REPORT: Major research flaws undermine authors bold claims; unpacking the debate on Measure ULA

In April 2025, the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies released two reports claiming that the Measure ULA tax is hurting the Los Angeles real estate market. Rigorous, thorough evaluation of public policies is critical and necessary, but the Lewis Center reports fail to deliver on either rigor or quality of evaluation. Instead, they rely on questionable methodology, limited data, and flawed analysis to draw broad, premature conclusions and call for massive changes to Measure ULA. This paper identifies a number of flaws in Ward and Phillips’ methodology, data, controls, and assumptions, which combine to raise significant questions about the conclusions of the report.