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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Ron Johnston; Deborah Wilson; Simon Burgess; Richard Harris |
| Abstract: | Schools are central to the goals of a multi-cultural society, but their ability to act as arenas within which meaningful inter-cultural interactions take place depends on the degree to which students from various cultural backgrounds meet there. Using recently-released data on the ethnic composition of both schools and small residential areas, this paper explores not only the extent of ethnic segregation in England’s schools but also whether that segregation is greater than the underpinning segregation in the country’s residential areas. The results show greater segregation in schools – considerably so for primary schools and more so for some ethnic groups relative to others – than in neighbourhoods, patterns which have considerable implications for educational policy. |
| Keywords: | ethnic segregation, neighbourhoods, schools |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:06/145&r=ure |
| By: | Otto Raspe; Frank van Oort |
| Abstract: | In this paper we contribute to the longstanding discussion on the role of knowledge to economic growth in a spatial context. We observe that in adopting the European policy strategy towards a competitive knowledge economy, The Netherlands is – as most European countries - mainly oriented towards industrial, technological factors. The policy focus is on R&D specialized regions in their spatial economic strategies. We place the knowledge economy in a broader perspective. Based on the knowledge economy literature, we value complementary indicators: the successful introduction of new products and services to the market (‘innovation’) and indicators of skills of employees (‘knowledge workers’). Using econometric analysis, we relate the three factors ‘R&D’, ‘innovation’ and ‘knowledge workers’ to regional economic growth. We conclude that the factors ‘innovation’ and ‘knowledge workers’ are more profoundly related to urban employment and productivity growth than the R&D-factor. Preferably, urban research and policymakers should therefore take all three knowledge factors into account when determining economic potentials of cities. |
| Keywords: | knowledge economy, economic geography, urban economic growth, innovation, knowledge workers, spatial econometrics |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0607&r=ure |
| By: | Manning, Alan; Pischke, Jörn-Steffen |
| Abstract: | British secondary schools moved from a system of extensive and early selection and tracking in secondary schools to one with comprehensive schools during the 1960s and 70s. Before the reform, students would take an exam at age eleven, which determined whether they would attend an academically oriented grammar school or a lower level secondary school. The reform proceeded at an uneven pace in different areas, so that both secondary school systems coexist during the 1960s and 70s. The British transition therefore provides an excellent laboratory for the study of the impact of a comprehensive versus a selective school system on student achievement. Previous studies analyzing this transition have typically used a valueadded methodology: they compare outcomes for students passing through either type of school controlling for achievement levels at the time of entering secondary education. While this seems like a reasonable research design, we demonstrate that it is unlikely to successfully eliminate selection effects in who attends what type of school. Very similar results are obtained by looking at the effect of secondary school environment on achievement at age 11 and controlling for age 7 achievement. Since children only enter secondary school at age 11, these effects are likely due to selection bias. Careful choice of treatment and control areas, and using political control of the county as an instrument for early implementation of the comprehensive regime do not solve this problem. |
| Keywords: | comprehensive schools; selective secondary schooling; tracking |
| JEL: | I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2006–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5653&r=ure |
| By: | Charles Ka Yui Leung (City University Hong Kong); Peiling Wei (City University Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | Due to the relocation of manufacturing facilities from Hong Kong to Mainland China, it is widely believed that some vacant private factories have been used as offices in Hong Kong. Yet there is no direct and systematic evidence to support this speculation. In fact, according to MacGregor and Schwann (2003), industrial and commercial real estate shares some common features. Our research attempts to investigate empirically the price and volume relationship between industrial and commercial real estate, using both aggregate and disaggregate data from the industrial and commercial property markets in Hong Kong. The study was built on the observation that economic restructuring and geographical distance will affect the substitutability (and thus the correlation) of different types of property, and utilizes commonly used time series techniques for analysis. Policy implications are discussed. |
| Keywords: | aggregation bias, geographical distance, industrial real estate, |
| JEL: | G12 L80 R30 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:financ:700&r=ure |
| By: | Leonardo Gasparini (Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS) - Universidad Nacional de La Plata); Walter Sosa Escudero |
| Abstract: | Most income studies do not take into account the implicit rent obtained by households who inhabit their own dwellings, a fact that introduces a potentially relevant bias in inequality, poverty, and welfare measures. In this paper we estimate these implicit rents for the Greater Buenos Aires area from information of Argentina’s National Household Expenditures Survey (ENGH) of 1996/7. Based on a sample of households that rent their dwellings, quantile regressions are used to estimate observed rents from a hedonic model. Estimated coefficients are applied to households that do not rent their houses or apartments in order to predict the implicit rent derived from living in an owned house. Estimated implicit rents are added to the standard notion of household income and various inequality measures are reestimated. We find that the consideration of these implicit rents reduces inequality due to an income elasticity of spending in housing less than one, and to the relatively large proportion of house owners in the lower strata of the income distribution. |
| Keywords: | implicit rent, hedonic prices, quantile regression, housing, income distribution. |
| JEL: | D31 R21 |
| Date: | 2004–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0014&r=ure |
| By: | Abdel-Rahman, Hesham M. (University of New Orleans) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impacts of free trade on the structure of urban systems, skill distribution, and income disparities. The paper proposes a model that integrates international trade theory and the theory of urban system. This is done in a two sector, spatial general equilibrium model of a North-South trade. Each country is populated with a continuum of unskilled workers with heterogeneous potential ability. Through differential training costs, workers with different potential ability can achieve the same productivity. Workers can acquire a skill by investing in training. Thus, skill distribution in both countries is determined endogenously in the model through self-selection. The economy produces a final good with the use of a high-tech intermediate input and unskilled workers. Horizontally differentiated skilled workers produce the high-tech intermediate input. Cities are formed in this model as a result of investment in setup cost, i.e., public infrastructures. I characterize two different types of spatial equilibria: a closed-economy equilibrium, in which each country consists of a system of cities without trade, and a free-trade equilibrium, in which we allow for trade between cities and countries. |
| Keywords: | Potential ability, Training, Cities |
| JEL: | R13 R51 F16 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uno:wpaper:2005-13&r=ure |
| By: | Jakob Roland Munch; Michael Rosholm; Michael Svarer (Department of Economics, University of Aarhus, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the impact of home ownership on individual job mobility and wages in Denmark. We find that home ownership has a negative impact on job-to-job mobility both in terms of transition into new local jobs and new jobs outside the local labour market. In addition, there is a clear negative effect of home ownership on the unemployment risk and a positive impact on wages. These results are robust to different strategies for correcting for the possible endogeneity of the home owner variable. |
| Keywords: | Home ownership, job mobility, duration model |
| JEL: | J6 R2 |
| Date: | 2006–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:aarhec:2006-06&r=ure |