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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Manu García; Carlos Garriga |
| Abstract: | An analysis of housing and household income data from 2000 to 2023 finds that in most U.S. counties, the cost of buying a house has outpaced local incomes. |
| Keywords: | home prices; housing affordability |
| Date: | 2026–02–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:102437 |
| By: | Nicolás Irazoque Sillerico (IIE-FCE-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first estimate of the impact of the Venezuelan exodus on Colombian students’ learning. To identify the impact, I use the reopening of the ColombianVenezuelan border in 2016 as a natural experiment and propose a differences-in-differences design. The results indicate that, on average, native high school students exposed to immigrants on the schools experience a decrease of 1.8% of a standard deviation in their academic performance and the effect is persistent for the first four years and tends to zero after that. A possible mechanism for this negative effect is that teachers allocate class time to assist lower-achieving Venezuelans. This effect becomes insignificant when the concentration of immigrants is higher. The negative effect is larger for women, for Colombians with high achievement, with highly educated mothers, and for natives who attend schools with high average scores and a high concentration of educated mothers. |
| JEL: | I21 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0364 |
| By: | Buchholz, Maximilian; Kemeny, Tom; Randolph, Gregory; Storper, Michael |
| Abstract: | A popular view holds that declining housing affordability stems from regulations that restrict new supply, and that deregulation will spur sufficient market-rate construction to meaningfully improve affordability. We argue that this ‘deregulationist’ view rests upon flawed assumptions. Through empirical simulation, we show that even a dramatic, deregulation-driven supply expansion would take decades to generate widespread affordability in high-cost U.S. markets. We advance an alternative explanation of declining affordability grounded in demand structure and geography: uneven demand growth – driven by rising interpersonal and interregional inequality – is the primary driver of declining affordability in recent decades. For cost-burdened households, trickle-down benefits from deregulation will be insufficient and too slow. |
| Date: | 2026–01–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:95trz_v1 |
| By: | Raj Chetty; Rebecca Diamond; Thomas B. Foster; Lawrence Katz; Sonya R. Porter; Matthew Staiger; Laura Tach |
| Abstract: | We study whether low-economic-mobility neighborhoods can be transformed into high-mobility areas by analyzing the HOPE VI program, which invested $17 billion to revitalize 262 distressed public housing developments. We estimate the program’s impacts using a matched difference-in-differences design, comparing outcomes in revitalized developments to observably similar control developments using anonymized tax records. HOPE VI reduced neighborhood poverty rates by attracting higher-income families to revitalized neighborhoods, but had no causal impact on the earnings of adults living in public housing units. Children raised in revitalized public housing units earn more, are more likely to attend college, and are less likely to be incarcerated. Using a movers exposure design and sibling comparisons, we show that these improvements were driven by changes in neighborhoods’ causal effects on children’s outcomes. The improvements in neighborhood causal effects were driven in large part by changes in social interaction: HOPE VI increased interaction between public housing residents and peers in surrounding neighborhoods and increased earnings more for subgroups with higher-income peers. Many low-income families in the U.S. currently live in neighborhoods that are as socially isolated as the HOPE VI developments were prior to revitalization. We conclude that it is feasible to create high-opportunity neighborhoods and that connecting socially isolated areas to surrounding communities is a cost-effective approach to doing so. |
| JEL: | R38 I38 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-02 |
| By: | G. Jacob Blackwood |
| Abstract: | Combining confidential business-level microdata with housing and banking data, I document large and persistent effects of local house prices on employment at small businesses, and particularly young businesses, during the Great Recession. I show that the effect on entry is important for explaining the disproportionate effect on young businesses, while young firm exit is also disproportionately affected. I then explore the channels through which house prices affect business outcomes. I use survey data to show that reliance on either personal assets or home equity is associated with increased sensitivity to house prices. I then use local bank balance sheet information to show both young and old firms are sensitive to local credit shocks, with some evidence of a larger effect on young businesses. I develop a macroeconomic model that is consistent with these findings where house prices work through two channels: a bank credit supply channel and a housing collateral channel. |
| Keywords: | Firm Dynamics, House Prices, Credit Supply, Business Cycles |
| JEL: | E44 D22 D25 R31 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-03 |
| By: | Southern, Billy |
| Abstract: | Accurately delineating urban and suburban space has become increasingly difficult. Identifying each setting has long relied on capturing where population density and commuting flows differ, with research and policy often operating with binary measures to separate city from suburb. But as urban and suburban spaces expand, age, and reshape, places emerge that do not definitively fit this binary imagination. The uncertainty this generates creates complexities in claims made about urban and suburban space, but it is rarely addressed within empirical classifications. This research focuses on the uncertainty that dichotomous categorizations of place hide. Through a comparison of seven extant definitions of urban and suburban, I identify places that sit reliably in one category or another; but I also highlight the areas of uncertainty and instability. Results demonstrate that there are ‘stable’ urban and suburban areas, but a spatially uncertain transitional space exists where the nature of the landscape is unclear. By delineating these transitional spaces as a third category, I support research and policy that aims to speak clearly about changes in urban and suburban places, while also opening a conversation about how places might move between these two canonical definitions. |
| Date: | 2026–01–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:675x8_v1 |
| By: | James J. Feigenbaum; Yi-Ju Hung; Marco Tabellini; Monia Tomasella |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of immigration restrictions on the intergenerational mobility of US-born men in the United States. We link US-born sons observed in 1900, 1920, and 1940 full-count Censuses to their fathers, and construct a measure of county-level exposure to the 1920s immigration acts, which sharply curtailed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Exploiting this policy-induced variation, we find that the quotas reduced intergenerational mobility among US-born white men, but had no adverse effect for Black men. Among whites, losses were smaller for sons of richer fathers, who were more likely to migrate away from highly exposed areas. Evidence from the 1940 Census indicates that exposed white men were less likely to be employed and earned lower wages in adulthood, consistent with both occupational downgrading and reduced productivity within occupations. We show that these effects operated through both reduced immigrant–native complementarities and incomplete substitution from unrestricted migration, while human capital investment can explain at most only a modest part of the total effect. |
| JEL: | J15 J62 K37 N32 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34775 |
| By: | Sebastian Ritter (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona); Vicente Royuela (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | As the EU races to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target, regional disparities in transition progress threaten to leave some territories behind. We introduce the Regional Green Transition Performance Index (RGTP), a novel composite measure capturing progress across seven pillars (environmental; energy; circular economy and waste; sustainable development; just transition; innovation and policy; and transport and mobility) for 232 European NUTS2 regions over 14 years. Drawing on 31 indicators, we map spatial patterns and dynamic processes. Furthermore, we argue that the green transition acts as a structural force whose potential effects on regional development can be expressed along two axes: vulnerability and opportunity. We propose an alternative measure of Regional Green Transition Opportunity index (RGTO) which we combine with the existent Regional Green Transition Vulnerability index (RGTV) of RodríguezPose & Bartalucci (2024) to construct a simple 2×2 typology of regions. We translate this evidence into a policy playbook: pair risk-mitigation with opportunity-creation and embed diffusion mechanisms so gains propagate beyond individual regions. The paper contributes an open dataset, a transparent methodology to separate performance, opportunities, and vulnerabilities which responds to the EU’s performance-based policy agenda by offering a region-level monitoring tool that complements cohesion instruments (ERDF/CF/JTF/ESF+) and flags where to reduce vulnerabilities while mobilizing opportunities in the green transition. |
| Keywords: | green transition; European Union; regional inequality; green transition index. JEL classification: C43; Q56; R11; R12 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202601 |
| By: | Neumann, Uwe |
| Abstract: | The literature on regional agglomeration suggests that local economic revitalisation is likely to involve a rise in local wages. In the context of urban regeneration, community-oriented policy envisages to improve prosperity among the residential population of deprived neighbourhoods. Yet, due to an ever-increasing preference of households to reside at central locations this policy may spur gentrification if outsiders are attracted to new jobs and upgraded housing environments. Using Germany as a case study, the analysis explores whether local economies have received a boost that may have affected household sorting and local household income during the past two decades. The study reveals no considerable shift in sorting that would indicate gentrification. With a view to income over the past decade local households with a middle or higher income in programme areas have kept up with overall income growth and lowincome households have experienced zero growth but appear to have thereby performed slightly better than their counterparts elsewhere. Moderate funding of urban regeneration in combination with support to local communities is not capable of providing a remarkable boost, but it may bring about improvements for the residential population without accelerating gentrification. |
| Abstract: | Die regionalökonomische Literatur legt nahe, dass ein regionaler Wirtschaftsaufschwung mit örtlichen Lohnsteigerungen verbunden ist. Im Kontext der Stadterneuerung zielen lokale Fördermaßnahmen darauf ab, den Wohlstand der Wohnbevölkerung in benachteiligten Stadtvierteln zu verbessern. Aufgrund einer wachsenden Präferenz der Haushalte für eine zentrale Wohnlage kann diese Politik jedoch eine Gentrifizierung herbeiführen bzw. verstärken, wenn Außenstehende von neuen Arbeitsplätzen und einem verbesserten Wohnumfeld angezogen werden. Am Fallbeispiel Deutschland untersucht die Studie, ob im Zuge von Stadterneuerungsmaßnahmen in den vergangenen beiden Jahrzehnten Änderungen der Haushaltsstruktur und des lokalen Haushaltseinkommens in den Fördergebieten eingetreten sind. Die Analyse zeigt, dass kein nennenswerter Wandel der Haushaltsstruktur aufgetreten ist, der auf eine Gentrifizierung hindeuten würde. Mit Blick auf die Entwicklung der Einkommen in den vergangenen zehn Jahren wird festgestellt, dass lokale Haushalte mit mittlerem oder höherem Einkommen in den Programmgebieten mit dem allgemeinen Einkommenswachstum Schritt gehalten haben, während Haushalte mit niedrigem Einkommen kein Wachstum verzeichneten, damit aber offenbar etwas besser abschnitten als ihre Pendants in anderen Gebieten. Eine moderate Finanzierung der Stadterneuerung in Kombination mit der Unterstützung des lokalen Gemeinwesens kann zwar keinen bemerkenswerten Aufschwung bewirken, aber sie kann zu Verbesserungen für die Wohnbevölkerung führen, ohne dabei eine zur Verdrängung ärmerer Haushalte führende Gentrifizierung zu beschleunigen. |
| Keywords: | urban policy, local economies, household income, gentrification |
| JEL: | C21 C23 O18 R23 R31 R58 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:335906 |
| By: | Alessandra Fogli; Veronica Guerrieri; Mark Ponder; Marta Prato |
| Abstract: | We study the macroeconomic effects of neighborhood-specific policies in a general equilibrium model of a city with endogenous residential sorting and educational investment. A key feature of the model is the presence of endogenous local spillovers that depend on the distribution of families across neighborhoods. We analyze three policies: a housing-voucher policy inspired by the MTO program, which enables poor families to relocate to low-poverty neighborhoods; a place-based transfer (PBT) policy that provides monetary transfers to families in poor neighborhoods; and a place-based investment (PBI) policy that invests resources in local institutions, such as public schools, to directly enhance local spillovers. We find that the MTO policy generates substantial income gains for children of recipient families, but scaling up the program dampens these gains and induces large welfare losses for non-recipients. By contrast, the PBT policy delivers larger average welfare gains but is less effective in reducing inequality and segregation. Finally, the PBI policy produces smaller short-run effects but, over time, resolves the trade-off by raising average welfare while simultaneously reducing inequality, lowering segregation, and improving intergenerational mobility. |
| JEL: | E24 I2 O15 R2 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34754 |