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on Urban Economics and Policy |
| By: | Kaiji Chen; Hanming Fang; Yang Tang |
| Abstract: | Rapid economic growth creates large differences in lifetime incomes across generations. This paper examines the intergenerational redistribution generated by subsidized access to appreciating public assets in rapidly growing economies. We show that providing incumbent generations with subsidized access to these assets before future growth is fully capitalized into market values gives them an early claim on subsequent economic growth, thereby redistributing resources from future to incumbent generations. In the context of housing privatization, subsequent capital gains on privatized housing enable homeowners to trade up, further amplifying housing demand, house prices, and intergenerational redistribution. We evaluate the early ownership and capital gains channels of asset-based redistribution in a quantitative equilibrium model calibrated to China's housing privatization. Relative to more standard pension-based redistribution, we show that asset-based redistribution delivers higher welfare for future cohorts while substantially reducing long-run fiscal burdens once economic growth unexpectedly slows. |
| JEL: | E02 G11 G28 H2 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35754 |
| By: | Nikhil Datta (University of Warwick); Amrita Kulka (University of Warwick); Jawad Wehbe (London School of Economics) |
| 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 yesterday’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:wrk:warwec:1628 |
| By: | Milena Almagro; Eric Chyn; Bryan A. Stuart |
| Abstract: | This paper studies one of the largest spatial redevelopment efforts in the United States: HOPE VI public housing demolitions. Focusing on Chicago, we estimate a neighborhood choice model combining administrative records tracking displaced public-housing residents with Census Bureau data capturing citywide sorting and prices. Demolitions generate large welfare losses driven by displacement costs, partially offset by housing vouchers. Demolitions also raise housing prices and reshape neighborhood composition, with gains concentrated among higher-income homeowners. Counterfactuals show that more generous vouchers and counseling programs mitigate but do not eliminate displaced residents' losses, while expanded redevelopment yields larger citywide gains through general-equilibrium effects. |
| JEL: | I31 R23 R28 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35736 |
| By: | Panagiotidis, Theodore; Tzika, Paraskevi; Voucharas, Georgios |
| Abstract: | The housing market plays a central role in economic stability and social well-being across countries, but specifically in Greece, it has been shaped by crises, policy shifts, and external shocks over the last decades. We introduce the Greek Housing Market Uncertainty (HMU) index, a monthly newspaper-based measure designed to capture housing-specific uncertainty. Using Local Projections and their state-dependent and time-varying extensions, we examine the dynamic effects of HMU shocks on key housing market variables. The results show that house prices respond negatively to housing uncertainty shocks, albeit with a lag, while residential loan growth also declines significantly in the short run. The state-dependent analysis demonstrates that regimes matter, as adverse effects on house prices are stronger during periods of low economic growth or high foreign uncertainty. Time-varying estimations indicate heightened long-run effects during the Greek debt crisis. Regional analysis shows more severe and persistent declines in large cities compared to smaller cities, while newer dwellings are also more vulnerable to shocks. Overall, the HMU index provides a valuable tool for monitoring housing market risks, while the incorporation of state-dependent and time-varying analysis reveals the crucial role of economic regimes and evolving conditions in shaping the impact of housing uncertainty. |
| Keywords: | housing market uncertainty;housing market;Greece;local projections;regimes |
| JEL: | R30 R38 D80 C32 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140895 |
| By: | Hanming Fang (University of Pennsylvania and NBER); Jing Wu (Tsinghua University); Vincent Yao (Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the causal effect of uncertainty in property rights on housing prices and speculative behavior. We take advantage of a distinctive setting in Shenzhen, China, where neighboring residential units that are otherwise similar dier in the strength of their property rights protections. Some units have full property rights (FPR) with a 70-year leasehold, whereas others have only limited property rights (LPR) protections. Using detailed listing data, we find that the sales market prices these protections, while the rental market does not. Our estimates imply that the perceived probability that FPR rights could be questioned at the end of the 70-year term is between 7% and 21%, and that the probability the LPR receives no legal protection in any future year exceeds 50%. We further show that LPR units are more susceptible to speculation, as reflected in higher turnover and greater price volatility. Lastly, we show that the public release of new urban planning codes raises listing prices and lowers turnover and price volatility for LPR properties relative to matched FPR units. |
| Keywords: | Property Rights, Housing Prices, Speculative Activities, Urban Planning Codes |
| JEL: | G11 G12 R30 |
| Date: | 2026–09–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:26-014 |
| By: | Dikgang, Johane; Magambo, Isaiah; Amadu, Festus O.; Magnier, Alexandre |
| Abstract: | During economic downturns, urban policymakers must evaluate whether housing aid effectively prevents evictions. Analyzing 207, 203 observations from the Understanding America Study during COVID-19 and using recursive bivariate probit models with instrumental variables, we find that housing aid is linked to a 4.3% reduced likelihood of eviction. For households with access to credit, this reduction increases to 6.2%. An inverted-U trend appears: households with one to two credit sources experience over 39% reductions, while those with three or more credit sources see smaller effects of approximately 4.1%. This trend indicates financial stability rather than overleverage; more credit sources are associated with higher creditworthiness and less reliance on aid. These findings were consistent across the different estimation methods. This implies that combining housing assistance with financial inclusion strategies that emphasize credit quality over quantity could improve eviction prevention during economic downturns. |
| Keywords: | housing assistance, eviction prevention, financial fragility, credit access, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I32 I38 R21 R38 H53 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1735r |
| By: | Eren Gürer |
| Abstract: | This paper studies optimal taxation when marginal contributions to an externality differ between urban and rural regions (non-atmospheric externalities), and individuals can migrate from rural to urban regions to earn higher wages. I show that when the government is constrained to set a uniform commodity tax across regions, the presence of externalities alters the structure of optimal redistribution. In particular, if, for example, urban residents impose higher marginal external damages, the optimal policy features more redistribution, relative to a benchmark without externalities. This additional redistribution reduces the attractiveness of higher urban wages and thus discourages migration into the urban region. These findings highlight a potential role for redistributive policy in internalizing externalities. |
| Keywords: | taxation, redistribution, regional externality, migration |
| JEL: | H21 H23 R23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12987 |
| By: | Jansen, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | Vacancy decontrol policies combine strict rent regulation within ongoing tenancies with market-clearing pricing for new contracts to mitigate investment incentive problems. At the same time, they reduce relocation incentives and potentially create a mobility lock-in for sitting tenants. This paper is the first to causally identify such a purely rent-based mobility lock-in, exploiting the three stepwise decreases in the national reference (mortgage) interest rate between 2013 and 2018 in Switzerland. These regulatory-triggered changes in the reference interest rate make tenants eligible to request a rent adjustment within ongoing contracts but leave new tenancy rents legally unaffected, thereby generating quasi-experimental variation in tenants’ short-term moving incentives. Using a rolling panel of rental units from the Swiss Rental Price Index and an event-study design, I estimate the dynamic responses of rents and relocation probabilities. While I provide evidence of the expected rental price effects, creating a reduction in relocation incentives, I find no statistically significant short- to medium-run effects on tenants’ relocation probability. These findings hold for the full sample as well as for subsets of objects from especially tight housing markets and from areas with a high likelihood of tenants actually receiving a rent reduction at the studied events. This suggests that either tenants’ reactions to these incentive changes are heavily or heterogeneously lagged and less abrupt than expected – or that the previously identified mobility effects of vacancy decontrol might mainly stem from rent-control-related eviction protection rather than behavioral responses to rental price incentives. |
| JEL: | D47 H31 J68 K25 R21 R28 |
| Date: | 2026–09–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2026/06 |
| By: | Sumit Agarwal; Ying Deng; Yi Fan; Qi Gao; Jing Li; Lin Ma |
| Abstract: | We estimate housing externalities in a high-density city, exploiting the staggered rollout of Singapore's nationwide Main Upgrading Programme for public housing. Controlling for nonrandom neighborhood exposure, we find that upgrading raises treated buildings' prices by 11.5% upon completion and neighboring buildings' resale prices by about 2% within 500 meters, decaying to zero beyond. A model with distance-decaying externalities shows that in dense settings spillovers justify the distortions of in-kind provision; this advantage diminishes and reverses at lower densities. Administrative data on over 2 million residents show that upgrading disproportionately retains older incumbents, suggesting age-specific amenities as an underexplored externality channel. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.21478 |
| By: | Jonas M. Geweke (University of Zurich); Niccolò G. Armandola (University of Zurich); Paul Goetz (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | A lack of research on preindustrial wealth mobility has hindered our understanding of the extent and mechanisms through which preindustrial wealth was transmitted across generations. This paper studies homeownership and housing wealth mobility in the city-state of Basel (1500–1800). Using a database of over 40, 000 father–son pairs, we apply linear probability and rank-rank regression models to find homeownership and housing wealth persistence across six generations. We identify three transmission mechanisms: direct inheritance, assortative mating, and political officeholding. Finally, we observe higher mobility rates in the sixteenth century compared to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. |
| Keywords: | mobility, inequality, wealth, preindustrial Switzerland |
| JEL: | N33 J62 D31 R31 N93 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0312 |
| By: | Andrea Weber; David Card; Wolfgang Dauth; Wolfgang Frimmel; Julia Schmieder; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| 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 of domestic 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. |
| JEL: | J61 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35774 |
| By: | Catherine E. Fazio; Jorge Guzman; Scott Stern; Yan Xu |
| Abstract: | Motivated by William Julius Wilson’s account of concentrated disadvantage, we examine a local poverty-trap interpretation of low entrepreneurship in Black neighborhoods. Using registration data from 38 states, we document a long-standing Black neighborhood startup deficit. Amid shocks that raised expectations of greater economic activity, the deficit reverses sharply in 2020, particularly where pre-existing deficits were larger. While the overall surplus attenuates, relative entrepreneurship remains elevated in high-deficit Black neighborhoods, and neighborhood-oriented entrepreneurship also remains elevated through 2024. Together, these patterns are consistent with a partially sustained shift toward a higher-activity equilibrium. |
| JEL: | J15 L26 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35752 |