|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Jacob L. Vigdor |
| Abstract: | Many observers argue that urban revitalization harms the poor, primarily by raising rents. Others argue that urban decline harms the poor by reducing job opportunities, the quality of local public services, and other neighborhood amenities. While both decay and revitalization can have negative effects if moving costs are sufficiently high, in general the impact of neighborhood change on utility depends on the strength of price responses to neighborhood quality changes. Data from the American Housing Survey are used to estimate a discrete choice model identifying households' willingness-to-pay for neighborhood quality. These willingness-to-pay estimates are then compared to the actual price changes that accompany observed changes in neighborhood quality. The results suggest that price increases associated with revitalization are smaller than most households' willingness to pay for neighborhood improvements. The results imply that, in general, neighborhood revitalization is more favorable than neighborhood decline. |
| JEL: | D1 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12955&r=ure |
| By: | François Gusdorf (CIRED); Stéphane Hallegatte (Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement Ecole Nationale de la Météorologie) |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that cities made more compact by transportation taxation are more robust than spread-out cities to shocks in transportation costs. Such a shock, indeed, entails negative transition effects that are caused by housing infrastructure inertia and are magnified in low-density cities. Distortions due to a transportation tax, however, have in absence of shock detrimental consequences that need to be accounted for. The range of beneficial tax levels can, therefore, be identified as a function of the possible magnitude of future shocks in transportation costs. These taxation levels, which can reach significant values, reduce city vulnerability and prevent lock-ins in under-optimal situations. |
| Keywords: | Urban transportation, Housing, Inertia, Vulnerability, Transportation Taxation |
| JEL: | R21 R48 H23 H31 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2007.17&r=ure |
| By: | Andersson, Christian (Uppsala University, Department of Economics); Waldenström, Nina (Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the teaching staff composition with respect to certification affects student achievement in compulsory Swedish schools. The share of non-certified teachers in compulsory schooling has increased dramatically during the last decade, starting a large debate about school quality. We apply an instrumental variable approach to estimate the causal effect of the percentage of non-certified teachers on student achievement. We find, in our preferred specification, that a one percentage point increase in the share of non-certified teachers is expected to decrease the average student’s GPA ranking with about 0.6 units. A substantial effect if one considers the large differences in certification rate that do exist between schools and municipalities. The effect also appears to be stronger for students with highly educated parents |
| Keywords: | Teacher certification; teacher quality; student achievement; instrumental variable |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2007–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_006&r=ure |
| By: | Eric A. Hanushek; Kuzey Yilmaz |
| Abstract: | An important element in considering school finance policies is that households are not passive. Instead they respond to policies with a combination of modified residential choice and political choice of tax levels. The highly stylized decision models of most existing analyses, however, lead to conerns about the policy evaluations. In our general equilibrium model of residential location and community choice, households base optimizing decisions on commuting costs, school quality, and land rents. With both centralized and decentralized employment, the resulting equilibrium has heterogeneous communities in terms of income and tastes for schools. This model is used to analyze a series of conventional policy experiments, including school district consolidation, district power utilization, and different equalization devices. The important conclusion is that welfare falls for all families with the restrictions in choice that are implied by these approaches. |
| JEL: | H4 I2 R1 R51 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12960&r=ure |
| By: | Andersson, Christian (Uppsala University, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes how student achievement is affected by resource increases in the Swedish compulsory school due to a special government grant that was enforced in the academic year of 2001/02. The analysis is based on register data that contains all students that completed compulsory schooling (ninth grade) between 1998 and 2005. The results show that socio-economic variables explain a great deal of the variation in student achievement. The study also shows that the increased resources have not had a statistical significant positive effect on the average student’s achievement. This conclusion holds true when different measures of student achievement are used. Increased resources have however improved student achievement for students with low educated parents. If teacher density is increased with 10 percent students with low educated parents are expected to increase their grade point average ranking with about 0.4 percentile units. |
| Keywords: | Teacher density; student achievement; government grant |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2007–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_004&r=ure |
| By: | Barbara ERMINI (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Economia); Raffaella SANTOLINI (Universita' Politecnica delle Marche, Dipartimento di Economia) |
| Abstract: | This paper seeks for public spending interdependence among jurisdictions within some Italian local councils. We find significant positive interaction among spending of neighboring local councils both at the level of total expenditure and also for different subcategories. However, this result applies only when spatial dependence is analyzed among geographically contiguous jurisdictions different criteria of proximity do not give rise to any substantial form of interaction among local governments. Attempts to identifying the source of this interaction seem to refuse yardstick competition hypothesis. Fiscal spill-overs among jurisdictions appear as a more plausible explanation; we also find evidence that local councils partnerships fail to effectively internalize these spill-overs. Finally, commuting affects spatial interdependence among jurisdictions. |
| Keywords: | local councils partnerships, local public expenditures, spatial econometrics, spill-overs, strategic interaction, yardistick competition |
| JEL: | C31 D71 D72 H72 H73 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:278&r=ure |
| By: | Kristopher Gerardi; Harvey S. Rosen; Paul Willen |
| Abstract: | The U.S. mortgage market has experienced phenomenal change over the last 35 years. This paper develops and implements a technique for assessing the impact of changes in the mortgage market on households. Our framework, which is based on the permanent income hypothesis, that allows us to gauge the importance of borrowing constraints by estimating the empirical relationship between the value of a household's home purchase and its future income. We find that over the past several decades, housing markets have become less imperfect in the sense that households are now more able to buy homes whose values are consistent with their long-term income prospects. One issue that has received particular attention is the role that the housing Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have played in improving the market for housing finance. We find no evidence that the GSEs' activities have contributed to this phenomenon. This is true whether we look at all homebuyers, or at subsamples of the population whom we might expect to benefit particularly from GSE activity, such as low-income households and first-time homebuyers. |
| JEL: | D14 G21 H89 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12967&r=ure |
| By: | André de Palma (University of Cergy-Pontoise, THEMA, France and Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussée, France. Member of the Institut universitaire de France); Nathalie Picard (University of Cergy-Pontoise, THEMA, France and INED); Paul Waddell (University of Washington at Seattle, Department of Urban Design and Planning) |
| Abstract: | Discrete choice models are based on the idea that each user can choose both freely and independently from other users in a given set of alternatives. But this is not the case in several situations. In particular, limitations and interactions can occur when the number of available products of one type is smaller than the total demand for this type. As a consequence, some individuals can be denied their preferred choice. We develop a methodology to address those constraints and we apply it to residential location choice, where our empirical data suggest that availability constraints may bias actual choices. The analysis provides some theoretical developments and elaborates an iterative procedure for estimating demand in the presence of capacity constraints. The empirical application relies on the location choice model developed and estimated in [6] for Ile de France (Paris region) and generalizes it to integrate capacity constraints. |
| Keywords: | Residential location, constrained Logit, capacity constraints, sampling, Ilede- France |
| JEL: | C35 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2007-04&r=ure |
| By: | Deng, Feng |
| Abstract: | Coase originally formulated his conjecture about intertemporal price competition in the context of a land market, but it has been applied almost exclusively to non-spatial markets. This paper revisits the Coase Conjecture in the context of land development and urban institutions. I compare four institutional arrangements based on the combination of land tenure options and local governance forms: private/rental, public/rental, private/owner and public/owner. The two-period model developed in this paper shows that homeownership may result in more land development than leasehold. Numeric examples suggest (1) public/owner, i.e., the common form of government providing collective goods, may be efficient for more uniform distribution of consumer; (2) rentals can be desirable for “poor” communities; (3) private/owner, such as CID (Common Interest Development) and condominium, is more efficient for “rich” communities; (4) restrictive zoning reduces social surplus, and “rich” community may adopt more restrictive measures. These results may help explain why public institutions are dominant in urban setting and why most private communities are small and located in the suburbs. |
| Keywords: | monopoly; durability; bundling; land; local collective good; public good; private community; urban institutions |
| JEL: | P48 H41 L22 H77 R52 L12 |
| Date: | 2003 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2223&r=ure |
| By: | Gautier, Pieter A; Siegmann, Arjen; van Vuuren, Aico |
| Abstract: | Does Islamic terrorism have an effect on the general attitudes towards Muslim minorities? We use the murder of Theo van Gogh as an event study to address this question. Specifically, we use the hedonic-market model and test for an effect on listed house prices in neighbourhoods where more than 25% of the people belong to an ethnic minority from a Muslim country (type I). Relative to the other neighbourhoods, house prices in type I neighbourhoods decreased in 10 months by about 3%, with a widening gap over time. We use a unique weekly data set from a multi listing service that contains over 70% of all houses for sale and obtain the actual transaction prices from the registers office. Our results are robust to several adjustments including changes in the control group. There is no significant difference in the time it takes for houses to be sold in type I versus other neighbourhoods. Finally, we find evidence that segregation increased. People belonging to the Muslim minority were more likely to buy and less likely to sell a house in a type I neighbourhood after the murder than before. |
| Keywords: | hedonic market method; differences in differences; economics of terror; housing market |
| JEL: | C21 C41 C81 R31 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6175&r=ure |
| By: | DUJARDIN Claire; SELOD Harris; THOMAS Isabelle |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the causal effects of the spatial organization of Brussels on unemployment propensities. Using Census data at the individual level, we estimate the unemployment probability of young adults while taking into account personal, household and neighbourhood characteristics. We solve the endogeneity of residential locations by restricting our sample to young adults residing with their parents, and evaluate the potential remaining bias by conducting a sensitivity analysis. Our results suggest that residing in a deprived neighbourhood significantly increases a youngster probability of being unemployed, a result which is quite robust to the presence of both observed and unobserved parental covariates. |
| Keywords: | neighbourhood effects, residential segregation, unemployment, endogeneity bias, sensitivity analysis |
| JEL: | J64 R14 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lea:leawpi:0704&r=ure |
| By: | Aragon, Fernando; Gayoso, Vilma |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to identify the causal relationship between intergovernmental transfers and fiscal effort. Empirical evidence from Peruvian municipalities supports a negative relation. The substitution effect is decreasing on the level of municipalities’ expenditure and tends to disappear for high-expenditure localities. Given this phenomenon, devolving responsibilities to sub-national governments might reduce fiscal effort and deteriorate fiscal balance especially among localities with lower fiscal capacity. A possible solution might be the inclusion of fiscal effort indicators in the intergovernmental transfer design. |
| Keywords: | fiscal effort; intergovernmental transfers; fiscal decentralization; local taxation |
| JEL: | H71 H77 |
| Date: | 2005–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2108&r=ure |
| By: | Cuberes, David |
| Abstract: | There is strong evidence showing that in most countries cities develop sequentially, with the initially largest city being the first to grow. This paper presents a growth model of optimal city size that rationalizes this particular growth pattern. Increasing returns to scale is the force that favors agglomeration of resources in a city, and convex costs associated with the stock of installed capital represent the congestion force that limits city size. The key to generate sequential growth is the assumption of irreversible investment in physical capital. The presence of a positive external effect of aggregate city capital on individual firms makes the competitive equilibrium inefficient. |
| Keywords: | cities; Gibrat's law; increasing returns; congestion costs |
| JEL: | R12 O4 R11 |
| Date: | 2007–02–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:2172&r=ure |
| By: | Cerdan-Infantes, Pedro; Vermeersch, Christel |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of the full-time school program in Uruguay on standardized test scores of 6th grade students. The program lengthened the school day from a half day to a full day, and provided additional inputs to schools to make this possible, such as additional teachers and construction of classrooms. The program was not randomly placed, but targeted poor urban schools. Using propensity score matching, the authors construct a comparable group of schools, and show that students in very disadvantaged schools improved in their test scores by 0.07 of a standard deviation per year of participation in the full-time program in mathematics, and 0.04 in language. While the program is expensive, it may, if well targeted, help address inequalities in education in Uruguay, at an increase in cost per student not larger than the current deficit in spending between Uruguay and the rest of the region. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Education For All,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Secondary Education |
| Date: | 2007–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4167&r=ure |
| By: | Monika Piazzesi; Martin Schneider |
| Abstract: | This paper considers asset pricing in a general equilibrium model in which some, but not all, agents suffer from inflation illusion. Illusionary investors mistake changes in nominal interest rates for changes in real rates, while smart investors understand the Fisher equation. The presence of smart investors ensures that the equilibrium nominal interest rate moves with expected inflation. The model also predicts a nonmonotonic relationship between the price-to-rent ratio on housing and nominal interest rates -- housing booms occur both when the nominal rate is especially low and when it is especially high. In either situation, disagreement about real interest rates between smart and illusionary investors stimulates borrowing and lending and drives up the price of collateral. The resulting housing boom is stronger if credit markets are more developed. We document that many countries experienced a housing boom in the high-inflation 1970s and a second, stronger, boom in the low-inflation 2000s. |
| JEL: | E2 E4 G1 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12957&r=ure |
| By: | Sholeh A. Maani (The University of Auckland); Rhema Vaithianathan (The University of Auckland); Barbara Wolfe (The University of Wisconsin) |
| Abstract: | In this study we extend the literature (e.g. Deaton, 2002a; Kennedy and Kawachi, 1996; Wilkinson, 1996) by proposing a new mechanism through which income inequality can influence health. We argue that increased income inequality induces household crowding, which in turn leads to increased rates of infectious diseases. We use data from New Zealand that links hospital discharge rates with community-level characteristics to explore this hypothesis. Our results provide support for a differential effect of income inequality and housing crowding on rates of hospital admissions for infectious diseases among children. Importantly, we find that genetic and non-communicable diseases do not show these joint crowding and inequality effects. The effect of housing on communicable diseases provides a biological foundation for an income inequality gradient. |
| Keywords: | Housing crowding, child health outcomes, income inequality |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:06_09&r=ure |
| By: | Annamaria Lusardi (Dartmouth College and NBER); Olivia S. Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania and NBER) |
| Abstract: | We compare wealth holdings across two cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study: the early Baby Boomers in 2004, and individuals in the same age group in 1992. Levels and patterns of total net worth have changed relatively little over time, though Boomers rely more on housing equity than their predecessors. Most important, planners in both cohorts arrive close to retirement with much higher wealth levels and display higher financial literacy than non-planners. Instrumental variables estimates show that planning behavior can explain the differences in savings and why some people arrive close to retirement with very little or no wealth. |
| Keywords: | Wealth Holdings, Housing Wealth, Lack of Planning, Literacy, Cohorts |
| JEL: | D91 E21 |
| Date: | 2006–09–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfs:cfswop:wp200620&r=ure |
| By: | Giorgio Ponti |
| Abstract: | Construction work is about to begin on a new “intelligent” primary school for 300 students (later to be expanded for 600) in the Municipality of Solaro in the province of Milan. This is the fi rst primary school building in Italy designed according to the principles of the “intelligent school” as defi ned by the Centre for Educational Innovation and Experimentation of Milan (CISEM). The building received the 2006 EUROSOLAR Prize. |
| Keywords: | environment, intelligent school, CISEM, innovative learning, school architecture |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2007/2-en&r=ure |
| By: | Andersson, Christian (Uppsala University, Department of Economics); Waldenström, Nina (Stockholm School of Economics, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The share of non-certified teachers in Swedish compulsory public schools has grown considerably during the last decade, from 7.2 percent in 1995/96 to 17.2 percent in 2003/04. Moreover, comparisons between schools and municipalities indicate large and increasing differences in the share of non-certified teachers over time. In this paper we study whether these patterns may be explained by restrictions in the supply of certified teachers. We do this by using a temporary targeted governmental grant, aimed at increasing the personnel density in schools, as an exogenous teacher demand shock. Our results show that the introduction of the grant decreased the share of non-certified teachers more in areas characterized by relatively high unemployment rates among certified teachers, i.e., where teacher supply restrictions were relatively low. These findings hence suggest that teacher supply restrictions do indeed matter for the composition of teaching staff. |
| Keywords: | Teacher supply; teacher certification; government grant |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2007–02–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_005&r=ure |
| By: | John Marrapodi |
| Abstract: | Since 1999 the Department of Education and Training in Western Australia has operated a successful security risk management programme. Its strategy is to help school principals both evaluate whether existing controls comply with security procedures and provide adequate, cost-effective levels of security to meet the risks faced by their schools. |
| Keywords: | school security, security risk assessment, school management, risk management |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaa:2007/3-en&r=ure |
| By: | Kodrat Wibowo (Department of Economics, Padjadjaran University) |
| Abstract: | One consequence of Indonesian fiscal decentralization and regional autonomy is that local governments now have more responsibility to more participate in poverty alleviation programs. Providing better access for local public goods and services is one possible action from local governments in national poverty alleviation programs. This paper tries to propose a basic strategy for the role of Indonesian central-local government in poverty alleviation program that may proper to be implemented within the framework of Indonesian new government system after fiscal decentralization and regional autonomy. One important strategy proposed is role sharing and role switching between central and local governments in designing and implementing market and public-oriented policies. Since the stronger-need participation of local government in poverty alleviation may put local government’s fiscal condition in problem, the objective of wealth-neutral condition does need an appropriate cost-sharing system that will lead to the more financial and political fairness between Indonesian central and local government. |
| Keywords: | poverty alleviation, decentralization, Indonesia |
| JEL: | H77 I39 |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unp:wpaper:2005003&r=ure |
| By: | Katrin Rehdanz (Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg); David J. Maddison |
| Abstract: | Hitherto the task of valuing differences in environmental quality arising from air pollution and noise nuisance has been carried out mainly by using the hedonic price technique. This paper proposes a different approach to deriving information on individual preferences for local environmental quality. It analyses data drawn from the German socio economic panel in an attempt to explain differences in self-reported levels of well-being in terms of environmental quality. Mindful of existing research a large number of other explanatory variables are included to control for socio-demographic differences, economic circumstances as well as neighbourhood characteristics. Differences in local air quality and noise levels are measured by how much an individual feels affected by air pollution or noise exposure in their residential area. The evidence suggests that even when controlling for a range of other factors higher local air pollution and noise levels significantly diminish subjective well-being. But interestingly differences in perceived air and noise pollution are not capitalised into differences in house prices. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, environmental quality, Germany, life-satisfaction, noise exposure, well-being |
| JEL: | R19 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2006–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sgc:wpaper:119&r=ure |
| By: | Anthony Ziegelmeyer (Max Planck Institute of Economics, Strategic Interaction Group, Jena (Germany)); Frédéric Koessler (THEMA, University of Cergy-Pontoise (France)); Kene Boun My (BETA-Theme, CNRS, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg (France)); Laurent Denant-Boèmont (CREM, University of Rennes 1 (France)) |
| Abstract: | This paper reports two laboratory studies designed to study the impact of public information about past departure rates on congestion levels and travel costs. Our experimental design is based on a discrete version of Arnott, de Palma, and Lindsey’s (1990) bottleneck model where subjects have to choose their departure time in order to reach a common destination. Experimental treatments in our first study differ in terms of the level of public information on past departure rates and the relative cost of delay. In all treatments, congestion occurs and the observed travel costs are quite similar to the predicted ones. In other words, subjects’ capacity to coordinate does not seem to be affected by the availability of public information on past departure rates or by the relative cost of delay. This seemingly absence of treatment effects is confirmed by our finding that a parameter-free reinforcement learning model best characterizes individual behavior. The number of experimental subjects taking the role of drivers is four times larger in our second study than in our first study. We observe that coordination failures in our congestion situation do not become more severe when the number of drivers increases. |
| Keywords: | Travel behavior; Congestion; Information in intelligent transportation systems; Laboratory experiments. |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D83 R40 R41 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2007-05&r=ure |
| By: | Sato, Yasuhiro; Thisse, Jacques-François |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impacts of capital mobility and tax competition in a setting with imperfect matching between firms and workers. The small country attracts fewer firms than the large one but accommodates a share of the industry that exceeds its capital share - a reverse home market effect. This allows the small country to be more aggressive and to set a higher tax rate than the large one, thus implying that tax competition reduces international inequalities. However, the large country always attains a higher utility than does the small country. Our model thus encapsulates both the 'importance of being small' and the 'importance of being large'. Last, tax harmonization benefits to the small country but is detrimental to the large one. |
| Keywords: | capital mobility; fiscal competition; local labour markets; reverse home market effect |
| JEL: | F21 H31 J31 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6186&r=ure |
| By: | Takashi Kurosaki (Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University); Yasuyuki Sawada (Faculty of Economis, University of Tokyo); Asit Banerji (Centre of Economic and Social Research, Delhi); S.N. Mishra (Centre of Economic and Social Research, Delhi) |
| Abstract: | In December 2005 and January 2006, we conducted a pilot survey to collect detailed information on eighty rickshaw pullers and twenty-six rickshaw owner-contractors in north-east Delhi. This is a preliminary report based on the data thus collected. |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2007cf485&r=ure |
| By: | David Levinson (Nexus (Networks, Economics, and Urban Systems) Research Group, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the changes that occurred in the rail network and density of population in London during the nineteenth and twenti- eth centuries. It aims to disentangle the Óchicken and eggÓ problem of which came first, network or land development, through a set of statisti- cal analyses using clearly distinguishing events by order. Using a panel of data representing the 33 boroughs of London over each decade from 1871 to 2001, the research finds that there is a positive feedback effect between population density and network density. Additional rail stations (either underground or surface) are positive factors leading to subsequent increases in population in the suburbs of London, while additional popu- lation density is a subsequent factor in deploying more rail. These effects differ in central London, where the additional accessibility produced by rail led to commercial development and led to a depopulation. There are also few differences in the effects associated with surface rail stations and underground stations, as the underground was able to get into central London in a way that surface rail could not. However the two networks were weak (and statistically insignificant) substitutes for each other in the suburbs, but the density of surface rail stations was a complement to the Underground in the center, though not vice versa. |
| Keywords: | Transport, land use, London Underground, London railways, network growth, induced demand, induced supply |
| JEL: | R42 R31 R21 N73 N74 |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nex:wpaper:codeploy&r=ure |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser |
| Date: | 2007–03–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:321307000000000917&r=ure |
| By: | Sarah Brown; Karl Taylor (Department of Economics, The University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | We explore the relationship between educational attainment and social interaction using individual level data from the British National Child Development Study. To be specific, we analyze whether an intergenerational aspect to this relationship exists by examining the relationship between the educational attainment of children and the degree of formal social activity undertaken by their parents. In accordance with the existing literature, our results support a positive association between education and social interaction. Furthermore, our results suggest that children´s scores in reading, mathematics and vocabulary tests are positively associated with the extent of their parents´ formal social interaction. This relationship is robust to controlling for the degree of intra-family based social interaction and the social activities of the child. |
| Keywords: | Education, Human Capital, Social Capital, Social Interaction. |
| JEL: | J24 Z12 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2006013&r=ure |
| By: | Jens Ludwig; Deborah A. Phillips |
| Abstract: | In this essay we review what is known about Head Start and argue that the program is likely to generate benefits to participants and society as a whole that are large enough to justify the program's costs. Our conclusions differ importantly from those offered in some previous reviews because we use a more appropriate standard to judge the success of Head Start (namely, benefit-cost analysis), draw on new accumulating evidence for Head Start's long-term effects on early cohorts of program participants, and discuss why common interpretations of a recent randomized experimental evaluation of Head Start's short-term impacts may be overly pessimistic. While in principle there could be more beneficial ways of deploying Head Start resources, the benefits of such changes remain uncertain and there is some downside risk. |
| JEL: | H43 I2 I3 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12973&r=ure |