¿Qué tal? Muy buenas tardes a todos y bienvenidos a un nuevo directo en el canal de YouTube
que también podéis seguir a través de otras redes sociales como puede ser la red social X, Facebook, Twitch, LinkedIn, etc.
Es un directo de los que mensualmente solemos acoger en el canal gracias a la implicación de la Universidad de las Espérides.
La Universidad de las Espérides, como muchos ya sabréis y si no lo sabéis, pues os informo, aprovecho para informaros ahora,
es una nueva universidad en la que muchos estamos directamente implicados, que hemos, en cierta medida, claro,
los impulsores principales han sido otros, pero bueno, hemos co-creado entre un grupo de liberales españoles
con el objetivo de reflexionar rigurosa y científicamente sobre las principales disciplinas académicas
y siempre integrando en todas ellas la reflexión y el análisis de la problemática de la libertad en sociedad.
Y, bueno, pues la misión de la Universidad de las Espérides es esa reflexión sobre los principios
que permiten estructurar una sociedad de individuos libres y responsables
y como parte, claro, de esa reflexión, de esa necesaria reflexión, pues también estos directos
en los que, de tanto en tanto, hablamos sobre cuestiones de actualidad desde esa perspectiva
que integra los valores y los principios de la libertad.
Y hoy vamos a charlar sobre una cuestión que va siendo, va cobrando una importancia creciente
en la mayoría de economías occidentales y es el problema del acceso a la vivienda
por la sostenida elevación de los precios de los inmuebles.
Vamos a hablar sobre por qué sucede esto.
No es un problema específicamente español, sino que, como digo, es un problema presente
en la mayoría de economías desarrolladas.
Y también vamos a hablar sobre posibles soluciones a este problema,
que es un problema económico, social y también en gran medida político,
porque la no acumulación de un patrimonio inmobiliario en muchos casos dificulta
la acumulación de un patrimonio personal y, por tanto, vuelve a las personas dependientes
de la asistencia financiera que proporcione el Estado.
Y para hablar de todo ello, tenemos a dos invitados muy especiales.
En primer lugar, os voy a presentar a una persona que ya ha estado en más ocasiones en este canal
y que, además, es vicerector de la Universidad de las Espérides, Gonzalo Melián.
¿Qué tal? Buenas tardes.
Hola. Muy buenas tardes. Buenos días. Dependo de nos escuchen. Gracias con Ramón.
Gonzalo. Además, Gonzalo es especialista en temas de urbanismo,
con lo cual su aportación también será muy necesaria y muy bienvenida.
Y, además, hoy, excepcionalmente, porque es la primera vez que viene al canal,
no sé si será la última, espero que no,
tenemos a uno de los economistas, yo creo, más inspiradores
dentro del pensamiento liberal libertario actual.
Es profesor de economía en la Universidad George Mason de Estados Unidos
y, además, un pensador muy original,
muy rompedor en muchos ámbitos
y muy riguroso en cada una de las afirmaciones que efectúa,
aunque puedan parecer chocantes,
en muchos casos o en algunos casos,
la primera vez que se escuchan.
Y lo hemos traído,
ahora voy a pronunciar su nombre,
aunque muchos, obviamente, si estén en el directo
ya lo habéis escuchado,
pero lo hemos traído porque, además,
el último libro que ha publicado versa sobre esta cuestión,
que es sobre la problemática de la vivienda
y cómo facilitar el acceso.
Me estoy refiriendo a Brian Kaplan.
¿Qué tal? Muy buenas tardes.
Hello, Brian.
Buenas tardes.
Buenas tardes.
Bueno, Brian habla preferentemente en inglés.
No es que no pueda hablar nada en español,
pero le vamos a dejar expresarse en su lengua nativa,
que es con la que se sentirá, desde luego, más cómodo
y en la que podrá aportar más valor.
Y vamos a funcionar de la siguiente manera.
Tanto Gonzalo como yo hablaremos en español
y Brian contestará en inglés.
Por tanto, espero que tengáis un cierto dominio
del inglés para poder seguir la conversación.
Dicho esto, vamos a empezar.
También nos intentaremos expresar con comentarios breves
para que la traducción le llegue a Brian de manera más o menos fluida
y ese será el procedimiento que vamos a seguir.
Lo primero que os quería plantear a los dos
es a qué se debe el progresivo encarecimiento
del precio de la vivienda,
no solo en España,
sino en el conjunto o en la mayor parte
o en muchos países del mundo desarrollado.
¿Quieres empezar tú, Brian?
Si quieres, empiezo yo, por lo menos.
No, no, no.
So, as I explained in my new book, Build, Baby, Build,
the key problem is housing regulation.
Governments have made it very hard to build anything new.
The amount of permissions,
the amount of rules is so high
that this has really, what we say, strangled supply.
So, in the book, I go over the evidence on this.
It's not really controversial among people
that have actually looked at the data.
It's just something that most people aren't really thinking about
and most people aren't ready here.
But in the book, I try to go and tell people as clearly as I can.
Government is the problem here.
There is an abundance of cheap housing.
The market is ready to supply if it is allowed to do so.
O sea, que es un problema de insuficiente oferta
para la creciente demanda
y el que está estrangulando la oferta es el gobierno.
Gonzalo, ¿cuál es tu perspectiva también al respecto,
conocedor de las regulaciones urbanísticas?
Sí, a ver, básicamente se espera que de aquí al año 2050
la población mundial crezca en que viven ciudades,
crezca más de 2.000 millones.
Las ciudades tienen que crecer.
En el mundo desarrollado, digamos en Europa y Estados Unidos,
pues en muchos lugares tenemos una hiperregulación urbanística.
Brian habla de regulación de viviendas,
yo hablo de regulación urbanística.
Es decir, las ciudades están, digamos, congeladas
y no pueden ni crecer con nuevos suelos desarrollados
ni pueden, digamos, densificarse.
¿Por qué?
Porque la regulación impide esa creación de nuevas viviendas,
de nuevos desarrollos urbanos y de densificación.
Si quieres luego puedo entrar a explicar
por qué se produce este proceso de densificación,
que es esencial.
Estoy planteando, por tanto, que el problema es
que las ciudades no pueden aumentar la oferta
como consecuencia de restricciones gubernamentales,
pero por hacer el experimento mental.
¿Cómo serían las ciudades si no hubiese esas restricciones gubernamentales
y se pudiese construir, algunos dirían, anárquicamente?
Bien, a ver, las ciudades, como cualquier orden espontáneo,
se construirían en base en las reglas,
de hecho contractual, propiedad privada,
y habrían planes, por supuesto,
pero planes, digamos, de hecho desarrollado.
No serían órdenes construidos de arriba a abajo,
como son hoy, por el planificador.
¿Qué significa eso?
Pues que básicamente las ciudades se irían desarrollando
y transformando en función a los precios.
Es decir, si los precios aumentan en el centro, por ejemplo,
lo lógico es que se empiecen a densificar los centros.
Y es un proceso, digamos, de acordeón,
de expansión y de contracción.
No se produciría lo que se llama el Sproul de forma, digamos, ilimitada,
sino que habría un peso de, digamos, crecimiento expansivo
y a la misma vez de intensificación,
porque la gente quiere vivir agrupada porque es más económico.
Y entonces, bueno, los precios serían el indicador principal
para la transformación urbana.
Eso hoy no puede pasar.
Los precios dicen que hay que construir más viviendas,
pero no se pueden construir porque el suelo está protegido por una parte
y porque está prohibido, digamos, densificar las áreas urbanas ya hoy edificadas.
Pero, Brian, cuando hablamos de densificar, ¿a qué nos referimos?
¿Rascacielos de 50, 60, 100 alturas por toda la ciudad?
Es decir, ya digo, sin esas regulaciones urbanísticas,
¿hasta dónde construiríamos? ¿Cuál sería la forma de las ciudades?
It depends very much on what the prices that you have are.
The reason why people build very tall buildings
is because the land that they're sitting on is very valuable.
So, in places like New York City or San Francisco
where the land is very valuable,
and yet often the buildings that are currently there
are only a few stories tall,
then, yeah, I think it's very reasonable to think
that you would have buildings of about 40 stories
all around Central Park, for example.
There are some cost issues where buildings in over 40 stories,
then the extra cost starts going up.
But it does look like you can build up to about 40 stories
with not that much increase in cost compared to, say, 20 stories.
So, I think that you would just see a lot more 40-story buildings
in the most desirable areas.
But this is really only the beginning.
There's also things like just using less land for each house,
especially in more valuable areas.
There's being able to go and build housing for multiple families.
This is especially strictly regulated in the United States.
I know that in Europe you're more used to apartments,
but Americans do not like to allow apartments.
So, that's very hard as well.
But all of these are things that we should expect with deregulation.
And, of course, on top of that,
there's large areas that are currently just not allowed to build anything.
And with the privatization of that land, things can be built on it.
Those two are talking about that the solution to the house is to increase the offer
and densify the cities.
But, until you know, densify the cities
is not as much as possible for many people.
There are people who are opposed to building more
because they want to live in areas less densely populated.
They don't like a city that is massified.
Do you have this negative externalities to increase the offer of housing?
Well, it's a very good point.
The question is, Juan Ramón, I would say that, as it is logical,
the demand is heterogeneous
and there are different people who want to live in different places
or different forms urbanas.
And there will be for everyone.
What happens is that if you want to live in low density areas
and enjoy the services that you give a high density area,
well, you will have to assume the cost, precisely, to be able to live like this.
What can't happen is that there are many people
who want to live in cities, let's say, densely,
and that they can't live in or enjoy the city
because the regulations prevent it.
All right.
So there's always negative consequences of anyone interacting with anyone.
The important thing to think about is what is the next.
So think about all the good and all the bad.
Most regulations are just based upon someone thinking something could go wrong,
but forgetting to think about, well, what are all the things that go right?
So obviously, the most blatant changes from density
are you get more problems with traffic, more problems with parking.
In the book, I point out this is a very easy problem to solve
without preventing housing.
You just need to go and use smartphones to charge people more
for driving during heat times, raise the price of parking.
Here in the Canary Islands, in some of the most popular areas,
parking is totally free.
People complain about tourists.
The problem isn't tourists.
The problem is free parking.
Raise the price, especially when a lot of people use it,
and the problem really does get solved.
So yes, these are problems.
So parking problems, traffic problems.
But it's also always worth remembering.
What are the good things about living around other people?
And here, yes, it's more shopping opportunities,
more social opportunities, more job opportunities,
more cultural opportunities.
These are all the reasons why people usually live near other people.
Now, you may say, well, some things are good, some things are bad.
Who's to say what the package is?
What you say is that actually when you look at human behavior,
we see that most people actually much prefer to live near other people,
which means you get all the good and all the bad
of living near other people.
So I say it's not just me that actually prefers this package.
As I say, large majority of people are willing to pay a lot of extra money
to live near other people, even though people do cause problems.
Why?
Because people also make good things which are more important
than those problems for almost everybody.
But if it is so, if it is so, if the effect net of more offer is positive,
it could be, and this is an argument that recently has made Scott Alexander,
it could be that aumenting the offer,
it could be more the price?
Because if the city becomes more attractive,
we will increase the offer and the demand.
If we increase supply, will prices increase as well?
No, if we increase supply, prices decrease.
This is the way that economics works,
when you allow people to build more things, more of anything.
Anytime you can make more of anything,
then this pushes prices down because of competition.
If you have a child running a lemonade stand
and they've made a lot of lemonade,
what do they have to do to sell it?
They have to cut the price.
The idea that building more could actually raise price
is one of the strangest things I've ever heard, really.
It's something that people would not believe for almost anything else,
but somehow for housing, people are so confused.
But again, you can really see that in places where you are allowed to build,
when prices go up, this creates profit opportunities,
people build more, and this brings prices back down.
That's the way markets work.
But I want to insist on this question,
because I think it's not so strange to think
that certain increases in the offer
can become a city much more attractive
and, therefore, that demand can increase
so much as the offer.
It is to say,
if the increase in the offer
attracts more people
and that creates externalities netically positive,
the demand
can also increase
so much as the offer
is to say,
if a offer
generates more opportunities
of business,
more opportunities of ocio,
more utilities,
that increases
the value of living in the city
and, therefore, the demand
and, therefore,
let's give us a minute
so that we can translate to Brian
and, then, if you want to translate to Brian
or me,
or me,
or me.
Yes.
So, like,
are there some offsetting effects?
Yes.
But, again,
in the real world,
when you increase supply,
the overall effect
is the prices go down.
Yes.
So, you can imagine
strange theoretical scenarios otherwise,
but, really,
there's not much reason
to talk about them
because that's not how things work
in the real world.
If it did,
what would happen
is business would just make even more
and make even more
until finally the price comes down
because,
as long as it's profitable
to keep making something,
business keeps making it.
That's the whole idea
of running a business.
I can make more
and make more money.
Well, why don't I go
and double my production?
I'm still making money.
I can double it again.
I can double it again
until finally
you reach the point
where prices are actually
back down to cost.
Yes, in any moment,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course,
of course.
Jose Hermosilla Carrasco,
a little bit
of course,
well,
to this one,
he says,
if you create
100.000 new houses
in Madrid
and they occupy
almost all of them
of the rest of Spain
and you create
the population in Madrid,
what has done
in terms of
becoming more accessible
the house?
You have
100.000
new houses
of the house
and 100.000 new
demand antes
of the rest of Spain.
Well,
a ver,
a me would like
to puntualize
a couple of things.
Entiendo the argument
of if the offer
aumenta
and aumenta
the quality
of that city
can lead
to a new demand.
Yes,
but those are
the processes
of the market.
It works like that.
The offer
and demand
are in continuous
coordination,
but if the offer
increase,
the prices
will be
that will happen
always.
Then you can
again
increase the demand
of course,
of course,
and will
increase
the offer
or to transform
the offer
or to change
the offer.
But what
is clear
is that
it is
that it is
that it is
that it is
that it is
that it is
that it is
when you restring
the offer
is to
restring
the offer
of the
artificial
by the
plan
or
a
law
law
law
law
law
law
for example
that what
they do
is that
people
don't
want to
because
the
private
private
has
dejado
of
be
protected
because
there is
a little
a little
but
but
let's
continue
with
the
urbanism
the
city
is
the
result
of
a
market
no
can
be
something
static
inamovible
no
can
we
live
the
society
contemporaneous
can
live in
cities
of
the
medieval
or
cities
of
the
100
years
the
city
has
to
transform
and
who
transform
the
demand
the
demand
the
demand
is
the
that
really
says
how
want to
live
the
people
and
how
want to
that
the
city
is
that
demand
how
is
the
price
and
the
of
the
price
also
coordinate
with
that
demand
so
al
final
what
is
clear
is
well
but
in
2000
and
2007
in
Spain
the
amount
of
the
number
of
the
house
and
the
price
sub
of
of
the
of
the
was
sufficient
but
además
of
that
is
that
what
there
was
there
was
a
bur
inmobiliaria
como
consecuencia
de
una
expansión
del
crédito
que
nada
tiene
que
ver
con
la
restricción
de la
oferta
que
tenemos
hoy
es
decir
una
cosa
es la
restricción
de la
oferta
que
tenemos
hoy
que
empuja
al
alza
los
precios
y
otra
es
un
aumento
del
número
de
vivienda
pero
añadiendole
una
digamos
expansión
del
crédito
que
hace
que
los
precios
aumenten
artificialmente
también
que
hace
una
burbuja
y de
hecho
en 2007
2008
se paró
el crédito
se paró
la burbuja
y los
precios
de la
vivienda
se
desplomaron
y demostraron
esto
es decir
la oferta
aumentó
y a
medio
plazo
los precios
bajaron
en todo
caso
si al
aumentar
la oferta
aumenta
más la
demanda
eso
significa
que estamos
generando
más valor
para
una mayor
cantidad
de
gente
claro
al final
también
la clave
está en el
incremento
de la
digamos
de la
riqueza
si la
gente
tiene más
renta
disponible
tiene más
riqueza
disponible
aunque los
precios
aumenten
porque aumenta
el valor
de esa
vivienda
no habría
ninguna
consecuencia
negativa
pero
justamente
quería enlazar
esto con
otro asunto
estamos
presuponiendo
y esto
va para
Brian
estamos
presuponiendo
que
precios más
altos de la
vivienda
es
algo
malo
pero
para ciertas
personas
los propietarios
es algo
bueno
entonces
¿cuáles son
los pros
y los
contras
de que
se
encarezca
la vivienda?
para los
que tienen
es positivo
para los
que no
tienen
es una
barrera

que
reducing housing supply and raising prices but also i say that most of the complaints that people have
are either wrong or they're overstated and especially people are just ignoring good things
whenever there's discussion about whether to approve a building there is much more talk about
everything that could go wrong than everything you feel right and yet just from the very fact people
want to live in cities we know that the main thing that happens is things are going right
but people are so cautious that they would rather stop billion dollar projects just because of very
small complaints uh so yes of course people are worried about traffic and parking these are the
obvious ones like i say there are much better solutions for traffic and parking problems than
stopping construction people are worried about things looking bad a lot of the reason why i did
this book as a graphic novel was just to say let's just go and imagine how things would look does it
look bad i think actually a deregulated world looks a lot better than the world that we have today
i say for example that if you see a beautiful area of nature usually it looks better if there's also
some human construction there if you think about the amalfi coast in italy for example it looks better
because humans did something with it if it was just nature it would be good but it's humans who take
good things and make them great uh so really there's just a lot of things that are a lot a lot of
complaints that people have uh where i think people are really just assuming the worst you know a lot of
it is just basic denial of economics and saying like i don't believe that developers will cut prices if
you let them build more and the whole point is look they're not doing out of charity they're doing it
because of competition if you build a lot more stuff how will you get people to move in you've got
to cut the price we want people to move in this is the heart of economics in general but it's one
that people seem especially unwilling to accept for housing juan ramón me gustaría añadir algo a lo que
dijo brian que comentó antes en este en el anterior comentario y en este comentario cuando la ciudad
aumenta de densidad no necesariamente va a haber más tráfico oa ver peores condiciones de transporte es más
puede pasar como madrid madrid es una ciudad de densidad media que se ha expandido hacia el exterior
con densidades medias y densidades bajas en madrid hay atascos importantes puesto que la gente que vive
en la periferia se tiene que transportar al centro para trabajar aunque han incrementado considerablemente
gastando cientos de millones de euros el metro en el metro del transporte público colectivo la realidad
es que una ciudad así no puede funcionar el transporte público colectivo porque tiene densidad media sin
embargo cuando incrementa la densidad el transporte colectivo si empieza a funcionar no es deficiente la
gente elige usar el transporte colectivo frente al automóvil porque le es más fácil y más rápido y no
necesariamente aumenta el tráfico sólo quería añadir eso porque parecería que si aumenta la densidad hay
una correlación con el aumento del tráfico y no necesariamente es así es también todo lo contrario
son varios los que están preguntando por el tema específico de las islas y creo que además esto es
especialmente importante en una universidad como las esperides en brian las soluciones que planteas
también son aplicables a territorios donde hay poco espacio físico como pueden ser canarias o baleares
absolutely i have been living in the canary islands for about the last two weeks i've driven all over the
island actually the island is full of space and people who say there's no room for more things here
are just crazy i don't even know what they're like i don't know what could even possess a person
who has been to the canary islands and driven a car to think that there isn't more room most of the
island is still uninhabited uh so even just building the same kind of buildings that they're currently
doing there's room for 10 times as many people but obviously a lot of what i'm talking about is
changing the kind of structures so yes if you go and take advantage of modern construction techniques
you can build much taller buildings which allow a very large number of people to enjoy prime locations
uh so yes and really it's in the areas where people say nothing more can be done that usually
there's way more that can be done in the countryside no one would be so crazy to say there's no room for
more people so it's like yeah well that's true but even in a place that people think of is very built up
normally what's really going on is government has been not allowing developers to use the technology that we
have had for a hundred years building tall buildings if you go to mas palomas in the south of the island
some of the most beautiful beaches in the world and yet the hotels there i i didn't see any that were
more than about 10 stories tall right you can build them 10 times that tall it's easy also if you just drive
around a little bit more you'll see wow they're you they're spending 10 10 acres on a go-kart track
all right i i enjoyed the go-karts but like you could probably put housing in there for thousands
of people in the place where you have some go-karts it all comes down to if you can get the pieces of
paper from the government saying you're allowed to do it there is almost unlimited room for expansion
even in areas where people say there's no room there's enormous amounts of room to build it's not hard
as long as government gets its foot off the backs of the people that know what they're doing
gonzalo que algo sabes de la cuestión ayagri estoy totalmente de acuerdo con con brian a ver
canarias canarias indudablemente tienen mucho suelo para poder crecer pero viendo tu pregunta en espacios
limitados como las siglas como debería ser pues con más razón debería de poderse permitir la
densificación quiero decir con esto que entonces el todo todo se va a densificar las islas canarias
todo van a ser ciudades de alta densidad no no es la cosa por los turistas no quieren tampoco estar
únicamente en sitios de alta densidad hay turistas que quieren estar en baja densidad otros media densidad y
por otro lado los que vivimos digamos los que vivimos aquí y los que vivimos las ciudades principales pues
algunas de las ciudades principales algunas no digo todas pues se deberían de poder densificar
y no digo que sólo se pueden densificar también pueden crecer porque hay mucho espacio disponible
pero pero sobre todo hay que permitir las dos cosas desificar especialmente y crecer por otro lado
además canarias disfruta de las infraestructuras de transporte espectaculares gracias a que hay turistas
es decir tenemos aeropuertos internacionales tenemos autopistas autovías carreteras que no habrían en
islas como esta si no fuera porque tenemos una gran afluencia de turistas la capacidad digamos de poder
crecer a nivel urbano y sobre todo densificarse en las principales ciudades no solamente es posible
sino que es necesaria y por supuesto todavía hay mucho recorrido para transformar parte de la ciudad
y mucho recorrido para transformar parte de zonas que no son o no tienen ningún tipo de razón de ser
para impedirse la organización bueno es que en canarias últimamente estamos viendo protestas de todo tipo
contra los plátanos contra los turistas contra el petróleo no sé muy bien qué generación de riqueza
quieren llevar a cabo en las islas y están en contra de todos pero bueno ese es ese es otro directo
hablando de islas y esto también para bryan en ocasiones bryan ha lavado el matices ha lavado el
modelo económico de singapur y en singapur el régimen de tenencia de vivienda es fundamentalmente
estatal no una especie de alquiler a 100 años vista y cuál es decir por qué no ir por esa dirección cuál
es el inconveniente de ese modelo de vivienda
es decir que hay una parte de mi libro donde hablamos de singapuridad
pero principalmente porque la gente dice que tiene gran gran hogar de vivienda y es mejor que en los Estados Unidos
pero creo que estás hablando de la modelo de construir muy grande y muy grande y muy grande y
en la zona de vivienda de vivienda
así que si vienes a singapuridad
se pueden ver wow they've done so much with such a small space a you know you've
got a very large population for that area right and even there i think that they are underperforming
there's a lot more room for what they could be doing um terms of the you know the advantages
so you've just got a much larger number people can enjoy a really great life uh you know singapur
had said we're not going to allow more than half a million people here then not only would a lot
fewer people be enjoying it but there would just also be so much less to do in singapur it would
be a much more boring place you think about this you know there's a reason why people leave small
towns it's not cost costs are low in small towns the reason is the feeling it's boring here there's
nothing to do uh most of what's interesting in life is caused either directly or indirectly by
having other people around and yet strangely there's so much government effort to stop
people from living near other people why like if you really want to avoid other people it's not
it's not hard it's cheap and yet hardly anybody wants to do it it makes much more sense to say
that developers can do what they want with their property which in areas where people really want
to live this means we're going to build a lot of housing so a lot of people can enjoy it
the question is not regarding the density of the population in singapore but the regime of property
in singapore because most houses are government owned or at least they are leases for 99 years so
yes what is the advantage or disadvantage of that regime why we shouldn't copy that model because
many people is defending to import that model into for instance into spain that everything is owned by
the government and it is least for one century but then it goes back to government why shouldn't we
embrace that model right okay so now now i understand what you're talking about i mean the most obvious
thing is to say it barely makes a difference whether you own something forever or 99 years if you've
ever done the math where you just calculate what's the value of owning something for the next 99 years
versus forever it's actually a very small difference you've got to know a bit of calculus to understand
as to what the disadvantage is it was the disadvantage of getting government involved in a vital industry
which means that it is even easier for them to go and mess it up now i will say singapore is an
especially reasonable and low corruption country where when government is involved they don't screw
things up as badly as they would in say the united states or spain but still there's problems there's
risks but for other countries that are not well functioning that are not good at handling corruption
problems to go and try to copy it it's like the best case scenario is it barely makes any difference and
more likely what happens is you wind up putting additional problems in front of the second most
important industry in the world right the first most important industry in the world is food that's the
most important you can only have one have food but the second most important is shelter housing and yet
this is one where people are so hostile to building and are so likely to demonize people just for doing
the job of putting a roof over our heads and why it's pretty hard to understand and yet it is a
popular dogma all around the world developers are evil and have to be stopped
but i want to link this with your discussion your paper against georgism because because what's the reason
why we should allow uh owners of house to earn uh monopolistic rents instead of sharing socially that public
dividend on housing i mean what's the the social value of being owners of a house when we could be just
tenants right okay so i didn't see the george's connection but now i know what you're talking about
here all right yeah so there is this idea wouldn't it be great if we were just to go and tax all of the
raw value of all real estate so you can say you don't want to tax the building because then people
wouldn't build but what's the harm in going and taxing the raw value of the land all right you
know just to start it's like well then the government gets it and what is the government
going to do with it i'd say it's much better to keep it in the hands of the private owners so they
don't go and waste it on stuff but anyway what i say in that paper is that the main thing that people
forget is that the valuable properties that people think of as being the land often have to be discovered
so think about prospecting for oil it's easy to say well once we know that there's a million
barrel of oils under your land why should we allow you to drill it it's like well maybe the reason
that i went around looking for this land was because i expected that i would be able to go and get the
benefit from it and yes there is quite a bit of research showing that in countries where the owner of
property is allowed to get the mineral resources the mineral value they seem strangely to have a lot more
resources it's like well why would that be because the resources have to be discovered the resources
have to be found so if you go and take that value then you discourage people from finding the resources
that exist furthermore often if you're running a business like is that really a great place to build
something you might after someone succeeds say oh well of course it didn't take any brains to do that
and yet when you really pay attention to business a lot of what's going on in business is someone is
saying i think i could go and take that land and turn it into a stadium that people would want to go to
right they take a risk and if they know that if their idea is good they will lose the value
then what is the point of taking the risk so that is another big part of it is just that all
entrepreneurship involves trying to guess what the best use of property is and when you prevent an owner
from profiting from it you discourage guessing probably my favorite example of this uh so i know gonzalo
from guatemala so guatemala is rich in archaeological resources like so much latin america
and yet the normal thing now so you find any archaeological relics the government gets it which
means why is there any point in even trying to find anything the golden age of archaeology was the age
when whoever finds the resource goes and owns it and then they're rich off of it or whoever owns the
land owns it but if government is the owner of it then what's the point of trying to go and find out
what value lies beneath the sand also i have a piece called privatized archaeology right so there's the
indiana jones line it belongs to the museum i said look let the museum pay for it if they want it why is
it the people hard-working people go around looking for archaeological treasures shouldn't be able to
make money like any everybody else i i would like to add something uh related with uh what brian is
talking about but i would like to do it in english too be careful be careful how you divide the ownership
or the private property right because if you divide too much and you include regulation with urban planning
you will have an anti-common problem so it will be very difficult to reshape the city so private
property rights are essential uh because it really the incentive to to transform the city but if you
divide into a great amount of parts the ownership and you add too much regulation as we have today
the cost of of reshaping the city is really high high i don't know what you think about that brian
right uh anti-commons problems are theoretically interesting i mean the most obvious example i once was
in an apartment complex where every parking space was assigned to an owner and therefore it was almost
impossible to ever have a guest visit you because um and i said it would be better to go and just have
a much larger have a lot of the spaces just be unassigned and then it's not like everyone is going
to have their friends come at the same time so i thought that would have been better but again in the
real world i don't think that anti-commons problems are actually very important um you know there is there
are opportunities for developers to go and buy up larger areas to go and handle these problems
but yes i don't think that it is actually anywhere near in severity to the opposite problem of not owned
by anyone or owned by the government and then dismissed managed my point is if you have divided into
many parts the ownership is an area where there are many houses and you add for example regulations with
with urban planning where you cannot increase the density of the city so you destroy the incentive
and you also destroy the possibilities of reshaping so the the division of the owners
plus the regulations will lock the city that is the point so it will be very difficult that new
builders will go to this area to buy each apartment each house to to rebuild or to reshape the area so it
will be uh the consequence will be uh uh uh uh i don't know how to say in english now but something like you
know uh um degenerado uh obsoleto uh so the the city will be will be uh unprofitable uh and will uh
reduce the possibility for division of labor and opportunities right so again i'll say like
theoretically possible but i don't see it really mattering very much in the real world sure if you
wanted to go and build skyscrapers in san francisco it would be easier if there was one landlord who
owned every city block and then you could just go to that landlord and buy the block and then evict
everyone and put your skyscraper that would make it easier but i'd say in the real world if it were
just possible for developers to go to individual owners and buy it up we would have a lot more
development than we do right now uh so i don't think that that really is that big of a problem uh so
in the united states we do have homeowners associations uh they do provide some valuable
services but i think that you'd be likely to actually get more development without homeowner
associations because then you just go and find the owners that are most eager to sell whereas to go and
buy out a homeowner association you would have to convince the majority of people in the homeowners
association so it's just easier generally if you can go and shop around and say well there's 100 owners
i need to buy from 10 of you i don't care which 10. uh that's easier than going and convincing a majority
of a whole group to go and sell to you um so that would be my story anyway um you know like there are
advantages when a developer gets one large area and then they can simultaneously build all of it
but i don't see that the division of property urban areas is an important barrier development the
problem is government won't let even an individual owner sell to a developer i mean there are a lot
of tactics the developers can use in decentralized area like you buy options where you go to every
owner and i'll say i'll pay you a thousand dollars just for the right to go and buy this if i feel
like it later on and then you go and you just get a lot of options and once you have the options then
you can go and look at out of all my options which one is the best so it doesn't even cost that
much to go and handle problems like this so i just don't think it's that severe i agree that the
problem is uh the regulations but um but can we agree that uh sometimes how the ownership is organized
will uh facilitate will uh increase i mean that is so definitely you could make it easier but i'd say
look if it were just if you were free to go and buy from any owner in san francisco and build whatever
you wanted on property you bought we would be seeing a lot of skyscrapers getting built um one question
that has arrived at the chat is that maybe we do not need larger cities but more uh large cities so
instead of increasing the size of some uh reduced number of of cities we should increase the number of
medium large uh size cities what's your opinion on that porque no ambos porque no ambos yes let's have
more cities let's let cities grow that such big cities get even bigger yes there are a lot of
different options and what's great about free markets is they let people try a lot of different
ideas and see what actually works i can understand the appeal of let's take a smaller city and let's expand
it on the other hand i can also see the appeal of i want to be able to live in the most exciting city
on earth right now i don't want to have to go and hope the city is going to get a lot more exciting over
the next 20 years so you know let people do all of those uh in the united states the federal government
owns about 25 of all the land in the country and state governments own another nine percent if you
were to privatize this this would allow developers to create totally new cities where nothing exists
right now so you could do that as well i think it'd be great to have more startup cities and just to
try that out then we might find out gonzalo's right and that there's an incredible advantage to being
able to have an entire city's worth of land to go and turn into a completely new development but yes
let's try it all estoy de acuerdo totalmente de acuerdo y me gustaría añadir una anécdota juan ramón
en canada en españa hay una región brian que se llama castilla la mancha donde está pues ciudades como
toledo guadalajara entre otras bien en castilla la mancha está prohibido desarrollar ciudades que tengan
más de un metro cuadrado construido por cada metro cuadrado de suelo está totalmente prohibido por
por ley y por plan la ley digamos de la región prohíbe que se pueda desarrollar ciudades con
más de un metro cuadrado construido por cada metro cuadrado de suelo nueva york manhattan tienen 25 metros
cuadrados cuadrados construidos por cada metro cuadrado de suelo que significa eso es imposible producir o
crear o generar una ciudad como nueva york en ningún área de castilla la mancha porque la ley lo prohíbe
una pregunta que ha llegado en el chat y creo que es bastante interesante es ¿por qué en las últimas décadas
la nueva construcción de la construcción de la construcción ha diminuido en todo el mundo? ¿qué ha pasado
que estamos construyendo menos de lo que habíamos visto? bien, mi historia es que la regulación
alrededor del mundo ha vuelto más estricta incluso si la ley no ha cambiado todavía hay una persona
que enforcea la ley así que si necesitas un permiso la ley puede ser la misma pero la persona
providing los permiso puede simplemente hacer es mucho más difícil hacerlo así que digo eso es lo principal que
ha estado sucediendo es que las regulaciones han vuelto más estrictas pero también
imagínate y disgusting 20 años es que los regulações están siguientes
morando para bajar en la Appliata
cultivaciones
a dejarse el cambio
sobre el precio y la olía
y, ellos
tienen sujeto
la protrusión
instead of doing what a reasonable person does which is well what's likely to happen
see i think there was still a question about uh la mancha let's see that i was it was getting
translated for me no what i was saying is in castilla la mancha is not allowed to build or
to develop any city with more than one meter square per meter square of land in manhattan
the density or the ability is 25 meter square per meter square of land so the regulation the law
impede totally to develop any city like new york and we we know new york is a horrible city that
people don't like yes no like like a famous it's famous for having people complain and then pay a
pile of money to live there yeah curious right it's like it's almost like people are saying
things they don't really mean uh another issue uh that is arising in the chat and i think it's
also interesting is because i want to know your public choice perspective on this brian uh the
relationship between regulation of housing and corruption because here in spain we have quite
experience on that and and i think it's a global topic uh maybe politicians are increasing regulations
because they can take advantage personal advantage of on them what i would say is that
if the laws were enforced to the letter it might be hard to build anything
so so i've got a lot of sympathy for corruption that allows people to go
and at least bend the rules enough to get permission to build things you're right that you can imagine
that politicians would deliberately create rules purely in order to stop something good in order to
get a bribe again i think that's probably a minor problem i think the major problem are the regulations
that are in plain sight that everybody knows about regulations saying like you just cannot build a
skyscraper without getting permission it's almost impossible to build you know like regulations where
there's some way around it at least it's not as bad as the regulations that are enforced puritanically
you're like no absolutely not we will never allow it no matter what if people have that attitude then
yeah like you are really in a tough spot because this very basic necessity you can't make
and and finally also related to regulation uh here in spain we are
um nowadays discussing on the possibility of banning vacation apartments as a way of repressing demand
and therefore increasing uh effective supply of housing for uh spaniards um should we do that
what are the pros and the cons of that measure right so tourism and selling real estate to foreigners
is one of the best industries that spain has you've got a great climate you've got great food
you've got great entertainment you've got great people people all over the world want to get a piece
of spain and then regulators say yeah let's not allow it let's go and and not go and produce the goods
that are actually desired by the world like what follies how about instead of preventing foreigners from
buying homes you allow spaniards to build homes so there's enough homes for the foreigners and the
spaniards it is just a crazy mentality it's like you have this incredible advantage you have a great
industry and instead of going and saying how can we go and take maximum advantage of it people say
no i'm going to complain and i'm going to go and try to stop one of the best things that spain has
it's crazy it's crazy it's a good a good sum up it's crazy but it's our political class um
like every country should want to have this problem of foreigners want to buy your homes
that's a sign that there's something nice in your country like if you if people don't want to go and
buy homes in siberia as far as i know right now like the fact that people want to do that's a sign
that you're doing something good if you're doing something good you don't want to say well let's
not you want to say how can we go and really get a lot of value out of this and it's obvious build
build build and that's the title of my book build baby build yeah governments sometimes are fighting
for attracting foreign direct investment and in some cases they are trying to repeal it because they
don't want that particular class of foreign direct investments such as for instance buying houses
that the problem that we have with this in this case is created by governments by the race so they
created the problem and when they face the problem they add more regulations that will not solve the
problem even will create uh more disadvantage so not only are intending consequences directly
disadvantages advantages so the it's really crazy uh hey local key look is okay look at
uh one last question before ending this live show uh another issue that we are discussing currently in
spain is uh rent controls rents are increasing too much and they are spelling young people from from
cities because they are not able to to pay to afford the rent um what's the current state of the art in in
the the the issue of rent controls because uh initially most economists were very much against
rent controls as something crazy and stupid and uh useless but in the last years some new economists
appear saying that some type of rent control second generation resident controls are not so
harmful that they can provide some advantages that if you have a concentration of supply in some
areas of control of supply in some areas maybe you need some rent controls to to counteract
monopoly power what's your take on this you first yeah this is so absurd like if you go to any
economics textbook they will explain the problems with rent control if you have rent control it
does not make apartments or housing more abundant it makes it less abundant because people want to
build less it just means that you get queuing and people desperately trying to go and get a place
because having the money is no longer enough to get what you want other problems include just decay
of the quality if landlords know that they can go and have a hundred different possible tenants
then they don't need to try very hard to make tenants happy uh can you make length and rent control
less bad sure you can make it less bad but why try at all it's just a failed terrible idea and to go
and make it less bad it's like all right yes you could say well it only applies to old structures
all right yes but every new structure eventually becomes an old structure and so i'm going to build
something and then 20 years from now then that'll be subject rent control that's again something that
people will have in mind so yes rent control is terrible idea like people are just so eager to
avoid the obvious thing of deregulate let developers build a lot of stuff prices get cheap and abundant
high quality it totally works why fight an idea that totally works with a bunch of crummy ideas where you
have to go and keep tweaking them just to prevent them from being complete disasters come on
uh i i i i would like to say in english but i will uh sign up later in spanish so i i agree it's the
worst idea that you can do even you know you generate the problem you create the pro you created the
problem because you increase the scarcity through the regulation and after that as the prices increases
due to the regulations now you in you include a price control that is the worst situation and that is
what happened in all the socialist economies so you do that because as you fail in the in the first
period of regulation now you will increase the price you will introduce the price control and this
is the worst so basically the worst would just be to destroy all the housing but it's pretty bad
yes yes or everything and say look we're tired of having this problem in the long run in the long run
one policy leads to the order or it could be possible to um to force people to go out the city that
also could be a possibility so let's restify them the idea of the price is the worst possible the reality is
that the prices have increased because the offer cannot increase is a consequence of the regulations of
the government and the government what is the solution that proposes control prices why because
como él ha sido digamos el que ha creado esa situación al final su única solución es el
control de precios que lleva a la ruina al llegar en el largo plazo porque al final en el largo plazo lo
que va a ver es mayor escasez y mayores precios y un deterioro general de la ciudad y la economía
no no no no for sure we should we must end what's your opinion on why politicians are doing this i
mean if all these policies are so crazy so absurd so uh uh negative why are they doing what they do it
is because they don't know the basics of economic science it is because voters are asking them to
restrict uh new buildings because they want to keep the price of their homes high um why do you think
housing policy is the one that we are suffering almost every place in the world not just in
spain because spanish politicians are the worst political class in the world but this is something
quite common in every in every country so in my book i have a whole chapter on this and i say look
um the one big problem is economic illiteracy most people just refuse to accept that building more
housing reduces prices that's one problem another problem i say is innumeracy innumeracy people go
and mention very tiny problems with building new things and then say so it should never be done
another problem is paranoia like the sky will fall it will be a total disaster if we go and allow this
so i think these are the real problems i don't think that the self-interest of homeowners is very
important in fact there's research in the us finding that homeowners and tenants have very similar views
on this it's not a selfish effort to go and get higher prices it's rather what's usual in politics which
is a very confused effort to advance the good of society without a lot of attention being paid to
will it work what are we really doing do we even know what we're talking about then politicians
mostly they are trying to go and get power by telling people what they want to hear i think
that politicians probably have a better sense what's really going on the typical voter i think
politicians do realize that if they would go and allow more building there'd be very large benefits
but they think they know it's unpopular and also of course a lot of politicians have an ideology
saying builders are evil developers are evil i would be a traitor to my own ideology if i went and allowed
people to build things so that's the main thing going on but really it's the bad ideas just thinking
that it's such a hard problem it's not a hard problem just let builders do their job they know how
to do it a hundred years ago they were able to build the empire state building in about a year
we have the technology to do it it's just that government won't give permission to do the job
gonzalo para terminar también contigo quizás sido un poco superficial cuando he dicho que este es un
problema que afecta prácticamente todos los países del mundo mirando sistemas urbanísticos comparados hay
países hay economías donde hay más libertad de construcción de edificar y en ese sentido se puede se
construye más y se abaratan los precios es una muy buena pregunta e indudablemente antes dijiste que
los políticos españoles eran los peores yo diría que el tratamiento urbano español es de los peores y
por qué es de los peores porque es de los más regulados yo he estado estudiando diferentes sistemas
urbanísticos el británico el alemán el francés el eeuu y si comparamos por ejemplo el sistema de
reino unido con el sistema español veremos que el planamiento urbano en reino unido es más
orientativo y menos restrictivo en españa es totalmente planificado y restrictivo entonces a mayor restricción
a mayor regulación a mayor digamos imposibilidad de entrada
disculpad a mayor dificultad de entrada de agentes económicos de empresarialidad para poder transformar
la ciudad los mayores problemas habrá en el largo plazo entonces realmente no es solamente que los
políticos españoles sean especialmente malos si en el modelo urbanístico español heredado del franquismo
que es el que tenemos hoy es especialmente regulado es una planificación al máximo nivel y eso incrementa
aún mayor se incrementa aún más los problemas en otros países donde también hay revoluciones
urbanísticas que son dañinas los problemas pues son menos graves o digamos que hay cierta entrada al mercado
pues hasta aquí llega nuestro directo de hoy con un invitado muy especial brian caplan un economista a
los que no lo conocéis os recomiendo encarecidamente que lo sigáis y a quienes si lo conocíais pues supongo
que habéis disfrutado como era esperable que que disfrutarais simplemente recordaros brian caplan justamente
que acaba de publicar su último libro sobre sobre este tema sobre cómo solucionar el problema de la vivienda
build baby build science and ethics of housing regulation lo tenéis disponible en amazon en amazon españa también para quien lo quiera adquirir y leer y también he de decir que si estamos entrevistando a
brian caplan no solo es porque haya publicado este último libro sino porque como veis en el fondo de la pantalla de brian
brian ahora mismo está visitando en la universidad de las espérides y de hecho en la universidad de verano de la universidad de las espérides va a ser uno de los profesores que va a impartir clase
gonzalo comentanos un poquito más sobre la universidad de la universidad de las espérides sobre los cursos de verano de la universidad que se dan en lanzarote yo mismo también estaré tres o cuatro días por allí dando algunas sesiones
no sé si quedan plazas disponibles si no pero que se vayan anotando en la lista de espera para el año que viene cuéntanos un poquito sobre este acto
bien pues la universidad de verano de la universidad de las espérides es una oportunidad única para poder convivir con otros estudiantes y con otros y con profesores
de la universidad de las espérides tanto digamos los internos como los visitantes como brian caplan y habrá multitud de actividades académicas de diferente tipo
discusiones debates conferencias y también habrá otro tipo de actividades como aprender a hacer surf o cineforos entre otros
dura una semana es en lanzarote y el programa pues lo pueden ver en verano h verano h lo pueden buscar en google h verano punto h y pueden ver el programa completo
y bueno realmente si no me equivoco queda alguna plaza pero no estoy seguro porque creo que esta mañana ya se terminaron pero no estoy seguro 100% seguro
pues llevo dos días malos y no he podido ver todos los correos electrónicos pero indudablemente no solamente está abierto a los alumnos de la universidad de las espérides
sino también a otros estudiantes que quieran participar en esta universidad de verano y que creemos que va a ser inolvidable
bueno pues esperamos entre otros pues tendremos a juan ramón rayo a brian caplan a milan sobastos a manuel llamas a eduardo fernández
y otros muchos profesores martín krause no me quedo son muchos más pero no hay detrás y también hay que decir gonzalo
que quien no se puede apuntar a la universidad de verano si se puede apuntar a la universidad reglada a partir de
el mes de septiembre en los grados en los programas de grado y de posgrado que ofrece la universidad
si los programas de grado comienzan a final de septiembre y los de máster o de posgrado comienzan a final de octubre y por supuesto
pues en estos momentos estamos a visión abierta y les animo a que al menos se acerquen a las puertas abiertas
para conocer esta universidad que creo que de verdad les va a gustar lo que lo que van a poder ver
pues ya lo sabéis si queréis obtener más información de la universidad de las espérides una universidad
en la que tenemos el placer de contar con profesores visitantes como brian caplan y en la que humildemente
también he de decirlo pues soy decano de la escuela de grado y por tanto de alguna manera supervisor
o cosupervisor de algunos de los programas que impartimos en esta universidad pues busca de información
sobre la universidad de las espérides universidad online 100% online pero que también hace actos
presenciales o eventos presenciales como la universidad de verano
thank you very much brian muchas gracias gonzalo
muchas gracias a todos
adiós
muchas gracias brian
muchas gracias con ramón
hasta otra
hasta otra
y a todos los demás pues espero que hayáis disfrutado de este directo
un directo pues a caballo entre inglés y español pero creo que las ideas fundamentales de esta discusión
han quedado bastante claras el problema principal de la vivienda es un problema de oferta
y la política que hay que seguir para volver más accesible la vivienda es permitir ya no impulsar activamente sino permitir que la sociedad civil y el mercado incrementen la oferta de vivienda allí donde es efectivamente demandada
ojalá se tome buena nota de ello y no vayamos por la senda de reprimir la demanda con cada vez más regulaciones que lo único que generan es pobreza y no mayor accesibilidad de la vivienda
muchas gracias a todos y muchas gracias a la universidad de las esperides por acoger este directo y a todos vosotros pues nos veremos próximamente en el canal y si queréis obtener más información sobre la universidad de las esperides la podréis obtener pinchando en el enlace que aparece en la caja de descripción del vídeo y en el comentario destacado
hasta otra