Because of this omission, their evaluation of the UGB's welfare impact was biased downward. I present a method of how we may reflect the land cost in the computable general equilibrium model and show that the UGB may not be absolutely harmful when the opportunity cost of land is duly considered. When the land cost is considered, negative welfare impacts of the UGB are cut by 60% of their original estimation. Even in this case, however, the overall conclusion is that the UGB is still very ineffective as a policy instrument curbing the excess sprawl.