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, the Journal of Economic Geography and Regional Science and Urban Economics. His research appears in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, and is regularly featured in the popular press.

Working papers:

• Roads and Trade: Evidence from the US
  • Gilles Duranton, Peter Morrow and Matthew A. Turner
• Land use regulation and welfare
  • Matthew A. Turner, Andrew Haughwout and Wilbert van der Klaauw
• Roads, Railroads and Decentralization of Chinese Cities
  • Nathaniel Baum-Snow, Loren Brandt, J. Vernon Henderson, Matthew A. Turner and Qinghua Zhang
• Transportation and the Decentralization of Chinese Cities
  • Nathaniel Baum-Snow and Matthew A. Turner

Publications:

• Adaptation to climate change in preindustrial Iceland
  • Matthew A. Turner, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, Jian Chen and Chunyan Hao
  • Forthcoming, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings
  • More detail is available in the working paper
• Urban growth and transportation
  • Gilles Duranton and Matthew A. Turner
  • Forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies
  • Media coverage(partial): Boston Globe, August 8, 2009
• The fundamental law of road congestion: Evidence from the US
  • Gilles Duranton and Matthew A. Turner
  • October 2011, American Economic Review, 101(6):2616-52
  • Data appendix and supplemental results
  • Media coverage(partial): NPR, All Things Considered, July 9, 2011; Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2011; NYT Economix Blog, September 28, 2010; PRI, Living on Earth, July 15, 2011.
• The effects of land transfer taxes on real estate markets: Evidence from a natural experiment in Toronto
  • Ben Dachis, Gilles Duranton, and Matthew A. Turner
  • May 2011, Journal of Economic Geography, pp. 1-28 doi:10.1093/jeg/lbr007
• The value of information in public decisions
  • Arvind Magesan and Matthew A. Turner
  • July 2010, BE Journal of Economics and Policy, 10(1):(Contributions), Article 76
• Cost benefit analyses versus referenda
  • Martin J. Osborne and Matthew A. Turner
  • February 2010, Journal of Political Economy, 118(1):156-187
• Sand in the Gears: Evaluating the effects of Toronto's land transfer tax
  • Ben Dachis, Gilles Duranton, and Matthew A. Turner
  • December 2008, C.D.Howe working paper no 277
  • 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.
• Decomposing the growth in residential land in the United States
  • Henry G. Overman, Diego Puga, and Matthew A. Turner
  • September 2008, Regional Science and Urban Economics, 38:487-497
  • Data and documentation
• Fat city: Questioning the relationship between urban sprawl and obesity
  • Jen Eid, Henry G. Overman, Diego Puga, and Matthew A. Turner
  • March 2008, Journal of Urban Economics, 63:385-404
  • Media coverage(partial): 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; 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.
• The usefulness of imperfect elections
  • Loren Brandt and Matthew A. Turner
  • November 2007, Economics and Politics, 19(3):453-480
• A simple theory of smart growth and sprawl
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • January 2007, Journal of Urban Economics, 61:21-44
• Causes of sprawl: A portrait from space
  • Marcy Burchfield, Henry G. Overman, Diego Puga, and Matthew A. Turner
  • May 2006, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2):587-633
  • Data and documentation.
  • Media coverage(partial): Discover Magazine, September 2006; Canada's National Post, May 2, 2006;Discovery Channel website, May 12, 2006; Business Week Online, May 11, 2006;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
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • January 2005, Journal of Urban Economics, 57:19-54
• Meetings with costly participation: Reply
  • Martin J. Osborne, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, and Matthew A. Turner
  • September 2005, American Economic Review, 95(4):1351-1354
• Meetings with costly participation; An empirical analysis
  • Matthew A. Turner and Quinn Weninger
  • January 2005, Review of Economic Studies, 72:247-268
• Local government behavior and property right formation in rural china
  • Loren Brandt, Scott Rozelle and Matthew A. Turner
  • December 2004, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 160:627-662
• Meetings with costly participation
  • Martin J. Osborne, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, and Matthew A. Turner
  • September 2000, American Economic Review, 90(4):928-943
• Tradition and common property management
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • May 1999, Canadian Journal of Economics, 32(3):673-687
• Parental altruism and common property management
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • November 1997, Canadian Journal of Economics, 30(4a):809-821
• Quota-induced discarding in heterogeneous fisheries
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • June 1997, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 33:186-195
• Value-based ITQ's
  • Matthew A. Turner
  • Summer 1996, Marine Resource Economics, 11:59-69
• Industrial development in cities
  • J. Vernon Henderson, Ari Kuncoro, and Matthew A. Turner
  • October 1995, Journal of Political Economy, 103(5):1067-1090