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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | Charter schools are the most popular form of school choice in the US. How- ever, we know little about how these schools affect traditional public schools. I look at how charter schools affect achievement, behavior, and attendance in nearby traditional public schools using data from a large urban school district in the southwest. I address the endogenous location of charter schools using an instrumental variables strategy. My results show that when charter school penetration increases, students suffer modest but statistically signicant drops in math and language score gains. However, achievement losses are potentially oset by improvement in discipline. |
| Date: | 2009–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-02&r=ure |
| By: | Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Elisabetta Gentile (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | Concerns about safety in urban schools has led many school districts to require uniforms for their students. However, we know very little about what impact school uniforms have had on the educational environment. In this paper we use a unique dataset to assess how uniform adoption affects student achievement and behavior in a large urban school district in the southwest. Since each school in the district could decide independently about whether or not to adopt uniforms, we are able to use variation across schools and over time to identify the effects of uniforms. Using student and school fixed-effects along with school-specic linear time trends to address selection of students and schools into uniform adoption, we nd that uniforms had little impact on student outcomes in elementary grades but provided modest improvements in language scores and attendance rates in middle and high school grades. These effects appear to be concentrated in female students. |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-03&r=ure |
| By: | Ian Christensen; Paul Corrigan; Caterina Mendicino; Shin-Ichi Nishiyama |
| Abstract: | Using Bayesian methods, we estimate a small open economy model in which consumers face limits to credit determined by the value of their housing stock. The purpose of this paper is to quantify the role of collateralized household debt in the Canadian business cycle. Our findings show that the presence of borrowing constraints improves the performance of the model in terms of overall goodness of fit. In particular, the presence of housing collateral generates a positive correlation between consumption and house prices. Finally we find that housing collateral induced spillovers account for a large share of consumption growth during the housing market boom-bust cycle of the late 1980s. |
| Keywords: | Business fluctuations and cycles; Credit and credit aggregates; Transmission of monetary policy |
| JEL: | E21 E32 E44 E52 R21 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:09-26&r=ure |
| By: | Hernán D. Rozenfeld; Diego Rybski; Xavier Gabaix; Hernán A. Makse |
| Abstract: | The distribution of the population of cities has attracted a great deal of attention, in part because it sharply constrains models of local growth. However, to this day, there is no consensus on the distribution below the very upper tail, because available data need to rely on the “legal†rather than “economic†definition of cities for medium and small cities. To remedy this difficulty, in this work we construct cities “from the bottom up†by clustering populated areas obtained from high-resolution data. This method allows us to investigate the population and area of cities for urban agglomerations of all sizes. We find that Zipf’s law (a power law with exponent close to 1) for population holds for cities as small as 12,000 inhabitants in the USA and 5,000 inhabitants in Great Britain. In addition the distribution of city areas is also close to a Zipf’s law. We provide a parsimonious model with endogenous city area that is consistent with those findings. |
| JEL: | D30 D51 J61 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15409&r=ure |
| By: | Irina Bunda (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.); Michele Ca’ Zorzi (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.) |
| Abstract: | The contribution of this paper is to revisit the Early Warning System (EWS) literature by analysing selected episodes of financial market crisis, i.e. those preceded by a spell of credit and real estate expansions. The aim is to disentangle instances when this constitutes a natural phenomenon associated with a process of financial development and innovation from those where it constitutes a worrisome signal. We identify economic variables that have leading indicator properties, thus helping to distinguish between “benign” episodes from those likely ending with downward pressures on the exchange rate or even a fully-fledged banking crisis. We find that a large current account deficit, a fall in price competitiveness, strong real growth and high public debt-to-GDP ratio increase the probability that a lending or housing boom would be accompanied by financial market tensions shortly after the peak. JEL Classification: E32, F31, F37. |
| Keywords: | Early warning system, financial crises, house prices, credit booms. |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20091094&r=ure |
| By: | Janet Currie; Reed Walker |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence of the significant negative health externalities of traffic congestion. We exploit the introduction of electronic toll collection, or E-ZPass, which greatly reduced traffic congestion and emissions from motor vehicles in the vicinity of highway toll plazas. Specifically, we compare infants born to mothers living near toll plazas to infants born to mothers living near busy roadways but away from toll plazas with the idea that mothers living away from toll plazas did not experience significant reductions in local traffic congestion. We also examine differences in the health of infants born to the same mother, but who differ in terms of whether or not they were “exposed†to E-ZPass. We find that reductions in traffic congestion generated by E-ZPass reduced the incidence of prematurity and low birth weight among mothers within 2km of a toll plaza by 10.8% and 11.8% respectively. Estimates from mother fixed effects models are very similar. There were no immediate changes in the characteristics of mothers or in housing prices in the vicinity of toll plazas that could explain these changes, and the results are robust to many changes in specification. The results suggest that traffic congestion is a significant contributor to poor health in affected infants. Estimates of the costs of traffic congestion should account for these important health externalities. |
| JEL: | I12 Q51 Q53 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15413&r=ure |
| By: | Aaron Sojouner |
| Abstract: | This paper studies peer effects on student achievement among first graders randomly assigned to classrooms in Tennessee's Project STAR. The analysis uses previously unexploited pre-assignment achievement measures available for sixty percent of students. Data are not missing at random, making identification challenging. The paper develops a new way, given random assignment of individuals to classes, to identify peer effects without other missing-data assumptions. Estimates suggest moderate, positive effects of mean peer lagged achievement. Allowing heterogeneous effects, evidence suggests lower-achieving students benefit more than higher-achieving students do from increases in peer mean. Further, the bias of a widely used but poorly understood peer-effects estimator is characterized. |
| JEL: | C2 I21 J13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hrr:papers:0109&r=ure |
| By: | R. Antonietti; G. Cainelli |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:prinwp:007&r=ure |
| By: | Ström, Sara (Institute for Futures Studies) |
| Abstract: | <p>The aim of this study is to explore to what extent housing is a constraint for first births in Sweden 1972-2005. Three characteristics of housing are studied: housing type, tenure, and size of dwelling. The occurrence of childbearing is measured as the event of the birth itself and the time 16 months prior to the birth, i.e. initiation of conception. The main finding is that the size of the dwelling seems to be the housing factor with the strongest association with first-birth intensities. The effect of housing on childbearing seems to be stronger if measured to capture time of any first birth than if measured so as to coincide with the situation 16 months prior to the birth. The more strong effects on first-birth risks than on initiation of conceptions suggest that there is also an effect of childbearing plans on housing and residential moves. A stronger association between being established on the housing market and the propensity to have a first child is found for the 1974 cohort compared with the older cohorts. One can naturally speculate about the degree to which young adults opportunities to establish themselves on the housing market were influenced by the rapid and significant policy changes during the early 1990s.<p> |
| Keywords: | First births; Housing; Housing policy; Cohorts |
| JEL: | R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2009–10–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifswps:2009_015&r=ure |
| By: | Tom Broekel; Ron Boschma |
| Abstract: | The importance of geographical proximity for interaction and knowledge sharing has been discussed extensively in economic geography in recent years. There is increasing consensus that it is just one out of many types of proximities that might be relevant. We argue that proximity may be a crucial driver for agents to connect and exchange knowledge, but too much proximity between these agents on any of the dimensions might harm their innovative performance at the same time. In a study on knowledge networks in the Dutch aviation industry, we test this so-called proximity paradox empirically. We find evidence that the proximity paradox holds to some degree. Our study clearly shows that cognitive, social and geographical proximity are crucial for explaining the knowledge network of the Dutch aviation industry. But while it takes cognitive, social and geographical proximity to exchange knowledge, we found evidence that proximity lowers firms’ innovative performance, but only in the cognitive dimension. |
| Keywords: | proximity, paradox, social network analysis, knowledge networks, aviation |
| JEL: | R11 R12 O32 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0915&r=ure |
| By: | Claudia Wesselbaum-Neugebauer (Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal) |
| Abstract: | The deductibility of commuting costs in Germany is discussed permanently. The paper adresses the question, whether the taxpayers do react to the commuting allowances (Entfernungspauschale). It is shown that individual mobility depends on the responsibilities for companion, children and relatives. The commuting allowances are unsuitable to realize aims of urban, traffic and regional planning. Hence a return back to the system of full deductibility of work-related expenses is necessary if they choose public transportation. Furthermore a tax-deductible flat-rate per kilometer is required if they go by car. |
| Keywords: | mobility, commuting allowance, commuting cost, labor |
| JEL: | D1 H24 H31 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bwu:schdps:sdp09009&r=ure |
| By: | Pierre-Alexandre Balland |
| Abstract: | Increasing attention had been given recently to understand how networks affect organizational performance in innovation studies. Surprisingly, underlying mechanisms of their evolution have been more neglected, and still remain unclear. This lack of interest is denounced today by recent papers which claim that it is a crucial issue for economic geography. Especially the influence of different forms of proximity on the network’s changes needs to be clarified. This paper contributes to this ongoing debate by determining empirically how organizations choose their partners given to their geographical, organizational, institutional, cognitive and social proximity. The relational database is constructed from publicly available information on the R&D collaborative projects of the 6th European Union Framework Program within the navigation by satellite industry (GNSS). Patterns of evolution of the GNSS collaboration network are determined according to a longitudinal study of the relational changes occurred between four consecutive years, from 2004 to 2007. Empirical results show that geographical, organizational and institutional proximity favour collaboration. Inversely, organizations prefer to avoid partnerships when they share a cognitive proximity (same knowledge bases). The last result demonstrates that the kind of project studied does not create a sufficient level of social proximity to stimulate collaboration. |
| Keywords: | proximity, collaboration networks, innovation, network longitudinal analysis, R&D collaborative projects, SIENA |
| JEL: | O32 R12 |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:0914&r=ure |
| By: | Burton A. Abrams (Department of Economics,University of Delaware); Jing Li; James G. Mulligan (Department of Economics,University of Delaware) |
| Abstract: | There is an on-going debate concerning the role that the steam engine played in fueling urban growth in the U.S. during the second half of the nineteenth century. While a consensus has been building that steam power played little or no role in affecting urban growth, we find evidence to the contrary by using previously untapped county-level data on steam power in manufacturing. |
| Keywords: | urbanization, technology, convergence |
| JEL: | N32 O14 O18 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dlw:wpaper:09-06.&r=ure |
| By: | Steven G. Craig (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Scott Imberman (Department of Economics, University of Houston); Adam Perdue (Department of Economics, University of Houston) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether school districts, and individual schools, respond to ratings from the accountability system by reallocating resources across or within schools. Our empirical work follows three identification strategies, a regression discontinuity for schools on the rating boundaries, a “rating shock” analysis for schools that face a change in rating when the state changed its accountability system, and a school fixed effects strategy. We find that school districts provided incentives for their schools to achieve higher ratings under the early accountability system, but under the later system they appear to have abandoned this strategy. In addition, the rating shock results suggest that some effort was directed towards assisting lower performing schools under the new regime. Finally, we find that in the early period incremental funds were used as much for ancillary purposes as instruction. |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hou:wpaper:2009-04&r=ure |
| By: | John Haltiwanger; Ron Jarmin; C.J. Krizan |
| Abstract: | In part due to the popular perception that Big-Boxes displace smaller, often family owned (a.k.a. Mom-and-Pop) retail establishments, several empirical studies have examined the evidence on how Big-Boxes’ impact local retail employment but no clear consensus has emerged. To help shed light on this debate, we exploit establishment-level data with detailed location information from a single metropolitan area to quantify the impact of Big-Box store entry and growth on nearby single unit and local chain stores. We incorporate a rich set of controls for local retail market conditions as well as whether or not the Big-Boxes are in the same sector as the smaller stores. We find a substantial negative impact of Big-Box entry and growth on the employment growth at both single unit and especially smaller chain stores – but only when the Big-Box activity is both in the immediate area and in the same detailed industry. |
| Keywords: | Big-Boxes, Small Business, Retail Trade, Firm Location, Structural Change |
| JEL: | R30 L16 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:09-34&r=ure |
| By: | Julia Spies |
| Abstract: | This study assesses the determinants of location choices of foreign multinational firms at the level of German federal states. Adjacency and existing firm networks are assumed to influence the investors’ profits in a given location by overcoming informational disadvantages when entering the new market. A conditional and a nested logit model resemble the structure of the location choice process of individual investors well. By using affiliate-level data between 1997 and 2005, the results confirm that firms react positively to local demand, a common border and existing firm networks, while unit labour costs exhibit the expected negative impact. In the sectoral estimations, it is shown that these effects vary in their relevance among manufacturing and service affiliates, and between upstream and downstream activities. |
| Keywords: | Location choice, multinational firms, nested logit model |
| JEL: | F23 R39 |
| Date: | 2009–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iaw:iawdip:47&r=ure |
| By: | De Leon, Marycruz; Fullerton, Thomas M.; Kelley, Brian W.; Molina, Angel L. |
| Abstract: | Do changes in toll rates affect pedestrian, car, and truck traffic across the bridges between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico? As more and more attention is paid to the use of tolls as funding mechanisms for new road and infrastructure construction in Texas, the answer to this question has policy implications not only for local and state lawmakers, but also for firms importing and exporting goods between Texas and Mexico. This article uses bridge traffic data from the Borderplex to examine the relative impact of tolls and concludes that local policymakers have more leeway than they thought in raising funds to make infrastructure improvements. |
| Keywords: | Tolls; International Bridges; Border Economics |
| JEL: | R41 |
| Date: | 2009–03–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17706&r=ure |
| By: | Rune Dahl Fitjar (International Research Institute of Stavanger); Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (IMDEA Ciencias Sociales) |
| Abstract: | How do peripheral and relatively isolated regions innovate? Recent research has tended to stress the importance of agglomeration economies and geographical proximity as key motors of innovation. According to this research, large core areas have significant advantages with respect to peripheral areas in innovation potential. Yet, despite these trends, some remote areas of the periphery are remarkably innovative even in the absence of critical innovation masses. In this paper we examine one such case – the region of Southwest Norway – which has managed to remain innovative and dynamic, despite having a below average investment in R&D in the Norwegian context. The results of the paper highlight that innovation in Southwest Norway does not stem from agglomeration and physical proximity, but from other types of proximity, such as cognitive and organizational proximity, rooted in soft institutional arrangements. This suggests that the formation of regional hubs with strong connections to international innovative networks may be a way to overcome peripherality in order to innovate. |
| Keywords: | innovation; institutions; distance; trust; open-mindedness; periphery; Norway |
| Date: | 2009–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imd:wpaper:wp2009-13&r=ure |
| By: | Sanandaji, Tino (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Studies of mortgage approvals find that minority borrowers are more likely to be denied loans, even when background variables such as current-year income are held constant. This article demonstrates that relying on current year income when comparing racial outcomes leads to an overestimation of discrimination or even a false finding of discrimination where there is none. Minorities on average earn less than non-Hispanic whites, thus two individuals of different races with the same annual income tend to have different proportions of transitory income, an insight made by Friedman (1957). An African-American mortgage applicant earning the same income as a white applicant is therefore more likely to experience downward reversion to the mean in future years. To overcome this problem of overestimation, race and ethnicity specific reversion to the mean functions are estimated using PSID income data from 1994–2004, which relate single year income to the subsequent ten-year income average. When this measure of estimated future income is used instead of current year income, the coefficient for discrimination in the standard loan approval model is reduced for both African-Americans and Hispanics. Applying the same method to home ownership and mortgage holding regressions we find that the dummy variable generally interpreted as discrimination is reduced by two thirds for Hispanics and completely vanishes for African-Americans. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination in Mortgage Loans; Mortgages; Mean Reversion |
| JEL: | G20 G21 J71 |
| Date: | 2009–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0811&r=ure |
| By: | Navon, Guy |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the relationship between human capital spillovers and productivity using a unique longitudinal matched employer–employee dataset of Israeli manufacturing plants that contains individual records on all plant employees. I focus on the within-plant diversity of employees’ higher-education diplomas (university degrees). The variance decomposition shows that most knowledge diversity takes place within the industries. Using a semi-parametric approach, the study finds that hiring workers who are diversified in their specific knowledge is beneficial for plants’ productivity—the knowledge-diversity elasticity is about 0.2–0.25 and is robust—and that the benefit of knowledge diversity increase with the size of the plant. This suggests that for each allocation of labor in the production process it is beneficial for plants to diversify their skilled labor. The findings also suggest that the conventional way of estimating plant-level production function using Ordinary Least Squares or Fixed-Effects method is biased upward due to simultaneity of the inputs and the unobserved productivity shock. |
| Keywords: | human capital; spillovers; within; firm; plant; guy; navon; pakes; levinsohn; petrin; poi; olley |
| JEL: | J41 E24 J31 J24 D24 J82 |
| Date: | 2009–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17741&r=ure |
| By: | Moscone, Francesco; Tosetti, Elisa; Vittadini, Giorgio |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the influence of social interaction on patients' hospital choice and its relationship with quality delivered by hospitals, using Italian data. We explore the impact on individual choices of a set of variables such as travel distance, individual- and hospital-specific characteristics, as well as a variable capturing the effect of the neighbourhood. The richness of our data allows us to disentangle contextual effects from the influence of information sharing on patients' hospital choices. We then use this framework to assess how such interaction is related to clinical hospital quality. Results show that network effect plays an important role in hospital choices, although it is less relevant for larger hospitals. Another empirical finding is the existence of a negative relationship between the degree of interaction among individuals and the quality delivered by hospitals. The absence of a source of information on the quality of hospitals accessible to all individuals, such as guidelines or star ratings, exacerbates the importance of information gathered locally in hospital choices, which may result in a lower degree of competition among hospitals and lower quality. |
| Keywords: | health care; social interaction; quality |
| JEL: | I11 H00 C21 |
| Date: | 2009–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17783&r=ure |
| By: | Szulkin, Ryszard (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS); Hällsten, Martin (Stockholm University Linnaeus Center for Integration Studies - SULCIS) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine mechanisms that generate gaps in educational attainment and labor market outcomes between children of immigrants and children of native Swedes. Theoretical explanations of how social inequality between generations is (re)produced focus on a relative lack of resources within the family and/or in the broader social environment, particularly in neighborhoods and schools. In the empirical analyses we follow over time all individuals who completed compulsory school during the period 1990 -1995 and analyze what types of background factors have influenced their educational and labor market careers, which are measured for the year 2007. On the basis of our empirical results we conclude that the gaps between children of immigrants and children of native Swedes are mainly generated by differences in various forms of resources in the family of origin. The role of neighborhood segregation is less substantial. Moreover, our results indicate that the gaps in employment are larger than the corresponding gaps in educational attainment. When gainfully employed, children of immigrants born in Sweden follow roughly the same path as children from native families in contrast to children born abroad. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; education; labor market; children of immigrants |
| JEL: | I21 J15 J31 |
| Date: | 2009–09–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sulcis:2009_009&r=ure |
| By: | Bahlmann, M.D. (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit der Economische Wetenschappen en Econometrie (Free University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics Sciences, Business Administration and Economitrics); Huysman, M.H.; Elfring, T. |
| Abstract: | Recent theorizing in cluster literature emphasizes the importance of inter-cluster knowledge linkages in addition to local knowledge dynamics, enabling new and innovative ideas to flow from one cluster to the other. This paper contributes to this topic by studying inter-cluster knowledge linkages at an individual level of analysis, making use of qualitative social network measures. Central to this case is the Amsterdam New Media-cluster, with a special focus on entrepreneurs engaging in lively inter-cluster exchange of knowledge and debate, resulting in the exchange of new visions and ideas across cluster boundaries. The proposed distinction between local buzz and global pipelines is complemented by adding a third category of inter-local knowledge exchange: global buzz. |
| Keywords: | pipelines; global/ local buzz; entrepreneurship; cluster |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:vuarem:2009-2&r=ure |
| By: | Lagadec, Gael; Descombels, Alain |
| Abstract: | This book aims to study the consequences of the subprime crisis for New Caledonia, a French overseas Pacific territory. The situation of New-Caledonia is specific in many ways, since this territory is undergoing an institutional process of emancipation from France. On the first hand, New Caledonia is protected from the consequences of the crisis thanks to the financial transfers from France which slow down the external constraint. But, on the other hand, New Caledonia is also weakened by many factors: • Its main resources, nickel exportations, have experienced a sharp price fall due to the crisis. • New-Caledonia's indirect taxation highligts under-development (New-Caledonia has not implemented a value-added tax yet). Consequently, tariffs are a major tool to collect tax revenue thus making New-Caledonia a protectionist country with small markets and high prices. • The social inequalities are a serious problem. Theses weaknesses make unlikely for New Caledonia not to suffer from the global crisis. In the first part of the book, the formation and spreading of the subprime crisis are presented with a pedagogical concern. The second part presents the consequences of the crisis for the New Caledonia (and more generally for a small island country), especially from the financial point of view, but also considering the risks induced by a fall of the purchasing power and the rise of social inequalities. The book concludes with the possibility and opportunity of a fiscal policy in the specific context of a small island territory. |
| Keywords: | Subprime crisis; small island territory; fiscal policy |
| JEL: | O23 E62 O56 E31 E65 |
| Date: | 2009–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17871&r=ure |
| By: | Karolien De Bruyne |
| Abstract: | We analyze how unionized wage setting a¤ects the location of firms. We find that the degree of centralization (at firm or sectoral level) and regionalization (at regional or supra-regional level) is crucial. We show that wage setting at the firm level is the best policy to attract firms when trade costs are low, while wage setting at a more centralized level is most effective to attract firms when trade costs are high. Moreover, wage setting at the supra-regional level is beneficial for the already more agglomerated region and hurts the peripheral region. |
| Keywords: | location, unions, regionalization, centralization |
| JEL: | J51 R12 R3 F12 |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:vivwps:9&r=ure |
| By: | Pelnar, Gregory |
| Abstract: | An important issue in many antitrust lawsuits involving professional sports leagues and their member teams is the extent to which franchises within the same, and across different, professional sports leagues compete with one another for fans and advertisers. Complicating the issue is the fact that some sports franchises also cooperate with other franchises in the same or different leagues by, for example, participating in a joint venture to build and operate the stadium in which they will play their games or a regional sports network joint venture to televise their games. An extreme form of cooperation is common ownership: some franchises in different sports leagues have common ownership. This study investigates the impact of competition and cooperation among the franchises of the four major professional sports leagues (i.e., the National Football League, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball) on ticket prices for the 2008 season. The regression results suggest that the existence of one or more rival sports franchises in the same metropolitan area does not have a statistically significant impact on ticket prices. On the other hand, there is at best weak evidence that cooperation between sports franchises impacts ticket prices. These findings are consistent with a number of alternative hypotheses. |
| Keywords: | sports leagues; antitrust; National Football League; National Basketball Association; National Hockey League; Major League Baseball |
| JEL: | L11 L83 L40 |
| Date: | 2009–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:17787&r=ure |
| By: | Åslund, Olof (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation); Böhlmark, Anders (Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University); Nordström Skans, Oskar (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies childhood migrants and examines how age at migration affects their ensuing integration at the residential market, the labor market, and the marriage market. We use population-wide Swedish data and compare outcomes as adults among siblings arriving at different ages in order to ensure that the results can be given a causal inter-pretation. The results show that the children who arrived at a higher age had substan-tially lower shares of natives among their neighbors, coworkers and spouses as adults. The effects are mostly driven by higher exposure to immigrants of similar ethnic origin, in particular at the marriage market. There are also non-trivial effects on employment, but a more limited impact on education and wages. We also analyze children of migrants and show that parents’ time in the host country before child birth matters, which implies that the outcomes of the social integra¬tion process are inherited. Inherited integration has a particularly strong impact on the marriage patterns of females. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; integration; segregation; age at migration; siblings |
| JEL: | J01 J12 J13 J15 |
| Date: | 2009–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2009_021&r=ure |
| By: | Benjamin Campbell; Martin Ganco; April Franco; Rajshree Agarwal |
| Abstract: | We theorize that differences in human assets’ ability to generate value are linked to exit decisions and their effects on firm performance. Using linked employee-employer data from the U.S. Census Bureau on legal services, we find that employees with higher earnings are less likely to leave relative to employees with lower earnings, but if they do leave, they are more likely to move to a spin-out instead of an incumbent firm. Employee entrepreneurship has a larger adverse impact on source firm performance than moves to established firms, even controlling for observable employee quality. Findings suggest that the transfer of human capital, complementary assets, and opportunities all affect mobility decisions and their impact on source firms. |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:09-32&r=ure |
| By: | Igor Halperin |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new semi-parametric approach to the pricing and risk management of bespoke CDO tranches, with a particular attention to bespokes that need to be mapped onto more than one reference portfolio. The only user input in our framework is a multi-factor model (a "prior" model hereafter) for index portfolios, such as CDX.NA.IG or iTraxx Europe, that are chosen as benchmark securities for the pricing of a given bespoke CDO. Parameters of the prior model are fixed, and not tuned to match prices of benchmark index tranches. Instead, our calibration procedure amounts to a proper reweightening of the prior measure using the Minimum Cross Entropy method. As the latter problem reduces to convex optimization in a low dimensional space, our model is computationally efficient. Both the static (one-period) and dynamic versions of the model are presented. The latter can be used for pricing and risk management of more exotic instruments referencing bespoke portfolios, such as forward-starting tranches or tranche options, and for calculation of credit valuation adjustment (CVA) for bespoke tranches. |
| Date: | 2009–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:0910.2696&r=ure |
| By: | Eggert, Wolfgang; Itaya, Jun-ichi |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes a model of corporate tax competition with repeated interaction and with the strategic use of profit shifting within multinationals. We show that international tax coordination is more likely to prevail if the degree of asymmetry in terms of productivity differences between countries is smaller, or if concealment costs of profit shifting are larger when the tax authorities adopt grim-trigger strategies. Allowing for renegotiation in the tax harmonization process generally requires more patient tax authorities to support tax harmonization as a subgame perfect equilibrium. We find somewhat paradoxical situations where higher costs of profit shifting make international tax arrangements less sustainable under weakly-renegotiation-proof strategies. |
| Keywords: | corporate taxation, tax coordination, multinational firms, |
| JEL: | H25 H87 F23 |
| Date: | 2009–10–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hok:dpaper:214&r=ure |
| By: | Ahlerup, Pelle (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | Ethnic diversity is endogenous to economic development in the long run. Yet the standard approach in economic research is to treat ethnic diversity as an exogenous factor. By identifying instruments for ethnic diversity, we correct this misspeci ca- tion and establish that ethnic diversity has an exogenous in uence on income levels, economic growth, corruption, and provision of public goods. Earlier results based on OLS estimations may have underestimated the negative e¤ects of high levels of ethnic diversity.<p> |
| Keywords: | economic development; ethnic diversity; instrumental variables; property rights |
| JEL: | O11 O43 P51 |
| Date: | 2009–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0386&r=ure |
| By: | Vimal Trivedi |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the evaluation study of door-to-door Garbage Collection (DDGC) program carried out by the Centre for Social Studies, Surat in 2005. The study was based on the information gathered from 4000 respondents drawn from a cross section of society and interviews with the respective officers, contractors and labourers. It also examined the process of actual transfer of solid waste from the generator to the collector and people’s attitude and perception regarding practices of garbage collection and disposal. [Working Paper No.7]. |
| Keywords: | garbage collection, disposal, surat, labourers, society, contractors, Municipal Solid Waste, Bio Medical Waste, Hazardous Waste, Ragpickers, Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), India |
| Date: | 2009 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2234&r=ure |
| By: | Giacomo degli Antoni (University of Milan - Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | The present paper draws on an original dataset collected by the author to investigate if: i)the relational network and the human capital developed by unemployed volunteers through their associational membership are useful in finding a job; ii)the likelihood to get a job is higher for volunteers who take part in activities capable of increasing social networks and human capital. Data show that a considerable percentage of volunteers (24%) who were out of work when they joined their association obtained a job thanks to their associational participation. In particular, personal declarations of unemployed respondents reveal that 12% of them found a job thanks to the skills developed by working in the association, 10% thanks to information received by people met through the association and 2% for other reasons concerning the associational membership. Moreover, the econometric analysis shows that some activities related to the creation of social network (the frequency of participation in informal meetings and work groups) and human capital (the attendance at training courses) positively and significantly affect the probability to get a job if unemployed. |
| Keywords: | Voluntary Associations; Job Opportunities; Social Network; Human Capital |
| JEL: | L31 A14 J64 D85 J24 |
| Date: | 2009–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ent:wpaper:wp14&r=ure |
| By: | Sailesh Gunessee (Nottingham University Business School China) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of a payoff advantage, symmetric payoff change and policymakers interaction on choices in tax competition games. To examine the first two effects a standard symmetric game is respectively compared to an asymmetric game where one player has a payoff advantage and to another symmetric game where both players have symmetrically higher payoffs. When payoffs are asymmetric, we find that if policymakers have a payoff disadvantage they are more likely to compete. Instead policymakers with a payoff advantage are keener to tax above equilibrium. Our results also show there is a payoff size effect where choices are brought closer to equilibrium when payoffs are symmetrically higher. These two effects are further studied when players interact repeatedly. With repeated interaction cooperation is sustained only in the symmetric games but fail to materialise in the asymmetric game. A regression analysis of our results reveals further differences between these games. |
| Keywords: | Tax Competition; Experimental Economics; Asymmetry. |
| JEL: | H21 H73 C92 |
| Date: | 2009–10–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbr:workpa:5&r=ure |