Britain tightly restricts the supply of office space, creating substantial economic rents, but its development restrictions are politically administered and therefore gameable, inducing rent-seeking activity. We find that ‘trophy architects’ (TAs)—prior winners of a lifetime achievement award—obtain more space on a given site apparently by signalling architectural merit. Analysis of 2039 office buildings shows that TAs build 14 stories taller, thereby increasing a representative site value by 152% and capturing potential economic rents of £148m. However, we argue that this apparent premium is merely compensation for the extra costs, risks and delays of using a TA to game the planning system; it is therefore an indirect measure of the deadweight costs of this form of rent-seeking.

中文翻译：

---

“奖杯建筑师”与寻租设计：在严格监管的写字楼市场中量化无谓损失

英国严格限制办公空间的供应，创造了可观的经济租金，但其发展限制是政治管理的，因此具有可玩性，从而引发了寻租活动。我们发现“奖杯建筑师”（TA）——终身成就奖的前获得者——显然是通过表明建筑价值而在给定地点获得更多空间。对 2039 座办公楼的分析表明，TA 将建筑高 14 层，从而将代表性地块价值提高了 152%，并获得了 1.48 亿英镑的潜在经济租金。然而，我们认为这种明显的溢价仅仅是对使用 TA 来操纵规划系统的额外成本、风险和延迟的补偿；因此，它是这种寻租形式的无谓成本的间接衡量标准。