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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Mayer,T.; Mayneris, F.; Py, L. |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the impact of a French enterprise zones program -- the``Zones Franches Urbaines'' (ZFUs) policy-- on establishment location decisions. Our empirical analysis is based on an micro-geographic dataset that provides exhaustive information on the location of establishments in France over the period 2002-2007 at the census block level. Our identification strategy, which combines spatial and time differencing, assesses how the probability that an establishment locates in the ZFU area rather than in the non-ZFU area of a municipality changes after the implementation of the policy. We also implement double difference estimations, using the fact that targeted urban areas have been selected in different waves over time. Finally, we exploit a discontinuity in the eligibility criteria of the policy as an exogenous source of variation to estimate the impact of the treatment. We find that conditioning on locating in a municipality that hosts a ZFU, the policy has a positive and sizable impact on the probability to locate in the ZFU part rather than in the non-ZFU part of municipalities. However the impact is highly heterogeneous across zones, industries and firms. Moreover, we show that the policy mostly generates diversion effects within municipalities. |
| Keywords: | Firm Location, Enterprise zones, Spatial and Time Differencing. |
| JEL: | R12 R38 R5 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:458&r=ure |
| By: | Daniel K. Fetter |
| Abstract: | The US home ownership rate rose by 10 percentage points between 1940 and 1945, about half the size of the net change over the 20th century, despite severe restrictions on construction during World War II. I present evidence that wartime rent control -- which covered over 80 percent of the 1940 U.S. rental housing stock -- played an important role in this shift, as suggested by Friedman and Stigler (1946). The empirical test exploits features of the central authority's method of imposing rent control, which generated variation in the size of rent reductions for cities that had seen similar increases in rents prior to control. Greater rent reductions were associated with greater increases in home ownership over the first half of the 1940's. This relationship does not appear to be driven by differential trends in housing demand or other unobserved factors potentially correlated with variation in rent reductions. The estimates suggest that rent control may explain 65 percent of the urban increase in home ownership over the first half of the 1940's. |
| JEL: | N00 N42 N92 R00 R28 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19604&r=ure |
| By: | Alexey Bessudnov (Department of Sociology, Centre for Advanced Studies, National Research University - Higher School of Economics.); Alexey Makarov (Department of Mathematics, National Research University - Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Gender dierences in mathematical performance have been long debated in psychology, economics, and sociology. We contribute to this literature by analyzing a large data set of high school graduates who in 2011 took a standardized mathematical test in Russia (n = 738; 456). We nd no substantial dierence in mean test scores of boys and girls. However, boys have a greater variance of scores and are more numerous at the top of the distribution. We apply quantile regression to model the association between school characteristics and gender dierences in test scores throughout the distribution. Male advantage in test scores, particularly at the top of the distribution, is concentrated in cities and in schools with the advanced curriculum. In ordinary high schools, especially in the countryside, gender dierences in all parts of the distribution are very small. A separate analysis at the regional level conrms that male advantage in mean test scores is higher in more urbanized regions |
| Keywords: | gender inequality, mathematical performance, school context |
| JEL: | I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:11edu2013&r=ure |
| By: | Nasser Ary Tanimoune (School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa (Canada) - School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa (Canada) - School of International Development and Global Studies - University of Ottawa (Canada)); Cécile Batisse (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS : UMR6587 - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I); Mary-Françoise Renard (CERDI - Centre d'études et de recherches sur le developpement international - CNRS : UMR6587 - Université d'Auvergne - Clermont-Ferrand I) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates the importance of spatial dependences on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) localization across Chinese provinces over the 1992-2009. Based on exploratory spatial data analysis, spatial sigma-convergence and spatial Durbin specifications, we present a much clearer picture of FDI dispersion and spatial convergence across China by highlighting the spillover effects of FDI localization in Chinese provinces and regions. Our results are threefold. First, FDI convergence is more pronounced compared to the Central region, whereas the dispersion is greater when the Coastal and the Western regions are taken as reference points. Second, at the province level, FDI localization seems to present a substitutable configuration. Third, when controlling for the spatial distribution of FDI at the level of regions, it seems, conversely, that the FDI localization presents a complementary configuration. The finding resulting from the opposing configurations of the FDI localizations observed at the region and province levels seems to argue in favor of promoting FDI attractiveness policies based on regional complementarities. |
| Keywords: | China;Convergence;FDI;spatial panel data;spatial Durbin model |
| Date: | 2013–10–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00878888&r=ure |
| By: | Rajashri Chakrabarti; Max Livingston; Joydeep Roy |
| Abstract: | During the Great Recession and its aftermath, state and local governments’ revenue streams dried up due to diminished taxes. Budget cuts affected many aspects of government; in this paper, we investigate whether (and how) local school districts modified their funding and taxing decisions in response to changes in state aid in the post-recession period. Using detailed district-level panel data from New York and a fixed effects as well as an instrumental variables strategy, we find strong evidence that school districts did indeed respond to state aid cuts in the post-recession period by countering the cuts. In comparison with the pre-recession period, a unit decrease in state aid was associated with a relative increase in local funding per pupil. To further probe the school district role, we explore whether the property tax rate, which districts set each year in response to budgetary needs, also responded to state aid cuts. Indeed, we find that relative to the pre-recession period, the post-recession period was characterized by a strong negative relationship between the property tax rate and state aid per pupil. In other words, after the recession a unit decrease in state aid was associated with a relative increase in the property tax rate in the post-recession period (in comparison with the pre-recession period). |
| Keywords: | Education - Economic aspects ; Taxation ; Local finance ; Real property and taxation ; Recessions |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:643&r=ure |
| By: | Andrey Zakharov (National Research University Higher School of Economics. International Laboratory for Educational Policy Research. Deputy Head.); Martin Carnoy (Stanford University. Vida Jacks Professor of Education.); Prashant Loyalka (Stanford University. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Center Research Fellow.) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between teaching practices aimed at raising student performance on a high stakes college entrance examination—the Russian Unified State Exam (USE) — and student performance on that test. The study uses data from a school/classroom survey of almost 3,000 students conducted in 2010 in three Russian regions. The analysis employs a student fixed effects method that estimates the impact of teaching practices used by students’ mathematics and Russian language teachers on students’ exam results. To test for possible heterogeneous effects of practices in different academic tracks, the study estimates the practices’ effect on USE scores for students in advanced and basic level tracks. The study finds that the only strategy with positive effects on test outcomes is greater amounts of subject-specific homework geared to different types of test items, and that the most effective type of homework differs across tracks |
| Keywords: | teaching practices, curriculum, student achievement, selection bias, student fixed effect, high-stakes examinations |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:13edu2013&r=ure |
| By: | Sumit Agarwal; Itzhak Ben-David; Vincent Yao |
| Abstract: | Financially constrained borrowers have the incentive to influence the appraisal process in order to increase borrowing or reduce the interest rate. We document that the average valuation bias for residential refinance transactions is above 5%. The bias is larger for highly leveraged transactions, around critical leverage thresholds, and for transactions mediated through a broker. Mortgages with inflated valuations default more often; however, lenders partly account for the valuation bias through pricing. |
| JEL: | D03 D1 D10 D12 D14 D18 G01 G02 G17 G2 G21 G23 G30 K20 L85 R2 R21 R3 R31 R51 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19606&r=ure |
| By: | Vera Titkova (Sociology of Education and Science Lab, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Researcher.); Valeria Ivaniushina (Sociology of Education and Science Lab, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Senior Researcher.); Daniel Alexandrov (Sociology of Education and Science Lab, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Professor) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how the sociometric popularity of schoolchildren is related to individual academic achievements in a context of different levels of academic culture and educational aspirations in the classroom. The sample includes 5058 students in 270 classes from 98 schools in St. Petersburg. To examine class-level effects, we employ multi-level hierarchical models using HLM 7 software. Different effects for boys and girls were found, indicating that the relationship between academic performance and popularity is gender-specific. The results demonstrate that in classes with a low learning motivation individual academic achievements of boys are negatively related to their popularity, while in classes with a high academic culture the relationship is positive |
| Keywords: | popularity, sociometry, academic culture, motivation. |
| JEL: | I21 C12 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:10edu2013&r=ure |
| By: | Zheng Liu; Jianjun Miao; Tao Zha |
| Abstract: | We integrate the housing market and the labor market in a dynamic general equilibrium model with credit and search frictions. The model is confronted with the U.S. macroeconomic time series. Our estimated model can account for two prominent facts observed in the data. First, the land price and the unemployment rate tend to move in opposite directions over the business cycle. Second, a shock that moves the land price is capable of generating large volatility in unemployment. Our estimation indicates that a 10 percent drop in the land price leads to a 0.34 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate (relative to its steady state). |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2013-06&r=ure |
| By: | Banks, Joanne; McCoy, Selina |
| Keywords: | children |
| Date: | 2013–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:rb2013/2/6&r=ure |
| By: | MIYAGAWA Tsutomu; KAWASAKI Kazuyasu; EAMURA Kazuma |
| Abstract: | This paper reexamines the effects of public capital on productivity growth at the regional level by using the Regional-Level Japan Industrial Productivity Database (R-JIP). When we estimate a production function including public capital in total factor productivity (TFP), we find positive and significant effects of public capital on productivity growth after the collapse of the bubble economy. As total public expenditures have decreased since the mid 1990s, our results imply that public investment after 1991 was allocated more efficiently than prior to 1990. However, the dispersion of the estimated rate of return on public capital and its Tobin's Q have expanded since 1991. This implies that the government has allocated public capital to rural areas more heavily than to urban areas. We also examine the effects of public investment on business investment by using the Manufacturer's Survey and the R-JIP. The estimation results show the positive effect of public investment on business investment. |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:13071&r=ure |
| By: | Aggeborn, Linuz (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the causal link between voter turnout and policy outcomes related to the size of government. Tax rate and public expenditures are the focal policy outcomes in this study. To capture the causal mechanism, Swedish and Finnish municipal data are used and a constitutional change in Sweden in 1970 is applied as an instrument for voter turnout in local elections. In 1970, Sweden moved from having separate election days for different levels of government,among other things, to a system with a single election day for political elections, thus reducing the cost associated with voting. This constitutional reform increased voter turnout in local elections in Sweden. The overall conclusion of this paper is that higher voter turnout yields higher municipal taxes and larger local public expenditures. Second,there is some evidence that higher turnout decreases the vote share for right-wing parties. |
| Keywords: | Voter Turnout; Size of government; Sweden; Finland; Local public finance; Instrumental variable regression |
| JEL: | D70 D72 H39 |
| Date: | 2013–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uufswp:2013_014&r=ure |
| By: | Philip Amison; David Bailey |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the links between open innovation and the emergence of a phoenix industry – the low carbon vehicles sector - in the UK’s traditional automotive heartland, focusing on the West Midlands region. It highlights three major factors in driving the development of this ‘phoenix’ industry at a regional level. Firstly, it highlights the role of ‘open innovation’ approaches in driving the sector, for example noting that smaller firms can sometimes innovate more quickly/more cheaply than the major auto firms; the increased interaction across technologies, up and down supply chains and between larger and smaller firms. In so doing, it also notes the role of hybrid firms providing services, plus prototyping/low volume manufacturing (largely in niche vehicles) and the transferability of these competences across industrial sectors. Secondly, it points to the role of historic (and relatively immobile) investments in the region, for example the past/ongoing importance of established mass producers, the depth of skills and experience in suppliers and in the local workforce; and cross-overs with the overlapping motorsport cluster. Finally, it stresses the role of public-private sector cooperation, such as: the establishment of the Automotive Council UK and its work in developing technology roadmaps, informing regulation, and supporting development of the UK supply chain (a type of industrial policy as a discovery process and in line with ‘smart specialisation’ principles); the R&D funding programmes developed with industry input; and the earlier role of the Regional Development Agency. Overall, it points to the possibilities of building smart specialisation strategies and industrial policies which are aligned with ‘high-road strategies’. |
| Keywords: | Clusters, ecological innovation, high road strategy, industrial policy, innovation policy, new technologies, post-industrialisation |
| JEL: | O3 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:feu:wfewop:y:2013:m:11:d:0:i:45&r=ure |
| By: | Phil Cooke |
| Abstract: | This paper marks a departure in seeking to develop the conceptual and practical apparatus of a regional innovation system (RIS) for science & technology-disadvantaged regions. It is empirically based and builds on insights about the limitations of STI (The Science-Technology-Innovation Approach, which is Linear, Specialist, Exclusive, Explicit/Codified, Global) and the strengths of DUI (The Doing-Using-Interacting Approach, which is Interactive, Diversified, Inclusive, Implicit, Regional/Local). DUI is highly compatible with Schumpeterian understanding that the core process of innovation is 'knowledge recombination'. From an evolutionary economic geography perspective, which is taken in the paper, this raises interesting issues for the economics of knowledge. First it underlines the need to pay serious attention to questions of the 'proximity' imperative, suggesting not that knowledge is easily appropriable for ('open') innovation but that it may be excessively difficult to identify because it lies hidden in possibly neighbouring - but different - industries and firms. Thus, second, it makes the notion of 'knowledge spillovers' problematic because the spillovers may not be forthcoming at all or may come in unrecognisable forms. Hence, third, this means that firms likely need more than usual RIS intermediation (including knowledge demonstration and transfer services) to avoid market failures of innovation. Assistance with identification of ‘modular’ policy elements is only one of the services required for DUI product, process and policy innovation. The complexity theory notion of 'transversality' has been advanced to capture the 'emergence' of novelty out of contexts of difference, unifying a solution to the three conceptual problem-issues raised in the paper. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1321&r=ure |
| By: | Pamela Bombarda (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - CNRS : UMR8184 - Université de Cergy Pontoise) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how market-access strategies, via exports and FDI, respond to changes in the level of integration. Empirical evidence shows that both firm exports and multinational activity are affected by trade-liberalization episodes. We account for the strong positive correlation between exports and FDI by developing a general-equilibrium model featuring firm heterogeneity, trade and FDI with final and intermediate products. Different geographical spaces are considered to quantify the effect of a preferential trade agreement (PTA) on supply-mode decisions, for both partner and excluded countries. The model sheds new light on the mechanisms through which geography reshapes the concentration of economic activities both inside and outside the PTA area. |
| Keywords: | Heterogeneous firms; PTA; Spatial networks; Intra-firm trade |
| Date: | 2013–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00877201&r=ure |
| By: | Siregar, Reza; Miyaki, Keita |
| Abstract: | The primary objective of our study is to look into possible catalytic roles that CMIM, a regional financial arrangement among ASEAN+3 economies and its surveillance unit(AMRO) can play in enhancing macroeconomic policy cooperation in this region. The key questions that the study hopes to address are: can CMIM and AMRO provide impetuses for deeper and more meaningful macroeconomic policy cooperation in the region? What are the policy areas and what could be the catalytic roles for CMIM and AMRO in promoting policy cooperation? |
| Keywords: | CMIM, AMRO, ASEAN+3, Regional Financial Cooperation |
| JEL: | E61 F15 F33 |
| Date: | 2013–10–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:51050&r=ure |
| By: | Chevalier, Arnaud; Harmon, Colm; O'Sullivan, Vincent; Walker, Ian |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship between early school-leaving and parental education and paternal income using UK Labour Force Survey data. OLS estimation reveals modest effects of income, stronger effects of maternal education relative to paternal, and stronger effects on sons. Using IV methods to simultaneously model the endogeneity of parental education and income, we find no effect of maternal education. Under certain assumptions, paternal education remains significant (for daughters only). Similarly there are modest effects of paternal income for sons. Thus policies that alleviate income constraints to alter schooling decisions may not be as effective as policies which increase permanent income. |
| Keywords: | children/data/education/Policy/schooling |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp468&r=ure |
| By: | Abhimanyu Gupta; M. Robinson |
| Abstract: | This paper develops consistency and asymptotic normality of instrumental variables and least squares estimates for the parameters of a higher-order spatial autoregressive (SAR) model with regressors. The order of the SAR model and the number of regressors are allowed to approach infinity slowly with sample size, and the permissible rate of growth of the dimension of the parameter space relative to sample size is studied. Besides allowing the number of estimable parameters to increase with the data, this has the advantage of accommodating explicitly some asymptotic regimes that arise in practice. Illustrations are discussed, in particular settings where the need for such theory arises quite naturally. A Monte Carlo study analyses various implications of the theory in finite samples. For empirical researchers our work has implications for the choice of model. In particular if the structure of the spatial weights matrix assumes a partitioning of the data then spatial parameters should be allowed to vary over clusters. |
| Date: | 2013–10–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esx:essedp:735&r=ure |
| By: | Juri Plusnin (National Research University Higher School of Economics. Faculty of Public Administration. Professor); Jaroslav Slobodskoy-Plusnin (Russian Academy of Sciences. Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology. Researcher;) |
| Abstract: | The article summarizes the data from a few tens of interviews with entrepreneurs – representatives of a small business. The purpose of the interview was to discover expectations and suggestions from entrepreneurs to the local and state government. Interview data reveal the profound contradictions between the business and the authorities. These contradictions are based not only on results of the local administration’s actions, but also on the specific current status of local (self-)government that makes it impossible to effectively interact with the business. On the other hand, the development of local businesses has led to a peculiar configuration of the business community, also making it difficult to communicate with the authorities. As a result is trying to get protection from the local government that leads to inadmissible merging of business and government and monopolizing of business in almost every district. Direct consequences of such a merging are government inefficiency, lack of incentives for business development, and stagnation. Some “evolutionary stable strategy” has been developed, that does not allow winning any of the actors yet saving them from loses in competition with the outside players. Understanding of the inefficiency and dead-end of such an interaction by some entrepreneurs forces them to raise claims to local authority. Interviews analyses resulted in the list of complaints and suggestions on how to optimize an interaction between the local business and local authorities |
| Keywords: | municipal government, local self-government, small business, business-government interactions, partnership between municipality and business. |
| JEL: | H73 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:04/pa/2013&r=ure |
| By: | Patricia C. Mosser; Joseph Tracy; Joshua Wright |
| Abstract: | We explore the capital structure and governance of a mortgage-insuring securitization utility operating with government reinsurance for systemic or “tail” risk. The structure we propose for the replacement of the GSEs focuses on aligning incentives for appropriate pricing and transfer of mortgage risks across the private sector and between the private sector and the government. We present the justification and mechanics of a vintage-based capital structure, and assess the components of the mortgage guarantee fee, whose size we find is most sensitive to the required capital ratio and the expected return on that capital. We discuss the implications of selling off some of the utility’s mortgage credit risk to the capital markets and how the informational value of such transactions may vary with the level of risk transfer. Finally, we explore how mutualization could address incentive misalignments arising out of securitization and government insurance, as well as how the governance structure for such a financial market utility could be designed. |
| Keywords: | Mortgage-backed securities ; Government-sponsored enterprises ; Mortgages ; Risk management |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednsr:644&r=ure |
| By: | THISSE, J.-F.; WARD, J.E.; WENDELL, R.E. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cor:louvrp:-620&r=ure |
| By: | Benjaming Dachis (C.D. Howe Institute); Adam Found (University of Toronto); Peter Tomlinson (University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | Business property taxes are a major part of the tax burden on new business investment that can tip the balance in the competition for capital among Canadian cities and provinces, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “What Gets Measured Gets Managed: The Economic Burden of Business Property Taxes,” authors Adam Found, Benjamin Dachis, and Peter Tomlinson conduct groundbreaking research into the impact of business property taxes (BPTs) in localities across Canada and show where they are highest and lowest. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal and Tax Competitiveness |
| JEL: | H25 H71 |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdh:ebrief:166&r=ure |
| By: | Eliasson, Jonas (KTH); Börjesson, Maria (KTH) |
| Abstract: | The benefits captured in an appraisal of a railway investment are determined by what timetables the analyst assumes in the scenarios with and without the investment. Without an explicit, objective and verifiable principle for which timetables to assume, the appraisal outcome is virtually arbitrary. This means that appraisals of railway investments cannot be compared to each other, and opens the door for strategic behaviour by stakeholders conducting seemingly objective cost-benefit analysis. We explain and illustrate the nature and extent of the problem, and discuss the practical consequences for appraisal comparability and conscious or unconscious misrepresentation. Finally, we discuss possible objective principles for appraisal timetable construction and contrast this with current practice, which is shown to be likely to exaggerate investment benefits in an appraisal. |
| Keywords: | Cost-benefit analysis; Appraisal; Railway investments; Timetables |
| JEL: | R40 |
| Date: | 2013–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2013_031&r=ure |
| By: | Jan in 't Veld |
| Abstract: | A model-based assessment of the macro-economic impact of consolidations and their spillovers in the euro area in 2011-13. This paper uses a structural multi-country model to assess the impact of fiscal consolidation measures undertaken in 2011-13 in the EA periphery and core. The simulations assume 'crisis' conditions prevailing (high share of constrained households, ZLB). The GDP effects depend crucially on the composition of the consolidation and on how quickly expectations are affected. Expenditure-based consolidations have larger impact multipliers than revenue-based consolidations. Average multipliers for domestic fiscal shocks range from 0.5 and 1, depending on the degree of openness. But spillovers of fiscal consolidations are large, with both the demand channel and the competitiveness channel adding to the negative GDP effects. Higher risk premia add further to the negative GDP effects. Spillovers from consolidations in Germany and core EA have worsened the overall economic situation. A temporary fiscal stimulus in surplus countries can boost output and help reduce their current account surpluses. The improvement in current account deficits in the periphery is however small. |
| Date: | 2013–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:euf:ecopap:0506&r=ure |