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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Patrick Coate; Kyle Mangum |
| Abstract: | This paper shows the declining trend in internal migration in the United States is primarily due to increasing home attachment in “fast locations, ” areas with relatively high rates of population turnover. These locations were population growth destinations in the 20th century, with transient populations that settled as regional population growth converged. The qualitative patterns of the U.S. experience can be generated by a model of location choice in heterogeneous regions with overlapping generations when the population has a home bias that varies endogenously with the history of population change. Using a novel measure of home attachment, this paper estimates a structural model of migration that distinguishes moving frictions from home utility. Simulations quantify channels of the mobility decline. Rising home attachment accounts for much of the decline, predominantly in fast locations. Population aging explains most of the remainder but in a more spatially neutral way. |
| Keywords: | declining internal migration; labor mobility; home attachment; rootedness; local ties; conditional choice probability estimation |
| JEL: | J61 R23 R11 C50 |
| Date: | 2026–05–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:103268 |
| By: | Ariel Binder; Max Risch; John Voorheis |
| Abstract: | We provide new county-level estimates of intergenerational mobility, covering multiple economic concepts: total income, labor income, homeownership, housing wealth, and total wealth. This is possible via small-area estimation techniques and linked survey and administrative data covering millions of U.S. children born between 1978 and 1986. We find that relative mobility in wealth concepts shows less spatial clustering and more spatial variation than relative mobility in income concepts. Many cities and their suburbs exhibit lower relative mobility (i.e. higher intergenerational persistence) in wealth concepts than in income concepts. Next, we show that various local characteristics are associated with some concepts of economic mobility but not with others. For example, we estimate a strong negative association between the local severity of the Great Recession and child income, regardless of parent position in the income distribution. However, the negative association between recession severity and wealth only exists among children from poorer families. We provide a public-use data package on census.gov to facilitate further research. |
| Keywords: | housing markets, intergenerational mobility, homeownership, wealth, income |
| JEL: | E24 O18 R31 D31 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-30 |
| By: | Rowena Gray; Ronan Lyons; Allison Shertzer |
| Abstract: | The Rent of Primary Residence (RoPR) series constructed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics implies that nominal rental prices increased by just 2.6 percent per year from 1914 to 2006 while overall prices grew by 3.3 percent. We show that this “falling real rents” puzzle can be explained by the evolving treatment of shelter in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). In this paper, we construct a new, methodologically consistent shelter price series using the Historical Housing Prices (HHP) Project rental index. We also construct a revised set of shelter weights going back to 1914 and combine it with the price series to create an alternate CPI that applies the owners’ equivalent rent concept of shelter consistently across time. The HHP shelter price series increases by a factor of 28.4 (compared with the 10.7 increase in RoPR) and lifts average CPI growth from 3.3 percent to 3.6 percent per year. The revised series eliminates the long-run decline in real rents in the CPI and provides a new benchmark for assessing trends in the cost of living and real income in the United States over the 20th century. |
| Keywords: | Housing prices; rental indices; CPI; housing markets; cost of living |
| JEL: | E3 N1 O18 R3 |
| Date: | 2026–05–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpwp:103311 |
| By: | Justin Katz; Paul S. Willen |
| Abstract: | We use parcel-level data to provide new facts on the amount and distribution of land available for residential development, focusing on New England housing markets from 2007 to 2021. Most buildable parcels are small, and large buildable parcels are scarce in most geographic markets. Large buildable parcels are less available in more populous markets, become scarcer as populations grow, and have become scarcer over time. Markets with fewer large parcels experience higher house price growth and residential development that is lower relative to house price growth. We present evidence consistent with developer returns to scale in parcel size, meaning that fragmentation of buildable land across small, disjoint parcels increases house prices by reducing construction productivity and making development less responsive to demand. In counterfactual simulations from a simple calibrated model, we show that recombining small buildable parcels into larger ones while holding the total amount of buildable land fixed would increase supply, increase construction productivity, and slow house price growth. |
| Keywords: | housing supply; land fragmentation; construction productivity; land use |
| JEL: | R31 R52 R14 |
| Date: | 2026–05–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbwp:103317 |
| By: | Juno Kim (Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade) |
| Abstract: | South Korea’s demographic crisis is compounded by an acute spatial imbalance, with the working-age population increasingly concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA). As policy shifts toward attracting both natives and immigrants to non-capital regions, this study estimates the dynamic causal effects of inflows on local population stocks in those regions.<p> Using local projections with shift-share IVs, inflows of native working-age residents raise total and working-age population stocks in the short run, with effects persisting into the medium term but fading and becoming statistically insignificant after six periods. By contrast, immigrant inflows show no significant short-to-medium-run effects on native population stocks, though a decline appears at period 6, driven mainly by the working-age group. |
| Keywords: | demographics; demographic change; aging; migration; in-migration; regional economics; regional development |
| JEL: | Q56 R23 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kieter:022558 |
| By: | Gray-Lobe, Guthrie; Kremer, Michael; de Laat, Joost; Mbonu, Oluchi; Scanlon, Cole |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates a large-scale text message (SMS) outreach program to engage caregivers of students in private primary schools in Kenya. Using a two-stage randomization design, the study tested two types of weekly SMS messages: growth-mindset encouragement and personalized performance information. The findings show 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 percentage points). The study developed 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 differences in school quality. This increased sensitivity can lead lower-quality schools to forgo implementing engagement programs—even when costless—as enhanced parental discernment accelerates student exits. The findings suggest a role for third-party provision of parent engagement programs in competitive education markets. |
| Date: | 2026–05–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11387 |
| By: | Mimosa Distefano; Helene Donnat; Henry G. Overman; Krishan Shah |
| Abstract: | We study productivity disparities across metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas in Great Britain. Spatial disparities in productivity are large and persistent. Using a development accounting framework, we show that differences in area size and in the spatial distribution of human and business capital are key explanatory factors. A combination of area size and human capital explains 30 percent of the productivity variance, increasing to 43 to 57 percent once we add measures of business capital stocks. Applying our framework to a case study of Greater Manchester, we show that large increases in both types of capital are needed to narrow productivity disparities with London, illustrating the scale of the challenge for policies aimed at reducing spatial inequality. |
| Date: | 2026–05–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp2189 |
| By: | Shuichiro NISHIOKA; Toshihiro OKUBO; Mari TANAKA |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the causal effects of population aging on manufacturing activity using municipality- and establishment-level data from Japan. Combining the Census of Manufacture with Population Census data for the 1980-2010 period, we exploit predetermined demographic structure to identify the impact of aging on local manufacturing outcomes. We find that population aging leads to large and statistically significant declines in total manufacturing employment, sales, and value added. These effects operate through both extensive and intensive margins: aging reduces the number of manufacturing establishments and lowers employment and output per establishment. We also document increases in manufacturing labor productivity and wages, driven primarily by the rapid exit of less productive plants in aging regions, with little evidence of changes in entry dynamics. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:26042 |
| By: | Yudai Higashi (Faculty of Economics, Kyoto Sangyo University and Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of the share of college graduates on average wages in local labor markets, using data covering 1990–2020 in Japan. To address the endogeneity of the local college graduate share arising from labor demand shocks for college graduates, the estimation model uses an instrumental variable approach. According to the results, an increase in the share of college graduates has a positive effect on college graduates' wages during the 2000s and 2010s, while it has no significant effect during the 1990s. However, there is no significant effect on the wages of non-college graduates across all sample periods. These results suggest that human capital externalities were generated among college graduates in local labor markets during the 2000s and 2010s, but no such externalities arose from interactions between college and non-college graduates. Overall, external returns to higher education in terms of local wages appear to be limited in Japan. |
| Keywords: | Human capital externalities; External returns to education; Local labor market |
| JEL: | I26 J24 J31 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2026-17 |
| By: | Toshitaka Maruyama (Bank of Japan); Fumitaka Nakamura (Bank of Japan); Hiroaki Shirai (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism and the University of Tokyo); Nao Sudo (Bank of Japan) |
| Abstract: | We examine how changes in flood-risk perception influence land prices by analyzing price developments in inundated and nearby areas following Typhoon Hagibis (2019), using parcel-level data, inundation maps, and an event-study approach. Our key findings indicate that land prices in inundated areas declined monotonically after the flood, falling 10% after five years. Furthermore, a distance-decay effect is observed, with non-inundated plots within 100 meters of the flood boundary declining by 5%, whereas effects disappear beyond 800 meters. Price declines differ inside and outside official hazard zones, with larger spillover effects in unaffected areas outside the zones. To clarify the mechanism, we extend the Bayesian belief-updating framework of Bakkensen and Barrage (2022) to account for variations in flood-risk perception arising from temporal lags, proximity to the affected area, and hazard-zone designation. Simulation results based on the model show that three factors explain price changes: delayed adjustment of risk perceptions after the flood, reduced impact of flood risk perceptions with distance from the disaster area, and pre-flood incorporation of flood risk into prices within hazard map zones. |
| Keywords: | Flood Risk; Land Prices; Risk Capitalization |
| JEL: | D83 Q54 R30 |
| Date: | 2026–05–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boj:bojwps:wp26e07 |
| By: | Nitin Kumar Bharti; Samreen Malik; Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay; Nishith Prakash |
| Abstract: | Despite near-universal school enrollment across many developing economies, the provision of quality education that cultivates lifelong learning and the capacity to apply knowledge in novel circumstances remains elusive. We conduct a cluster-randomized controlled trial in 132 public schools in Uttar Pradesh, India, to evaluate a guided, discovery-based science pedagogy at two intensity levels: a high-intensity Mobile Science Lab (MSL) and a lower-intensity Lab on Bike (LoB). MSL improves motivational beliefs and self-confidence by 0.15-0.18 standard deviations, reduces perceived barriers to education by 0.23 standard deviations, raises engagement by 0.17-0.22 standard deviations, and increases standardized test scores by 0.22-0.34 standard deviations across all subjects. LoB produces limited average effects, with gains concentrated among students completing all sessions. These findings demonstrate that pedagogical design and delivery intensity are critical determinants of multidimensional human capital formation, and that discovery-based pedagogy can shift motivational beliefs, engagement, and achievement in low-capacity public school systems. |
| Keywords: | experiential pedagogy, curiosity, student engagement, randomized controlled trial, human capital, India |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I21 I24 O15 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12691 |
| By: | Giacomo Benati (Departament d'Història Econòmica, Institucions, Política i Economia Mundial & IPERC Universitat de Barcelona); Sergi Lozano (Departament d'Història Econòmica, Institucions, Política i Economia Mundial & UBICS Universitat de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Although long-distance interaction dates back to Prehistory, the scale and complexity of exchange during the Urban Revolution are unparalleled. How did early urban societies organize transcontinental trade without modern transportation, financial systems, or institutional infrastructures? To answer this, we formally analyze the Uruk Expansion in Chalcolithic Mesopotamia (~4000–3000 BCE), arguably the first episode of “globalization†in human history. Using network analysis on a new dataset of over 1, 700 settlements and routes, we show that Uruk’s early river-based supply chains evolved through diaspora-driven bridging ties that generated small-world network structures, fostering integration and system-wide connectivity. This transformation—from dendritic to integrated networks—challenges dependency-based explanations and instead supports a market formation model of early urban exchange. |
| Keywords: | Urban revolution, Uruk, Market formation, Network science |
| JEL: | N25 N75 N95 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ewp:wpaper:493web |
| By: | Jonatan Andersson (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Göran Ulväng (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | This article studies the role of disamenity work in the rural sector in the shift in the urban sector and growth of cities. We focus on the effects of dairy farming, a sector with famously harsh working conditions, in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century on rural-urban migration, which was extensive at the time. We use several high-quality historical sources in our study. First, to measure dairy farming concentration in a parish, we digitize parts of the 1890 agricultural census which contains parish-level information on the number of cows per cultivation unit. Second, to identify rural-urban migrants, we link young rural individuals across the 1890 and 1910 Swedish censuses. Third, to interpret our results causally, we digitize records of historical farm property subdivisions that predict concentration in 1890. OLS, reduced form, and 2SLS estimates all point in the same direction, that high levels of dairy farming concentration in a parish pushed its residents to cities. We show that the estimates were similar for men and women, but that it was especially the lower classes and landless groups that responded to the treatment. This likely reflects that they were the most likely to perform manual labor on the large livestock farms. Ultimately, our results strongly suggest that preferences against disamenity work in the rural sector contributed to the rise in the urban sector and growth of cities. |
| Keywords: | migration, urbanization, agriculture |
| JEL: | N33 N53 N93 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0303 |
| By: | Olivieri, Sergio; Razzu, Giovanni; Wambile, Ayago Esmubancha |
| Abstract: | This study examines intergenerational educational mobility in Bangladesh across cohorts born between the 1950s and 1990s, using data from the 2022 Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey. Intergenerational regression coefficients and intergenerational correlations are estimated, yielding three main findings. First, while the intergenerational regression coefficient declines for the 1990s cohort, suggesting reduced persistence of the effect of parental education on children's outcomes, the intergenerational correlation, which accounts for inequality in educational attainment across both generations, follows an inverted U-shaped pattern, resulting in no net mobility change. This finding reverses earlier evidence of increasing persistence through the 1970s and indicates that educational expansion since the 1980s has progressively benefited children of less-educated parents. Second, unlike patterns observed elsewhere in the region, where urban residence confers mobility advantages, Bangladesh exhibits no urban premium. Overall mobility remains higher in rural areas, although substantial convergence occurs in the 1990s cohort. At the regional level, an East-West convergence is observed, driven by mobility improvements in traditionally less-mobile Eastern regions. Third, women historically exhibited higher mobility than men through the 1980s, with gender convergence emerging only in the 1990s cohort, largely due to accelerated male mobility gains among urban males. Ba ngladesh's educational mobility trajectory is thus characterized by convergence across gender, urban-rural, and region dimensions, a pattern distinct from both its historical experience and broader South Asian trends, although educational gains remain disconnected from labor market outcomes. |
| Date: | 2026–05–19 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11386 |
| By: | Louise Devos; Louis Lippens; Stijn Baert; Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe (-) |
| Abstract: | While extensive empirical research documents discrimination in labour and housing markets, comparative insights between these markets remain limited. We address this gap by juxtaposing levels of discrimination across five legally protected grounds—race and ethnicity, sex and gender, health and disability, sexual orientation, and social origin—in both markets. We apply hierarchical Bayesian meta-regressions to global data from correspondence audit studies conducted from 2000 to 2024. In doing so, we account for the metadata’s multilevel structure, including study, group, location and time components. Our meta-analysis uncovers structural differences in discrimination, with racial and ethnic discrimination being greatest in the labour market and discrimination based on social origin being highest in the housing market. Frequentist robustness checks that address publication bias yield comparable findings. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, correspondence audits, meta-analysis, housing market, labour market |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:26/1143 |