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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Firman Permana Wandani (Ministry of Public Works, JL); Yuichiro Yoshida (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the spatial dimensions of automobile and motorcycle trips on national roads between neighboring cities in Indonesia, using spatial econometric models. Vehicle trips are measured in terms of vehicle kilo- meters traveled (VKT) for both types of vehicles. The study finds that motorcycle trips are characteristically local because there is no sign of a spatial correlation with neighboring cities for such trips; by contrast, automobile trips are often made across city boundaries, although the models demonstrate only small spatial correlations among neighboring cities for automobile trips. The models also indicate that road capacity, gasoline prices, income in the region, population and worker density, city size, and number of public buses, have significant effects on VKT. The results suggest that in general, urban transportation policies for national roads could be less complex because local solutions may be more effective in solving the traffic problems of individual Indonesian cities. |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hir:idecdp:3-11&r=ure |
| By: | Cory Koedel (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia); Mark Ehlert (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia); Eric Parsons (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia); Michael Podgursky (Department of Economics, University of Missouri-Columbia); P. Brett Xiang |
| Abstract: | There is increased policy interest in extending the test-based evaluation framework in K-12 education to include student achievement in high school. High school achievement is typically measured by performance on end-of-course exams (EOCs), which test course-specific standards in subjects including algebra, biology, English, geometry, and history, among others. However, unlike standardized tests in the early grades, students take EOCs at different points in their schooling careers. The timing of the test is a choice variable presumably determined by input from administrators, students and parents. Recent research indicates that school and district policies that determine when students take particular courses can have important consequences for achievement and subsequent outcomes, such as advanced course taking. The contribution of the present study is to develop an approach for modeling EOC test performance that disentangles the influence of school and district policies regarding the timing of course taking from other factors. After separating out the timing issue, better measures of the quality of instruction provided by districts, schools and teachers can be obtained. Our approach also offers diagnostic value because it explicitly separates out the influence of school and district course-taking policies from other factors that determine student achievement. |
| Keywords: | value-added, end-of-course exam, end-of-course testing, course timing |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2014–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:1401&r=ure |
| By: | Honglin Wang (Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research); Fan Yu (Claremont McKenna College); Yinggang Zhou (The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research) |
| Abstract: | The conventional wisdom that house prices are the present value of future rents ignores the fact that rents are not discretionary as in dividends on stocks. Housing price uncertainty can affect household property investment, which in turn affects rent. By extending the theory of investment under uncertainty, we model the renter's decision to buy a house and the landlord's decision to sell as real options of waiting and examine real options effects on rent. Using unique data from Hong Kong, we find significant a causal effect of house prices on rents and draw important policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Investment Under Uncertainty, Real Options, House Price, Rent, Causal Effect |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hkm:wpaper:242013&r=ure |
| By: | Garriga, Carlos (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); Kydland, Finn E. (University of California–Santa Barbara); Šustek, Roman (Queen Mary, University of London) |
| Abstract: | Mortgage loans are a striking example of a persistent nominal rigidity. As a result, under incomplete markets, monetary policy affects decisions through the cost of new mortgage borrowing and the value of payments on outstanding debt. Observed debt levels and payment to income ratios suggest the role of such loans in monetary transmission may be important. A general equilibrium model is developed to address this question. The transmission is found to be stronger under adjustable- than fixed-rate contracts. The source of impulse also matters: persistent inflation shocks have larger effects than cyclical fluctuations in inflation and nominal interest rates. |
| Keywords: | Mortgages; debt servicing costs; monetary policy; transmission mechanism; housing investment. |
| JEL: | E32 E52 G21 R21 |
| Date: | 2013–12–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2013-037&r=ure |
| By: | Shenila Rawal; Monazza Aslam; Baela Jamil |
| Abstract: | Substandard teaching is believed to be the foremost reason for poor quality schooling in the developing world. This paper uses unique data from primary schools in the state of Punjab in Pakistan to delve into the issues that may determine what makes one teacher more effective than another. The hypothesis that differential teacher effectiveness stems from far more than observable teacher characteristics is tested and more nuanced reasons behind these differences are examined. In particular, teacher attitudes and opinions are investigated to give a more holistic approach to researching teacher effectiveness and its impact on student learning. |
| Keywords: | teacher effectiveness, student achievement, teacher attitudes, teacher opinions, fixed effects, Pakistan |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2013-19&r=ure |
| By: | George Verikios; Xiao-guang Zhang |
| Abstract: | Australian urban transport industries experienced substantial reform during the 1990s leading to significant structural change. Urban transport is typically an important expenditure item for households and structural change in these services may affect households differently depending on their position in the distribution of income and expenditure. We estimate the effects on household income groups of this structural change by applying a computable general equilibrium model incorporating microsimulation behaviour with top-down and bottom-up links. We compare estimates based on a pure microsimulation approach, a top-down approach and a hybrid top-down/bottom-up approach. We estimate small reductions in real income and small reductions in inequality; this pattern is largely replicated across regions. Our results are insensitive to the inclusion of bottom-up links; in contrast, applying a pure microsimulation approach gives accurate results at the aggregate level but underestimates the variation in effects across deciles and regions. |
| Keywords: | computable general equilibrium, income distribution, microeconomic reform, microsimulation, urban transport |
| JEL: | C68 C69 D31 L92 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-239&r=ure |
| By: | Gómez-González, José E. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); Ojeda-Joya, Jair N. (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); Rey-Guerra, Catalina (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas); Sicard, Natalia (Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas) |
| Abstract: | In the context of financial crises influenced by the development and burst of housing price bubbles, the detection of exuberant behaviors in the financial market and the implementation of early warning diagnosis tests are of vital importance. This paper applies the new method developed by Phillips et al (2012) for detecting bubbles in the Colombian residential property market. The empirical results suggest that currently the country could be experiencing a price bubble, when the CPI and the housing rent index are used as deflators. We do not check the robustness of these results to alternative deflators, such as a household income index and a land price index, due to the lack of monthly data on these indicators. |
| Keywords: | housing-price bubbles; unit-root tests; Colombia |
| JEL: | C22 G12 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddgw:164&r=ure |
| By: | Fischer, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Karlsson, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Nilsson, Therese (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Theoretically, there are several reasons to expect education to have a positive effect on health and empirical research suggests that education can be an important health determinant. However, it has not yet been established whether education and health are indeed causally related, and the effects found in previous studies may be partially attributable to methodological weaknesses. Moreover, existing evidence on the education-health relationship using information of schooling reforms for identification, generally use information from fairly recent reforms implying that health outcomes are observed only over a limited time period. This paper examines the effect of education on mortality using information on a national roll-out of a reform leading to one extra year of compulsory schooling in Sweden. In 1936, the national government made a seventh school year compulsory; however, the implementation was decided at the school district level, and the reform was implemented over a period of 12 years. Taking advantage of the variation in the timing of the implementation across school districts, by using county-level proportions of reformed districts, census data and administrative mortality data, we find that the extra compulsory school year reduced mortality. In fact, the mortality reduction is discernible already before the age of 30 and then grows in magnitude until the age of 55–60. |
| Keywords: | Returns to schooling; Education Reform; Mortality |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I21 |
| Date: | 2013–12–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:0992&r=ure |
| By: | Gerlach, Petra; Merola, Rossana |
| Abstract: | Since the onset of the financial crisis, consumption has fallen in many economies. This paper presents a small-scale DSGE model with occasionally binding credit constraints. Indebted households start facing credit constraints when the value of their main asset, which we assume to be housing, declines. As a response, they stop smoothing consumption and deleverage. We show that even households that only expect to face a credit constraint in the future deleverage. In an Irish dataset collected during the crisis, we reject the permanent income hypothesis for highly leveraged households and thus find evidence for a disruption in consumption smoothing. This effect suggests the presence of credit constraints. |
| Keywords: | DSGE/Ireland/housing collateral/Occasionally binding credit constraint |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp471&r=ure |
| By: | Joshua Angrist |
| Abstract: | Individual outcomes are highly correlated with group average outcomes, a fact often interpreted as a causal peer effect. Without covariates, however, outcome-on-outcome peer effects are vacuous, either unity or, if the average is defined as leave-out, determined by a generic intraclass correlation coefficient. When pre-determined peer characteristics are introduced as covariates in a model linking individual outcomes with group averages, the question of whether peer effects or social spillovers exist is econometrically identical to that of whether a 2SLS estimator using group dummies to instrument individual characteristics differs from OLS estimates of the effect of these characteristics. The interpretation of results from models that rely solely on chance variation in peer groups is therefore complicated by bias from weak instruments. With systematic variation in group composition, the weak IV issue falls away, but the resulting 2SLS estimates can be expected to exceed the corresponding OLS estimates as a result of measurement error and other reasons unrelated to social effects. Randomized and quasi-experimental research designs that manipulate peer characteristics in a manner unrelated to individual characteristics provide the strongest evidence on the nature of social spillovers. As an empirical matter, designs of this sort have uncovered little in the way of socially significant causal effects. |
| JEL: | C18 C31 C36 I21 I31 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19774&r=ure |
| By: | Taylor J. Canann (Department of Economics, Brigham Young University); Richard W. Evans (Department of Economics, Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | This study tests the degree to which payday and title lenders differentiate their store location and interest rates based on the socioeconomic characteristics of the areas in which they operate. We use store-level lender data, geographically matched IRS income data, and Census Bureau demographic data to answer these questions. In the case of lender location, we find that payday and title lenders tend to locate in areas with lower median age, a larger population of not married households, more restaurants, and more pawn shops. We also find a nonlinear relationship between lender location and individual incomes in the surrounding area. Regarding lender interest rates, we find that competition among lenders reduces average interest rates and that riskiness of borrowers, as measured by defaults, increases average interest rates. We also find that payday and title lenders have higher interest rates in areas with lower educational attainment, smaller proportions of Black residents, and fewer married households. This evidence seems to contradict the argument that payday and title lenders prey on minorities. |
| Keywords: | Consumer lending, interest rates, payday lending, lender location |
| JEL: | C35 D22 E43 G23 |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:byu:byumcl:201306&r=ure |
| By: | Charles I. Plosser |
| Abstract: | President Charles I. Plosser discusses the meaning of resilience and shares his personal experiences with resilient communities, in opening remarks at "Reinventing Older Communities: Building Resilient Cities," in Philadelphia. He also outlines the Bank's new research project to measure urban resilience. |
| Keywords: | Industries ; Community development ; Cities and towns |
| Date: | 2012–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedpsp:70&r=ure |
| By: | Daisuke Ichinose (School of Economics, Rikkyo University); Masashi Yamamoto (Center for Far Eastern Studies, University of Toyama); Yuichiro Yoshida (Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation, Hiroshima University) |
| Abstract: | A number of developing countries have come to face the growing problems of municipal solid waste management caused by rapid economic growth. Although there are many studies on the environmental Kuznets curve, very few address the issue of municipal solid waste, and there is still controversy concerning the validity of the waste version of the Kuznets curve hypothesis. In this paper, we provide empirical evidence in support of the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis by applying spatial econometrics methods to municipal-level data from Japan. The study finds valid evidence for the waste Kuznets curve hypothesis using the absolute decoupling method. It is demonstrated that the turning point for household municipal solid waste is approximately 3.7 million yen per person, which is far less than the maximum income in the sample. The success of our study partially stems from our highly disaggregated data and use of a spatial econometrics model that accounts for the mimicking behavior of neighboring municipalities. The former aspect indicates that distinguishing between household and business waste reveals the waste-income relationship, whereas the latter indicates the importance of peer effects when municipal governments formulate waste-reduction policies. |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hir:idecdp:3-10&r=ure |
| By: | Shcherbakova, Nadezda |
| Abstract: | This paper explores whether biological mechanisms, induced by the overpopulation of a territory, exert essential influence on cities' growth, and whether the level of economic development of a country is significant, when biological mechanisms are in operation. To answer these questions, four hypotheses, based on the theoretical statements and empirical findings of ethology and demography, are formed. The results of regression analysis of statistical data on national level, applied to test these hypothesis, show that that biological factors should be considered as one of the determinants of cities' growth, but a complex analysis of factors of urban development is needed. The biological mechanisms of population reduction play a significant role in the least and less developed countries: with per capita GDP growth the concentration of population in big cities increases. Total fertility rate varies significantly in these countries, but with population growth it gradually decreases. In more developed countries with high per capita GDP level less than 60% of people live in cities with the population of 1 million inhabitants or more, and a total fertility rate stabilizes there at a simple reproduction level of ca. 2,0 births per woman. |
| Keywords: | urbanization, overpopulation, fertility rate, birth rate, population density |
| JEL: | J13 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:52299&r=ure |
| By: | Hyland, Marie; Layte, Richard; Lyons, Sean; McCoy, Selina; Silles, Mary |
| Abstract: | This paper combines data from a government programme providing broadband access to primary schools in Ireland with survey microdata on schools', teachers' and pupils use of the internet to examine the links between public subsidies, classroom use of the internet and educational performance. Provision of broadband service under a government scheme was associated with more than a doubling of teachers' use of the internet in class after about a two year lag. Better computing facilities in schools were also associated with higher internet use, but advertised download speed was not statistically significant. A second set of models show that use of the internet in class was associated with higher average mathematics scores on standardised tests, but that any association with reading scores was marginal. A range of confounding factors is also explored, with results broadly in line with previous literature. -- |
| Keywords: | internet use,primary education,academic performance |
| JEL: | H52 L86 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse13:88520&r=ure |
| By: | Yoon, Chang-Ho; Na, Kyoung-Youn |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of ICT growth on the productivity effects of transportation infrastructure. Using dynamic panel data of OECD member countries, the study finds econometrically meaningful results on examining the complementarity between ICT and transportation infrastructures. The network effect of growth of motorway infrastructure in advanced countries tends to accelerate when the ICT network grows beyond a certain threshold level. -- |
| Keywords: | Intelligent Transport System,ICT convergence,productivity growth,complementarity |
| JEL: | O47 O38 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse13:88526&r=ure |