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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Giovanni Paolo Mariani |
| Abstract: | This thesis studies how place shapes inequality and redistribution. Its argument is that inequality depends not only on taxes and cash transfers, but also on where public goods are provided and on how housing markets turn access to those goods into prices and wealth. Three chapters, each built on large administrative datasets, investigate one part of this argument.Chapter 1 estimates how much households value locally financed public goods, using Massachusetts' Proposition 2½, which caps municipal property taxes but lets voters lift the cap by referendum. Where a referendum narrowly passes, house prices rise by 2.5 to 4 percent over ten years despite the higher taxes, which implies a willingness to pay of about two dollars per dollar of override-funded spending. School spending rises, but the share of low-income pupils falls: part of the gain is capitalised into prices, and the municipality becomes less affordable.Chapter 2 asks whether public goods still reduce inequality once access to them is measured rather than assumed equal. It geolocates schools, hospitals, train stations and police stations in Belgium and France, computes travel times for nearly 400, 000 neighbourhoods, and shows that access rises with income. Allocating the public-goods budget in proportion to access, instead of equally per person, reduces measured inequality much less in Belgium and raises it in France.Chapter 3 measures housing inequality in the United States from assessor and deed records covering close to the universe of dwellings, along three dimensions: value, space and assets. A top-decile dwelling is eight times as valuable and four times as large as a bottom-decile one. Value inequality has risen since 1980 while space inequality has not, so the widening gap lies in the price of location.Together, the chapters show that the incidence of redistribution is spatial: judged by access rather than by spending, public goods redistribute less than budgets suggest, and part of what they deliver is capitalised into house prices. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; Local Public Goods; Housing; Spatial |
| Date: | 2026–09–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/413980 |
| By: | Charles Labrousse; Yann Perdereau |
| Abstract: | The distributive effects of carbon taxation are critical for its political acceptability and depend on both income and geographic factors. Using French administrative data, household surveys, and matched employer–employee records, we document that rural households spend 2.8 times more on fossil fuels than urban households and work in firms that emit 2.7 times more greenhouse gases. We incorporate these facts into a spatial heterogeneous-agent model with migration, housing and wealth accumulation, bridging spatial and macroeconomic approaches. Carbon taxes generate 56% larger welfare losses for rural households than for urban households, as the former may be trapped due to mobility frictions and homeownership. While uniform or income-based rebates reduce inequality along the income dimension, they leave large spatial disparities that must be offset through location-based transfers. These results suggest that carbon policies should account for spatial differences to improve political feasibility. |
| Keywords: | Carbon Tax, Inequalities, Revenue Recycling, Spatial and Macroeconomic Models, Migration |
| JEL: | C61 E62 H23 Q43 Q58 R13 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:1063 |
| By: | Konstantin A. Kholodilin; Michael Voigtländer |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the causal effect of Germany’s second-generation rent control policy — the Mietpreisbremse (rental brake) — on residential housing construction. Using administrative data covering nearly 11, 000 German municipalities from 2010 to 2024, we employ staggered difference-in-differences estimators to address methodological biases of conventional two-way fixed effects models in settings with staggered treatment adoption. Our analysis examines multiple outcomes: total housing completions, completions of dwellings in multi-family houses (a proxy for rental housing supply), completions per capita, and net completions per housing stock. Results show that the rental brake has a statistically significant negative impact on housing construction, with stronger effects for multi-family dwellings. These findings remain robust to excluding major metropolitan areas, smaller municipalities, and municipalities with high homeownership rates, and persist even when the analysis is restricted to neighboring municipalities. This study contributes to the international literature on rent regulation by providing causal evidence from Germany’s staggered policy rollout, suggesting that even second-generation rent controls — which explicitly exempt new construction — can dampen housing supply. This likely occurs through increased regulatory uncertainty, higher risk premia demanded by investors, and reduced rental revenues available to finance residential investment. |
| Keywords: | rent control, rental brake, housing construction, Germany |
| JEL: | R31 R38 C23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2182 |
| By: | Weber, Andrea (CentralEuropeanUniversity, CEPR, IZA, RFBerlin); Card, David (UC Berkeley, NBER, RFBerlin); Dauth, Wolfgang (Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and University of Bamberg, IZA, RFBerlin, CESifo); Frimmel, Wolfgang (Johannes Kepler University Linz); Schmieder, Julia (Otto von Guerick eUniversity Magdeburg, RFBerlin); Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf (Johannes Kepler University Linz, IZA, IHS, CEPR, RFBerlin) |
| Abstract: | How big are the gains to international migration? How do they vary across migrants? We study these questions using linked administrative data for Austria and Germany, focusing on migrants who were steadily employed 2-4 years before their move and using their previous co-workers as a comparison group for a difference-in-differences design. We combine data from the origin and destination countries for 5 years after the move, allowing us to assess the gains for those who remain in the destination and those who return. On average, migrants from Austria to Germany experience an immediate and persistent rise of around 13% in their daily wage relative to their matched co-workers, while migrants from Germany to Austria gain about 4%. The higher returns for Austrians are mainly driven by higher average wages in Germany, rather than by differential selection of migrants. Consistent with a dynamic learning model, the returns to migration are largest for migrants who remain in the destination country, smaller for those who return after 1-4 years, and zero or even slightly negative for those who return in less than a year. They are also larger for migrants who follow established cross-border networks between workplaces. To help interpret our findings we conduct a parallel analysis ofdomestic migrants who move to a larger city (Vienna or one of the 5 largest cities in Germany). “Big city†movers experience gains in wages of about 5% for Austrians and 10% for Germans. Again the gains are largest for those who remain in the destination city, with smaller effects for those who move on. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ihs:ihsdps:number5 |
| By: | Estelle X Liu; Jibingxin Han |
| Abstract: | China's urban housing system is structurally segmented: market-based residential housing accounts for only about 40 percent of occupied urban dwellings, with the remainder split between rental and legacy housing acquired outside the market. Using 2000–2020 Population Censuses and the 2019 China Household Finance Survey, this paper documents that housing tenure is systematically associated with distinct household consumption patterns. Conditional on income, wealth, and household characteristics, legacy homeowners exhibit lower discretionary consumption and higher income responsiveness than renters, while market homeowners' consumption is closely tied to housing wealth. These patterns are stable across survey waves and broadly consistent with panel-based evidence, pointing to structural balance-sheet differences across residential regimes as important correlates of household consumption behavior in China. |
| Keywords: | China; housing market; housing misallocation; household consumption; affordability; household balance sheets |
| Date: | 2026–09–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2026/193 |
| By: | Guillaume Chapelle (Théorie économique, modélisation et applications); Alain Trannoy (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | Demand for housing floor space in a given location has rarely been estimated. Using data from the French cadaster and housing transaction records, we analyze the impact of a VAT drop from 20% to 5.5% on cumulated residential investments introduced under the 2006 French Urban Renewal Act in both the core of about 600 deprived areas and their surroundings. Our findings reveal that reduced VAT leads to a 2% increase in housing-stock surface area in treated zones without triggering an influx of people. Translated into investment terms, the gain represents about 2 years of housing investment in ten years. Estimates of the price elasticity of housing capital are lower in the surroundings (-0.24) than in the core of deprived areas (- 0.42), with full price transmission to the demand side in the latter and around 60% in the surroundings, where landlords and developers capture roughly equal shares of the rest. We also confirm previous studies in finding a low price elasticity of supply (0.35) for France. We estimate the net gain in total surplus to €13, 6 Bn over the implementation period. Using data from the French cadaster and housing transaction records, we analyze the impact of the VAT drop from 20% to 5.5% on residential investment around 600 deprived areas. We find that the reduced VAT rate increases housing stock surface by 2%. In investment terms, this equals roughly two years of housing investment over a decade with a gain of total surplus of €13Bn. We estimate the price elasticity of housing capital at -0.24, with a 60% pass-through; landlords and developers each capture roughly half the remainder. We also confirm a low housing supply elasticity in France (0.35). |
| Keywords: | Housing; Price-elasticities; VAT |
| JEL: | D61 H22 R31 |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2626 |
| By: | Xavier Raurich (Universitat de Barcelona); Thomas Seegmuller (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | This study develops a decision-making model for asset portfolios involving heterogeneous individuals, divided into three wealth groups: poor individuals, who own a house and a mortgage; middle-wealth individuals, who own a house and hold deposits; and rich individuals, who own a house and Þnancial assets. The model shows that excessive growth of demand for housing or Þnancial assets generates bubbles on the price of these assets, inßuencing wealth inequality. Housing bubbles beneÞt middle-wealth individuals and may reduce overall inequality, while Þnancial asset bubbles primarily beneÞt the wealthy, exacerbating inequality. The analysis highlights the contrasting effects of housing and Þnancial asset bubbles on wealth distribution across these groups. The model is also calibrated to the US economy over the period 1989-2016. A Þnancial bubble accounts for almost all of the observed changes in the wealth distribution. |
| Keywords: | Housing bubbles; Financial asset bubbles; Wealth inequality |
| JEL: | D31 E21 E44 |
| Date: | 2026–08–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2624 |
| By: | Luca Casolaro (Bank of Italy); Claudio Luccioletti (Bank of Italy); Andrea Neri (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | The paper analyses the relationship between demographic trends and housing prices in Italy at the municipal level over the period 2010-2025. It aims to assess the extent to which population changes are associated with housing prices and whether this relationship emerges primarily in the short or long term. The analysis also considers potential local heterogeneity, distinguishing between remote areas (aree interne) and more accessible areas (aree non interne), as well as across the country's macro-regions. |
| Keywords: | housing prices, demographic trends, remote areas, panel data |
| JEL: | R31 J11 C23 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_1043_26 |
| By: | Haifang Huang (University of Alberta); John Helliwell (University of British Columbia) |
| Abstract: | We ask whether housing unaffordability belongs in the misery index, pairing national house prices with the Gallup World Poll for up to 57 economies. Worsening affordability is robustly associated with lower average Cantril life evaluation: a ten percent rise in house prices, holding per-capita income fixed, weighs as heavily as a one-to-two percentage-point rise in unemployment. Housing belongs in the index. Equity prices, in contrast, carry little weight. The burden appears independently in the Integrated Values Surveys, which measure life satisfaction instead. In Gallup, the young and the middle-aged carry similar penalties, and even seniors are not completely spared. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being; house price; misery index |
| JEL: | I31 R31 E24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:albaec:023641 |
| By: | Kovácsné Bosnyák, Eszter |
| Abstract: | The study examines the effects of Hungary's family policy credit programmes-particularly the Baby-expecting loan and the family housing allowance (CSOK) scheme-from a behavioral economics perspective. While these programmes were designed to promote childbearing and improve access to housing, birth trends suggest that their impact has been temporary rather than lasting. The analysis draws on time series from 2010 to 2024, statistics from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) and the National Bank of Hungary (MNB), as well as survey evidence. The research focuses specifically on decision-making biases: present bias, "now-or-never" framing, and over-optimism. Our findings indicate that although the programmes did contribute to a short-term increase in births, they primarily generated brought-forward births rather than a durable demographic turnaround. In addition, the side effects of the subsidies distorted the housing market: they contributed to rapid house-price growth, reinforced social inequalities, and further widened regional disparities. The research is novel in that it assesses the effects of family policy loans not only within an economic framework but also through a behavioral lens. It shows that well-targeted subsidies, on their own, are insufficient to achieve sustainable demographic growth if they overlook households' psychological decision-making biases and the long-term social consequences. |
| Keywords: | behavioral economic, fertility, housing market, baby-expecting loan and family housing allowance (CSOK), present bias |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esconf:343871 |
| By: | Erik Heitfield; Mallick Hossain; Katie Merritt |
| Abstract: | Using fine-grained data on 465, 000 Florida home sales over twelve years and semiparametric machine learning methods, we examine how home prices respond to weather-related risk factors. After controlling for geography, home characteristics, and transaction features, we find that home prices are negatively related to property-level expected weather losses derived from catastrophe models, insurance premiums, and exposure to recent hurricanes, but with notably different magnitudes. Expected weather losses show the strongest association with prices and are consistent with markets rationally capitalizing anticipated future losses into current property valuations. Insurance premiums have a statistically significant but economically more modest negative effect on home prices, suggesting that housing market participants may view premium differences across properties as more transitory. Recent hurricane exposure has only a marginal effect on house prices, suggesting that hurricane risk is well-understood in Florida so that realized weather events convey little new information about future losses. |
| Keywords: | catastrophe modeling; home insurance; hurricanes; natural hazards; weather |
| Date: | 2026–09–18 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:103789 |
| By: | Gonzalez-Navarro, Marco; Hall, Jonathan D.; Wheeler, Harrison; Williams, Rik |
| Abstract: | We study how ride-hailing and public transit interact – an open question with importantimplications for transportation policy and urban form. We develop a model of mode choice that features three key mechanisms: (i) substitution, whereby riders switch from Uber to transit near stations; (ii) last-mile complementarity, whereby Uber is used to access transit; and (iii) a dynamic choice-set effect, whereby outbound mode choice constrains return options, givingUber option value. Using proprietary Uber trip data around 650 rail station openings worldwide, we estimate how ride-hailing responds when public transit improves. We document three patterns consistent with these mechanisms: Uber usage rises sharply within 100 meters of new stations (last-mile complementarity), declines locally among nearby residents and workers (substitution), and falls modestly overall for these users as local reductions are partially offsetby increased Uber usage elsewhere (option value). Estimating the model on these moments, we find that all three channels are quantitatively important, with substitution the largest individualchannel but last-mile complementarity and option value together more than offsetting it, so that Uber and transit are net complements. Policy implications include: (a) a ride-hailing tax induces users to switch to private vehicles rather than transit; (b) a subsidy for last-mile ride-hailing trips is more effective at increasing transit use when it targets the per-kilometercost rather than the fixed cost; and (c) increases in transit use are best induced by a congestion charge that subsidizes transit fares rather than by policies relying on ride-hailing taxes and/or last-mile subsidies. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences, ride-hailing, subways, public transit |
| Date: | 2026–09–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt29v1x3gc |
| By: | Wang, Reuben Xianwei |
| Abstract: | In global urban discourse, the modernist tower-and-slab high-rise is almost universally pathologized as a spectacular failure of top-down social engineering. From Western public housing projects to post-communist concrete blocs, these monoliths are widely viewed as deterministic monuments to alienation and the limits of authoritarian high modernism. This paper challenges that architectural determinism by examining a stark global outlier: Singapore. In the city-state, high-modernist public housing not only survives but thrives, sheltering eighty percent of the population in highly livable, wealth-generating estates. By analyzing this spatial anomaly, this paper argues that the physical reality of the high-rise is not inherently criminogenic or socially isolating. The widespread global decay of this typology was fundamentally a downstream symptom of neoliberal abandonment and the hollowing of the welfare state. Singapore’s exception is sustained by fiercely guarded political-economic conditions: a radical state monopoly on land, the mobilization of captive domestic capital, and an ideological commitment to housing as a perpetual nation-building project. Ultimately, the Singaporean outlier proves that when insulated from market abandonment and continuously adapted to civic metis, the high-modernist high-rise ceases to be a dystopian relic, functioning instead as a highly livevable urban form. |
| Date: | 2026–09–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xws3b_v1 |
| By: | José Pedro Pontes |
| Abstract: | We seek to provide a reasonable explanation for the evidence that, while population density determines regional variation in schooling rates, it typically bears no significant relationship with individual income. To this end, we model a spatial economy composed of a traditional region, inhabited by farmers educated in the family, and a modern region populated by industrial workers trained in schools. In theoretical terms, a proportional increase in demographic density at each location leads to an expansion of the school-educated region, although the overall e??ect also depends on the specific productivity associated with each type of technology. In addition, it reveals a non-monotonic relationship between density and individual income, which first decreases and subsequently increases. The temporal evolution of an economy experiencing a proportional rise in population may also be described by an analogy with the spatial model. |
| Keywords: | Education spread, economic growth, population density, education without development, space-time analysis. |
| JEL: | R11 I20 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ise:remwps:wp04292026 |
| By: | Ryan Abman (San Diego State University); Leah Lakdawala (Wake Forest University); Clark Lundberg (San Diego State University and Center for Effective Global Action); Eduardo Nakasone (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) |
| Abstract: | Trade liberalization can increase schooling while reducing what children learn. We study this tension in Peru, where large unilateral tariff reductions between 2007 and 2016 generated substantial local variation in import competition. Combining household surveys with administrative records of test performance, we examine effects on children's schooling, work, learning, and later outcomes. We document a trade-off between schooling quantity and learning quality: greater exposure increased attendance but reduced relative gains in math achievement. This pattern extends from primary into secondary school, where exposed districts saw even larger participation gains, yet the relative math learning gap continued to widen as affected cohorts aged. We trace these effects to countervailing income and substitution channels. Declining protected-sector opportunities lowered the opportunity cost of schooling, while negative income shocks led more children to work while in school and shifted students from private to public schools, where teachers per student fell. In the longer run, affected cohorts were more likely to complete secondary school but shifted away from university and toward technical and professional programs, and by young adulthood were less likely to be employed and earned lower wages. Trade reforms can thus expand school access while weakening skill formation, revealing human-capital costs that enrollment metrics may miss |
| Keywords: | trade liberalization; import competition; human capital; schooling; learning; child labor; Peru |
| JEL: | F16 F13 I21 I25 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:wfuewp:023632 |