Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 3:111-115 (1990) 9 1990 Kluwer Academic Publishers Real Estate Development: An Academic Perspective KERRY D. VANDELL Professor and Chairman, Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics, University of Wisconsin-- Madison, Madison, W1 53706 Real estate development to the developer is sometimes considered the very antithesis of a process lending itself to academic analysis. It has been called "seat of the pants," requiring decisionmaking within an environment of high risk and little information, valuing an ability to "control" the process and to make maximum use of interpersonal relationships (with lenders, land use officials, investors, and so on) possibly more than good market and feasibil- ity analysis. Academics seem largely to have accepted the notion that development does not lend itself easily to academic analysis, for a cursory review of the literature finds relatively few efforts making use of the formal economics or finance paradigms intentionally directed toward development decisionmaking. This is particularly true at the micro-level, reflecting the decisionmaking process of the individual developer, and in the area of construction or devel- opment finance. Yet clearly, development activity--in the form of new construction or substantial rehabilita- tion or reuse--represents a large share of the supply side of the real estate market. Hence, it is worthy of attention in spite of the world of uncertainty, imperfect information, and generalized objective functions within which it exists. The purpose of this special issue of The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics is to focus greater academic attention on real estate development questions as an appropriate area of inquiry and to bring these issues into the fold of the formal paradigms of analysis. When examining the supply side of the real estate market, we may be considering the impact on a number of supply dimensions, including: 9 the timing of development 9 the density of development 9 the type and quality of development 9 the location of development 9 the configuration of development 9 the resulting pattern of land or property prices/rents from development A generic study of development would deal with the impact on one or more of these development outcomes of any of a variety of factors, operating on either the demand or supply side of the market, including: 9 risk and uncertainty in current or future conditions 9 imperfect information