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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Hector Blanco; Lorenzo Neri |
| Abstract: | We study how neighborhood change shapes local business demographics and employment. We use the regeneration of London public housing into mixed-income housing as a natural experiment that led to a large influx of more affluent households. In a difference-in-differences design comparing nearby businesses to those located farther away, we find that regenerations shift business composition – in both counts and employment – away from small local shops and toward larger general retail establishments and dining services that cater to the new residents. While we find no effect on total local employment on average, employment does increase in the areas most disadvantaged at baseline, suggesting that neighborhood change can expand local employment opportunities in these areas. |
| Keywords: | mixed-income housing, gentrification, businesses, employment |
| JEL: | E24 I38 R12 R38 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12891 |
| By: | Lorenzo Neri; Hector Blanco |
| Abstract: | We study how neighborhood change shapes local business demographics and employment. We use the regeneration of London public housing into mixed-income housing as a natural experiment that led to a large influx of more affluent households. In a difference-in-differences design comparing nearby businesses to those located farther away, we find that regenerations shift business composition - in both counts and employment - away from small local shops and toward larger general retail establishments and dining services that cater to the new residents. While we find no effect on total local employment on average, employment does increase in the areas most disadvantaged at baseline, suggesting that neighborhood change can expand local employment opportunities in these areas. |
| Keywords: | Mixed-income housing, Gentrification, Businesses, Employment |
| JEL: | E24 I38 R12 R38 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26209 |
| By: | Datta, Nikhil (Department of Economics and CAGE, University of Warwick and CEP, London School of Economics); Kulka, Amrita (Department of Economics and CAGE, University of Warwick); Wehbe, Jawad (Department of Economics and CAGE, University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | House prices are widely used across the social and environmental sciences to inform crucial business and policy making decisions meant to reduce spatial economic inequalities and future-proof locations at risk from environmental shocks. Yet prices are biased by supply and only observed for the selected properties that transact. This paper is the first to introduce a direct measure of latent location demand, using billions of housing searches in Great Britain between 2019 and 2024. Across three causal applications spanning public health, environmental science and economics, we show that searches reveal demand that transaction data either obscure or cannot measure. The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a "race for space", but demand for private greenspace returned to pre-pandemic levels before new supply could respond, leaving planners and developers chasing yester day's preferences. Local flooding generates temporary dips in demand, suggesting people are myopic. New housing supply developments do not induce increases in location demand, implying new town development policies are misguided. In all three cases, transaction data miss the fundamental behavioural response, leading to suboptimal policy design. Finally, we use the search data to construct a measure of excess housing demand for 235, 243 micro neighbourhoods and release it through the WhereToBuild mapping tool. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:820 |
| By: | Suqin Ge; Naijia Guo; Zibin Huang; Junsen Zhang; Li Zhang |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how innovation shapes migration across skill groups. Using Chinese microdata from 2005-2015, we find that cities with faster patent growth attract more low-skilled than high-skilled migrants, opposite to patterns in developed countries. These cities see similar wage growth for both groups but limited amenity gains. We develop and estimate a spatial equilibrium model showing that low-skilled workers prioritize wages, while high-skilled workers value amenities, which rise with the share of skilled workers. Patent shocks draw in more low-skilled workers, reducing amenities and deterring high-skilled migration. Overall, technological growth raised wages and welfare without increasing spatial inequality. |
| Keywords: | Patent, Migration, Spatial equilibrium, Wage, Amenity |
| JEL: | J24 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26176 |
| By: | Karla Cordova; Jessamyn Schaller |
| Abstract: | We examine how contractions in local labor demand during the Great Recession affected children's academic achievement. We combine county-level test scores for grades 3–8 from the Stanford Education Data Archive with a shift-share design that interacts counties' 2005 industry composition with national industry employment growth, isolating demand-driven changes in local employment. Following recent advances in the shift-share literature, we validate the design with balance, pre-trend, and Rotemberg-weight diagnostics and report exposure-robust standard errors throughout. A one-standard-deviation adverse shock lowers mathematics achievement by about 0.03 student-level standard deviations and widens the White–Black and economic-disadvantage achievement gaps in both subjects. Within a common geography, losses concentrate among economically disadvantaged students. English language arts estimates point in the same direction but are harder to separate from the Great Recession's housing bust, and we interpret them as the combined effect of the labor-demand contraction and the associated decline in house prices. The achievement response is concentrated in the recession window. The post-2014 period, identified mainly by the oil-price cycle, yields a precise null, so our estimates measure the response to severe contractions rather than a general business-cycle parameter. School funding did not respond contemporaneously to these shocks, while family income, child poverty, and house prices all did. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J13 J23 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35639 |
| By: | Zs\'ofia Z\'ador; Bal\'azs Lengyel; Riccardo Di Clemente |
| Abstract: | Remote work has fundamentally reshaped urban economic life, and the spatial organisation of activity across cities. However, access to flexible work is distributed unevenly across industries, income groups, and genders, creating disparities in health risks, social mixing, and economic opportunity. Understanding where workplace dependence (WPD) is concentrated is therefore important, yet its distribution across urban areas remains poorly understood. Here we pair fine-grained hourly population data with detailed company records in a large European city to examine how location, industry composition, and socio-economic characteristics shape physical workplace attendance. By comparing workplace activity during periods of low versus high COVID-19 restrictions, we identify the determinants of WPD. We find that while industry and firm productivity are key drivers, the relationship between WPD, income, and gender is highly contingent on distance from the city center. Near the centre, female-majority and income-diverse locations show the highest WPD, consistent with a residual, place-bound service workforce. These findings reveal a spatially contingent 'service trap' at the urban core, extending remote-work inequalities beyond individuals to the urban ecosystem as a whole. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.07588 |
| By: | Nishaad Rao; Tao Wang |
| Abstract: | We use Canadian data to examine how monetary policy affects house prices and the consumer price index for rent (CPI-rent) through exogenous changes in the mortgage interest rates. Nationwide, tighter monetary policy lowers house prices but raises CPI-rent, likely due to higher user costs for landlords or greater relative demand for rental housing. City-level analysis shows that, in response to tighter monetary policy, house prices fall most in cities where supply is inelastic, while CPI-rent tends to rise in cities with lower proportions of households moving from renting to owning. |
| Keywords: | Monetary policy; Inflation dynamics and pressures; Monetary policy framework and transmission |
| JEL: | E31 E52 R21 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocsap:26-2 |
| By: | Treb Allen; Simon Fuchs; Woan Foong Wong |
| Abstract: | How do we evaluate the welfare gains from transport infrastructure investment? We present a quantitative spatial framework that integrates traffic and economic responses to infrastructure improvements and derives the elasticity of aggregate welfare to changes in the transportation network. The resulting formula extends the traditional ``social savings'' method to incorporate route and mode choice, agglomeration and dispersion externalities, and traffic congestion. We apply the formula to the U.S. freight network and assess the benefits of reducing costs on each segment of the U.S. Interstate Highway System. The traditional and extended measures are closely related overall, but they differ in the level of estimated gains and in the ranking of some highly valued links. Where the rankings differ, network position determines how congestion and spatial adjustment alter a link's measured benefit. |
| JEL: | F1 R1 R4 R42 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35599 |
| By: | Joschka Flintz; Stefanie Gaebler; Viktoria Kleinschmidt; Felix Roesel |
| Abstract: | Does better railway infrastructure encourage people to register less private cars? We analyse the opening of 170 train stations in Germany between 2010 and 2022 and compare them to a control group of locations that were identified as potential sites for new stations. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that annual car registrations within the catchment area of a newly opened station decline by at least 3.5 to 5.5 percent permanently. These effects are consistent in both urban and rural settings and correspond, on average, to at least 140 fewer car registrations over ten years for each new station. Further evidence suggests that the effects are driven by habit changes rather than by spatial sorting, leading to the conclusion that new train stations reduce the number of car registrations both locally and globally. |
| Keywords: | train stations, railway infrastructure, car registrations, sustainable transport |
| JEL: | L92 O18 R40 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12927 |
| By: | Yehonatan Givati; Oren Rigbi |
| Abstract: | Secure property rights support efficient allocation and investment, yet their effects in affluent urban markets remain understudied. We examine Jerusalem properties built on church-owned land under 99-year leases approaching expiration, creating substantial legal and political uncertainty. Using all residential transactions from 2004–2024, we compare nearby properties with secure and insecure rights within the same blocks. Insecure rights reduce transaction likelihood by about 20 percent and prices by 10–15 percent on average, revealing large costs of legal uncertainty. A present-value framework implies that market participants assign a substantial, but far from certain, probability to losing rights. |
| Keywords: | Property law, housing supply and markets, property rights |
| JEL: | K11 R31 D23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12899 |
| By: | Schmitz, Tom; Colantone, Italo; Ottaviano, Gianmarco |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the economic effects of environmental policy in the presence of general equilibrium spillovers. Focusing on a major change in U.S. air pollution regulations, we combine microeconometric evidence on local and industry-level impacts with a quantitative spatial equilibrium model that captures trade and labor market interactions. Using reduced-form estimates to discipline the model, we quantify aggregate employment and welfare effects that are not identified by partial equilibrium approaches. We find that the policy substantially reduced fine particle emissions, but also led to sizable employment losses. Ignoring general equilibrium spillovers materially overstates job losses in polluting industries while understating employment losses in clean industries. When both economic costs and emission-related amenity gains are taken into account, the welfare benefits of cleaner air dominate. |
| Keywords: | Employment; Trade |
| JEL: | E24 Q50 Q53 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19221 |
| By: | Cunningham-Vitt, Helena; Weber, Jan David |
| Abstract: | Public infrastructure shapes everyday opportunities, yet little is known about how balanced access to work, social reproduction, and leisure as public commons is distributed across households. Existing studies typically assess single services or regional averages, overlooking the relational nature of accessibility of public commons and differences in households' ability to privately substitute for missing public commons. We use German SOEP microdata to construct the relative distance for the three public commons and map households into a ternary space that captures their compositional accessibility. We also develop a Private Substitution Index that identifies the extent to which households rely on private substitutes to offset gaps in public infrastructure. Together, these measures reveal how households position themselves when facing infrastructural trade-offs. Most households exhibit relatively balanced access, but this average masks clear patterns: some live close to work and far from the other public commons, others show the opposite tilt. Urban-rural differences are substantial, while East-West differences are modest. Private substitution capacity rises steeply with income, driven by remote-work feasibility and living-space advantages, whereas public substitution in social reproduction remains limited. These findings show that balanced access to public commons is highly uneven and cannot be understood through single amenities or regional summaries. Policies aimed at spatial justice must consider both positional trade-offs and unequal capacities for private substitution. |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifsowp:342535 |
| By: | Quoc-Anh Do; Sebastian Ellingsen; Gedeon Lim |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-run impacts of diasporas on local economic development. We do so in the context of one of the most economically influential diasporas: the ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia. Our instrumental variables strategy exploits 15th-century landing sites on Java that shaped subsequent Chinese settlement but lost maritime access due to 17th-century silting. We find that a 1p.p. higher Chinese share in 1930 leads to 9.4% higher household consumption and 26% higher population today. These effects attenuate sharply during the 1997-1998 crisis, then recover. We find strong effects on firm sales driven by improved financing through local private networks but not through exports. We provide suggestive evidence for the key role of historical ethnic-trading networks within Java. Our findings suggest that despite their small size, ethnic minorities with durable complementarities can play an out-sized, positive role in local economic development. |
| Keywords: | diaspora, ethnic minority, immigration, ethnic segregation, conflict, discrimination, private finance, networks |
| JEL: | F63 N35 J15 Z13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12893 |
| By: | Ketevani Kapanadze; Mariola Pytlikova |
| Abstract: | In response to COVID-19, Schengen countries temporarily reintroduced internal border controls, disrupting cross-border integration. Using this policy change as a natural experiment and monthly nighttime lights data, we estimate the short-run effects on European municipalities. Municipalities along internal Schengen borders experienced a 3-4% decline in economic activity relative to interior municipalities, with larger estimated effects when external-border municipalities form the comparison group. Losses were greater in smaller and less densely populated municipalities and along economically asymmetric East-West borders, whereas municipalities along more economically similar borders generally experienced smaller declines. The effects also depended on the pre-pandemic purpose of cross-border mobility: higher shares of work- and business-related travel, services, and shopping were associated with larger losses, while the results for leisure and social mobility are consistent with greater scope for domestic reallocation of activity. Overall, the findings show that the local consequences of internal border closures depend on municipality characteristics, cross-border economic asymmetries, and the purpose of mobility. |
| Keywords: | Border closures; Cross-border mobility; Schengen Area; Nighttime lights; Local economic activity; Border regions; COVID-19; European integration |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R23 F15 F22 C21 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26218 |
| By: | Jonathan Pardo; Sulin Sardoschau |
| Abstract: | Do migrants become more anti-immigration over time? How do incumbents react to new arrivals? We link large-scale survey data to local immigration flows across 138 European regions from 2002 to 2024, identifying effects via a leave-out shift-share instrument within a triple-difference design. Immigrants arrive strongly pro-immigration, but support erodes over time, halving the native-immigrant gap within two decades. Exposure to new inflows contributes to this convergence: a rising local immigrant share reduces pro-immigration attitudes for both groups, with substantially larger effects for first-generation immigrants. Low-skilled incumbents respond more to inflow size, high-skilled to newcomers' skill composition. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, backlash, attitudes, newcomers |
| JEL: | D74 J15 D83 Z10 D72 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26182 |
| By: | Amrit Amirapu; Mumba Ngulube; Xinxin Lyu |
| Abstract: | Transport corridor investments absorb enormous capital in settings where fiscal space is scarce, yet rigorous evidence on their economic returns remains thin -- particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. We estimate the local economic effects of upgrading two segments of Tanzania’s Central Corridor, using a staggered difference-in-differences strategy on a panel of 10 km × 10 km grid cells covering 2003-2018. We take satellite-derived per capita consumption (Huber and Mayoral, 2024) as our primary outcome and define control units as those grid cells proximate to other major highways that were not exposed to upgrades. We find that the two upgrades have considerably different effects: relative to the control-group trend, consumption near the Singida-Shelui segment (completed 2009) increases steadily until it is 14 percent higher after eight years, while consumption near the Lusahunga-Kagera segment (completed 2013) falls around 3 percent over the five years we observe post upgrade. Our central finding is that neither effect is homogeneous within its catchment. Initially larger and richer cells capture the bulk of the gains along Singida-Shelui, while smaller and poorer cells account for all of the negative effects along the Lusahunga-Kagera improvement. Better roads may therefore not merely distribute gains unequally: where the local economy is thin, improved connectivity can leave an area absolutely worse off. Secondary findings include the fact that population falls persistently near both segments and in rich and poor areas alike, which is consistent with out-migration toward newly accessible urban centres. The results hold against an alternative control group drawn from cells near planned-but-uncompleted projects, while a synthetic difference-in-differences specification preserves the Singida-Shelui gains while rendering the Lusahunga-Kagera decline statistically insignificant. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:2605 |
| By: | Coven, Joshua; Golder, Sebastian; Gupta, Arpit; Ndiaye, Abdoulaye |
| Abstract: | Low property taxes amplify lock-in effects for elderly homeowners, limiting housing access for young families. Higher property taxes function as “embedded leverage, †reducing required down payments through a capitalization effect and enabling greater homeownership among younger households. Our overlapping generations model shows that raising California’s property taxes to Texas levels would increase homeownership by six percentage points and young household ownership by eight percentage points. Conversely, higher capital gains taxes worsen lock-in effects and reduce young homeownership. Asset taxes can effectively reallocate housing to higher-valuation households when financial constraints exist, providing an independent justification for property taxation policies. |
| Keywords: | housing affordability; Housing inequality; Property taxes |
| JEL: | H71 R21 H24 J11 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19230 |
| By: | Pujadas Mora, Joana Maria; Santiago Caballero, Carlos |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses to what extent the growth that Spain experienced around the midnineteenth century reached large shares of the local population or was mainly captured by a few. We use the Balearic Islands as a case study and analyse the changes in occupational mobility and social homogamy between 1841 and 1870. Using an original dataset created from civilregistry marriage records, we reconstruct the occupational status of the grooms, their fathers and their fathers-in-law across seven municipalities. We transcribe the occupations using HISCAM and HISCLASS to estimate the patterns of upward and downward mobility, as well as persistence and patterns observed in the marriage market. Our results show that occupational mobility increased during the central decades of the nineteenth century and that this was mainly a consequence of the high levels of upward mobility estimated in 1870. However, this process was not systematic in all the islands. We observe that more urban and commercially connected municipalities, particularly Mahón, offered more opportunities for upward mobility and also showed a more socially heterogeneous marriage market. On the other hand, Alcudia presented worse conditions in mobility patterns, consistent with its long-term demographic, sanitary and port-related problems. The analysis of homogamy shows that local marriage markets and migration status influenced the direction of social distance between families, with migrants not necessarily accessing higher-status marriage alliances even when geographical mobility could have helped them gain access to such alliances. We argue that the Balearic Islands differ from the patterns observed in other regions such as Valencia during the same period because the low initial inequality, diversified agriculture, small-scale manufacturing and access to external markets allowed the benefits of economic development to be better distributed among the local population, reaching broader sectors of society. Therefore, this paper shows that growth and globalisation do not always translate into higher inequality and increasing pauperisation, as their effects depend crucially on local structures and initial inequality levels that shape the access to new opportunities. |
| Keywords: | Social Mmbility; Occupational mobility; Social homogamy; Marriage markets; Balearic islands; Nineteenth-century Spain |
| JEL: | J62 J12 N33 O15 D31 |
| Date: | 2026–08–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:whrepe:50617 |