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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Binder, Ariel (U.S. Census Bureau); Risch, Max (Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University); Voorheis, John (Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau) |
| Abstract: | Housing is the largest capital asset for most families. While the intergenerational mobility literature has extensively studied the income distribution, it has devoted less attention to housing, in part due to data limitations. We document 3 features of intergenerational mobility by comparing housing capital and income in a new dataset covering 3.4 million U.S. families. First, housing is more persistent across generations than earnings. Moreover, the housing gap between White and Black children grows more sharply throughout the parental resource distribution than does the earnings gap. Second, less than half of intergenerational housing persistence operates through child earnings, leaving substantial scope for direct transmissions of capital assets and knowledge. The direct channel is much weaker among Black families and can almost fully explain their greater risk of downward mobility. Third, local housing supply constraints shape spatial differences in the intergenerational mobility of housing - but not of earnings - as measured in a quasi-experimental shift-share design. Our results highlight a more rigid structure of economic resources across families than implied by income studies. |
| Keywords: | housing markets, intergenerational mobility, homeownership, wealth distribution, capital, income, housing supply, racial disparities |
| JEL: | E24 O18 R31 D31 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18546 |
| By: | Capretti, Lisa (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Centofanti, Francesca (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Farcomeni, Alessio (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Rosati, Furio (University of Rome Tor Vergata) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines temporary migration and return decisions among immigrants in Italy using a novel administrative dataset covering 3.7 million foreign-born individuals between 2011 and 2022. By reconstructing individual migration histories, we estimate migration duration using parametric survival models, quantile regressions for interval-censored data, competing risk models, and a split cure model that distinguishes permanent settlement from the timing of exit. Results show that out-migration is concentrated in the first five years after arrival, while most migrants remain in Italy over the 12-year observation window. Age and gender matter, but local conditions within Italy strongly shape migration duration. Higher local incomes are associated with longer stays, while higher rental prices accelerate departures. Regional disparities also matter independently of economic variables: migrants in the South and Islands remain significantly longer than those in the North. These findings show that heterogeneity within host countries, rather than national averages alone, shapes migration trajectories and highlights the importance of local labor markets and living conditions. |
| Keywords: | migration dynamics, temporary migration, regional disparities, survival analysis. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 C41 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18526 |
| By: | Kim, Sunham |
| Abstract: | Population concentration in the Seoul Metropolitan Area has continued unabated since the 1970s. In the 2010s, diverging productivity drove this trend-gains in semiconductor and knowledge-based sectors in the capital region versus losses in manufacturingoriented regional cities. Planned city projects, including Sejong, heavily prioritized infrastructure provision, yielding limited productivity growth and only modest population inflows. To achieve balanced development, spatial policy should move beyond infrastructure investment to boosting regional productivity. Furthermore, narrowing the divide between the capital region and outer regions may necessitate accepting some disparities within outer areas. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:kdifoc:340048 |
| By: | Guthrie Gray-Lobe; Michael Kremer; Joost de Laat; Oluchi Mbonu; Cole Scanlon |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates a large-scale SMS outreach program to engage caregivers of students in private primary schools in Kenya. Using a two-stage randomization design, we tested two types of weekly SMS messages: growth-mindset encouragement and personalized performance information. We find two main effects: First, outreach improved test scores by 0.07 standard deviations, with particularly strong gains among initially lower-performing students. This improvement generates 12 learning-adjusted years of schooling per US$100 spent—making it highly cost-effective relative to other education interventions. Second, outreach increased student exit rates by 4.7-5.0 percentage points, with effects concentrated among higher-achieving students (5.7 to 6.6 percent-age points). We develop a theoretical model of vertically differentiated schools where parental engagement affects both learning production and school choice. The model shows that when parents update their understanding of education production through engagement programs, they become more sensitive to perceived school quality differences. This increased sensitivity can lead lower-quality schools to forgo implementing engagement programs—even when costless—as enhanced parental discernment accelerates student exits. Our findings suggest a role for third-party provision of parent engagement programs in competitive education markets. |
| JEL: | D83 D91 I21 L15 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35103 |
| By: | Xinxin Zhuo; Mengyuan Niu; Ruizhe Wang; Junyan Yang; Qiao Wang |
| Abstract: | Micro-scale street-level economic assessment is fundamental for precision spatial resource allocation. While Street View Imagery (SVI) advances urban sensing, existing approaches remain semantically superficial and overlook brand hierarchy heterogeneity and structural recession. To address this, we propose a visual-semantic and field-based spatiotemporal framework, operationalized via the Street Economic Vitality Index (SEVI). Our approach integrates physical and semantic streetscape parsing through instance segmentation of signboards, glass interfaces, and storefront closures. A dual-stage VLM-LLM pipeline standardizes signage into global hierarchies to quantify a spatially smoothed brand premium index. To overcome static SVI limitations, we introduce a temporal lag design using Location-Based Services (LBS) data to capture realized demand. Combined with a category-weighted Gaussian spillover model, we construct a three-dimensional diagnostic system covering Commercial Activity, Spatial Utilization, and Physical Environment. Experiments based on time-lagged geographically weighted regression across eight tidal periods in Nanjing reveal quasi-causal spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Street vibrancy arises from interactions between hierarchical brand clustering and mall-induced externalities. High-quality interfaces show peak attraction during midday and evening, while structural recession produces a lagged nighttime repulsion effect. The framework offers evidence-based support for precision spatial governance. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.19798 |
| By: | Olivia Martin; Amar Venugopal |
| Abstract: | Local government meetings are the most common formal channel through which residents speak directly with elected officials, contest policies, and shape local agendas. However, data constraints typically limit the empirical study of these meetings to agendas, single cities, or short time horizons. We collect and transcribe a massive new dataset of city council meetings from 115 California cities over the last decade, using advanced transcription and diarization techniques to analyze the speech content of the meetings themselves. We document two sets of descriptive findings: First, city council meetings are frequent, long, and vary modestly across towns and time in topical content. Second, public participants are substantially older, whiter, more male, more liberal, and more likely to own homes than the registered voter population, and public participation surges when topics related to land use and zoning are included in meeting agendas. Given this skew, we examine the main policy lever municipalities have to shift participation patterns: meeting access costs. Exploiting pandemic-era variation in remote access, we show that eliminating remote options reduces the number of speakers, but does not clearly change the composition of speakers. Collectively, these results provide the most comprehensive empirical portrait to date of who participates in local democracy, what draws them in, and how institutional design choices shape both the volume and composition of public input. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.21202 |
| By: | Liping Gao; Ghislain N. Gueye; Hyeongwoo Kim; Jisoo Son |
| Abstract: | Using data from 29 regional housing markets in China, this study examines the long-run relationships between housing prices and key macroeconomic variables. Conventional cointegration methods can be misleading, as estimated coefficients often contradict standard demand–supply theory even when statistical tests indicate cointegration. Among the variables, only real income consistently explains regional housing price dynamics, whereas real interest rates and building costs fail to do so consistently across markets. Region-specific models reveal substantial heterogeneity and are both statistically robust and economically meaningful. Panel cointegration tests that account for cross-sectional dependence fail to detect cointegration when such heterogeneity is ignored. These findings highlight the limitations of uniform national approaches and underscore the need for tailored, region-specific housing policies. |
| Keywords: | Housing Market; Cointegration; Dynamic Oridinary Least Squares; Panel Cointegration Test with CSD; Disaggregated Regional Data |
| JEL: | R30 E00 C51 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2026-03 |
| By: | Margherita Gerolimetto (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Stefano Magrini (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Alessandro Spiganti (University of Genoa) |
| Abstract: | We study the causal effect of the local supply of sector-specific innovators on patenting activity across US metropolitan areas, distinguishing between innovators active in carbon-intensive ("brown") and environmentally sustainable ("green") technological fields. Using USPTO patent data from 1990 to 2016, we document a marked shift in the geography of green innovation: while brown patenting has long been concentrated in established hubs, green patents — initially more dispersed — have increasingly converged toward the same locations. We build a theoretical framework in which local patenting activity is driven by the supply of green and brown innovators, investigating how their interaction shapes the innovation process. Empirically, we address endogeneity using a shift-share instrument that combines predetermined local technological specialization with exogenous shocks to foreign innovation across CPC sections. We find that a one-unit increase in the local supply of brown innovators raises patenting activity by approximately 0.8%, an effect that is robust across specifications. Together, these findings suggest that green innovation is becoming increasingly embedded in existing agglomeration ecosystems, with important implications for place-based climate policy. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, climate change, innovation, spatial distribution, patents |
| JEL: | O31 O33 O44 O47 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2026:14 |
| By: | Michelle Norris (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland); Lucy O'Hara (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland); Bob Jordan (Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland) |
| Abstract: | Drawing on policy transfer literature, this paper examines efforts to transfer the cost rental model of affordable housing provision from Austria to Ireland. In examines the motivation for this transfer, the similarities between the Irish and Austrian versions of this model, its effectiveness in the Irish context and the factors that shaped these outcomes. This analysis reveals that as the transfer process progressed the differences between the Irish and Austrian models increased steadily. Many of the adaptations made during the transfer process were necessary to successfully and speedily establish this model in Ireland, where it has provided a successful short-term response to housing unaffordability. However, these adaptations also meant that what had originally envisaged as an ambitious ‘systemic transfer’ (i.e. transfer of the full Austrian cost rental system to drive systemic transformation of Ireland’s ‘dual’ rental market into a ‘unitary’ system, in Kemeny’s conceptualisation), turned into a ‘scheme transfer (i.e. the transfer of parts of the Austrian system to establish an intermediate rental scheme in Ireland). Furthermore, these adaptations reduced the long-term financial sustainability of Ireland’s version of cost renting. On this basis the paper reflects on the challenges of transferring complex, multi-dimensional housing systems compared to singledimensional housing schemes. |
| Keywords: | housing affordability, intermediate renting, cost rents, housing finance. |
| Date: | 2025–10–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:202505 |
| By: | Grace Burtenshaw; Ashley Burtenshaw; Meagan Carney |
| Abstract: | In recent years Australia has observed a growing, unexplained resilience of increasing house price trends. Here, we seek to understand what is driving Australia's indestructible asset using insights from market experts. We construct a differential equation model of house price to develop intuition for its historical behaviour and responsiveness to changes in mortgage rates. Using this model, we identify a point of 'decoupling' between house price and mortgage rate in the system with supply limitations found to be the main driver for this change. From there, modern extreme value techniques are implemented on real-world data to investigate how the effectiveness of mortgage rate in moderating extreme house price has changed before and after this historical decoupling. We find that without an increase in the housing supply chain, through either deregulation or reduced competition with government building, an 11\% increase in mortgage rate will be needed to slow extreme housing costs. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2604.18605 |
| By: | Freire Sergio; Pigaiani Cristian (European Commission - JRC); Tucci Michele (European Commission - JRC); Thestrup Sixten; Batista E Silva Filipe (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | Official statistics depend on traditional methods and primary data sources such as censuses, surveys and administrative data. These ensure consistency and reliability but are generally costly and not very flexible or timely to capture emerging trends or phenomena. The increasing availability of non-traditional data sources offers new opportunities to improve the production and quality of statistics. In the specific context of population and housing statistics, non-traditional data hold potential for filling gaps in official statistics, overcome measurement errors, and provide higher spatial and temporal granularity, enabling more accurate, timely and detailed analyses. This report documents the results of a 2-year project carried by the Joint Research Centre in collaboration with Eurostat entitled ‘Testing the feasibility of using Non-traditional data sources to IMprove Population and Housing Statistics’ (NIMPHS). The main objective was to support Eurostat in exploring the potential and limitations of non-traditional sources such as remote sensing and mobile phone data to improve the quality, detail and/or update of population and housing statistics. In doing so, the JRC also produced and released two new pan-European flagship products by combining existing census statistics and fine-scale data derived from remote sensing: a population grid map at 100 m resolution and a housing grid at 1 km resolution. In addition, the project developed and tested a prototype approach and tool to ‘nowcast’ population grids, and thus improve the timeliness of gridded population data. The report discusses and draws conclusions and implications of the work carried throughout the project. Non-traditional data sources hold substantial potential to improve certain dimensions of pan-European population and housing statistics, namely by increasing their detail, timeliness and overall quality, namely through contributions to quality assurance and control. However, such data sources come with challenges, preventing their direct translation into official statistics. Their use requires good knowledge about the details of the data to devise well-thought data cleaning, processing, and fusion protocols. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc145972 |
| By: | Cerqua, Augusto (Sapienza University of Rome); Nocito, Samuel (Sapienza University of Rome); Pinto, Gabriele (Sapienza University of Rome) |
| Abstract: | Local governments in advanced democracies have increasingly struggled to attract political candidates, weakening electoral competition and accountability at the municipal level. While several factors may contribute to this trend, politicians’ salaries represent one of the few policy levers that can be directly adjusted by policymakers. We study a large-scale reform that substantially increased local politicians’ pay, exploiting quasi-experimental variation in election timing across municipalities. We find that higher salaries increase political entry, particularly among first-time candidates. Importantly, effects are heterogeneous across local contexts: in less affluent municipalities and in areas with lower entry barriers, higher pay also raises female candidacies and their probability of election. In the poorest areas, the reform further alters the composition of local political elites, shifting recruitment toward candidates with different educational and occupational backgrounds. |
| Keywords: | local governments, politicians' wages, time-shifted control design |
| JEL: | D04 D72 J45 C13 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18527 |
| By: | Innessa Colaiacovo; Margaret G. Dalton; Sari Pekkala Kerr; William R. Kerr |
| Abstract: | Multiple studies document a local bias of entrepreneurship (LBE) in recent decades, where self-employed entrepreneurs are systematically more likely than wage workers to operate in their region of birth. This paper documents an important new fact: the LBE has been declining in the United States since 1970. The LBE is still present for white men engaged in self-employment, but it no longer exists for the overall U.S.-born workforce. We connect that decline to the transformation of self-employment away from high startup-capital sectors and the reduced opportunity for local self-employed entrepreneurs to achieve high incomes compared to wage work. |
| JEL: | D24 G51 J11 J24 J62 L26 M13 R11 R13 |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35088 |
| By: | Otani, Yuichiro |
| Abstract: | We introduce Satellite Sociology, a framework for observing and interpreting social processes using Earth observation data. The framework treats artificial satellites as devices that capture the material traces through which human activity becomes expressed in space. These traces are not limited to urban environments but include any spatial configurations shaped by human behavior, institutions, and economic processes. A central feature of Satellite Sociology lies in the definition of the unit of analysis. Spatial units—such as buildings, grids, or administrative regions—are not treated as neutral technical choices, but as explicit constructions of the social system under investigation. Different unit definitions yield different representations of social structure, enabling multiple interpretations of the same spatial domain. The framework interprets spatial patterns as observable traces from which underlying behavior can be inferred, and emphasizes the feedback relationship between activity and its spatial manifestations. Spatial configurations both reflect accumulated decisions and influence subsequent behavior, linking observation with process. To illustrate one application, we analyze urban space as an accumulated outcome of social decisions and examine its structural persistence. Using Shinagawa Ward (Tokyo) and Christchurch (New Zealand), we construct two building-level indicators: the Building-Level Vegetation Exposure Index (BVEI) and the Built--Vegetation Imbalance Index (BVII). The results reveal distinct allocation regimes and identify spatial configurations consistent with structural constraints on environmental redistribution. These findings demonstrate how satellite-derived spatial patterns can support inference about the processes that generate and stabilize spatial structure. Satellite Sociology provides a general framework for interpreting spatial data as traces of human activity and for linking Earth observation with sociological analysis. |
| Date: | 2026–04–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:wj2nc_v1 |
| By: | Holtemöller, Oliver; Schult, Christoph; Solms, Anna |
| Abstract: | Many countries and regions remain below the level of economic activity of the world's most advanced economies. Some countries form growth clubs, some are stuck in the middle-income trap, and some stay on a very low level of economic activity. Although this situation is well documented on the country level, there is less evidence at the sub-national level within countries. We estimate county-level capital stocks and price indices and provide a comprehensive county-level data set for Germany. We find no evidence of convergence across all counties even if we condition on important drivers of long-term growth such as physical and human capital accumulation. Instead, we identify five convergence clubs, using endogenous clustering. We analyze differences in growth paths and describe the identified clusters based on variations in contributions of capital, labor, and total factor productivity to economic growth. Additionally, we examine the role of migration for regional development and find that net migration has in particular contributed to growth in richer regions. |
| Keywords: | convergence clubs, growth accounting, regional economic growth |
| JEL: | C23 O47 R11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:340108 |