Essays on Housing Supply and the Monocentric City Model

This dissertation explores housing markets and urban spatial structure through the lens of the monocentric city model, applying and extending its insights to three distinct contexts. The housing market, a key economic component, shapes city structures and the distribution of economic variables across space. Urban economics has long sought to explain spatial regularities in cities, with the monocentric city model providing a rigorous framework for understanding these patterns. The first chapter examines the price elasticity of housing supply in Germany, revealing an inelastic supply of 0.22 across districts and highlighting the impact of geographic constraints. It provides robust estimates for Germany's unique housing market, characterized by low homeownership rates and tenant-focused policies. The second chapter investigates the German housing market's resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, contrasting it with the significant "donut effect" observed in the US. Despite expectations of flattened rent gradients, house prices and rent trends have remained stable, with only slight increases in suburban apartment rents. The revaluation of amenities, between urban and environmental amenities, was minimal in explaining the observed changes in rents. The third chapter tests the monocentric city model's predictions in Addis Ababa, a rapidly growing city in Ethiopia. Using a unique dataset of property listings generated by this study and satellite data, it provides new empirical evidence supporting the model's applicability in a developing country context, revealing negative rent and structural density gradients. This dissertation contributes to urban economics by examining geographic constraints, pandemic impacts, and model applicability in diverse settings. It enhances our understanding of housing supply determinants, market resilience, and the standard urban model's relevance in developing cities. The findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, urban planners, and studying researchers housing market dynamics and urban development.