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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Ajay Sharma (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research); S Chandrasekhar (Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research) |
| Abstract: | Unlike migration, scant attention has been paid to the phenomenon of commuting by workers in developing countries. This paper fills this gap by using a nationally representative data set from India to analyze factors that affect the decision of workers to commute across rural and urban areas daily. Our results suggest that regions with large peripheral urban areas or concentration of secondary sector jobs are more likely to have commuting workers. Regional rural and urban unemployment rates and rural-urban wage differentials are important push and pull factors in the decision to commute. |
| Keywords: | Commuting, Peri-urban areas, Spatial distribution of economic activities, Urbanization, Rural-urban interaction, India |
| JEL: | R11 R23 J21 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ind:igiwpp:2014-015&r=ure |
| By: | Michael LeGower; Randall Walsh |
| Abstract: | Following the example of the Kalamazoo Promise initiated in 2005, place-based "Promise'' scholarship programs have proliferated over the past 8 years. These programs guarantee money towards the costs of attendance at selected colleges and universities provided that a student has resided and attended school within a particular public school district continuously for at least the four years prior to graduation. While some early programs have been studied in isolation, the impact of such programs in general is not well understood. In addition, although there is substantial and controversial variation from the original program's design, there is no direct evidence on how outcomes vary along with these design choices. We use a difference-in-difference approach to compare the evolution of both school enrollments and residential real estate prices around the announcement of these programs within the affected Promise zone and in the surrounding area. Taken together, our estimates suggest that these scholarships have important distributional effects that bear further examination. In particular, while estimates indicate that public school enrollments increase in Promise zones relative to their surrounding areas following Promise announcements, schools associated with merit-based programs experience increases in white enrollment and decreases in non-white enrollment. Furthermore, housing price effects are larger in neighborhoods with high quality schools and in the upper half of the housing price distribution, suggesting higher valuation by high-income households. These patterns lead us to conclude that such scholarships are primarily affecting the behavior of households living above the median income for whom they present the greatest value and that merit-based versions disproportionately impact white households. |
| JEL: | I22 I24 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20056&r=ure |
| By: | Fabian Lindner |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the relation between mortgage credit and housing values. It has become conventional wisdom in policy circles that credit growth led to the housing bubble in the US. However, this statement has not been empirically tested as of yet. The paper uses the Johansen procedure to estimate a long run relationship between mortgage credit and housing prices between 1984 and 2012 and analyzes the interactions between the variables. To this effect, two models with two different housing price variables are estimated. It is found that mortgage credit is weakly exogenous. Impulse-response functions, variance decompositions and out of sample forecast also show that mortgage credit drives housing prices and not vice versa. The paper also looks at the effect of short-term and long-term interest rates and does not find important influences of both on housing prices or mortgage credit. The role of monetary policy is not likely to have been very strong in the built-up of the housing bubble. |
| Keywords: | Housing Prices, Mortgage Markets, Monetary Policy |
| JEL: | E22 E44 E52 G21 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imk:wpaper:133-2013&r=ure |
| By: | Renata Lemos |
| Abstract: | Better school management is associated with better pupil achievement, according to CEP analysis of the quality of management practices in schools in a range of developed and developing countries. Renata Lemos notes that the quality of school management is related to leadership traits of the head teachers - and that management practices have a greater effect on pupil outcomes than the effects of class size, competition or teaching quality. |
| Keywords: | Education, management, school management index, pupil outcomes, school performance |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:424&r=ure |
| By: | Michela Tincani (University College London) |
| Abstract: | Countries around the world are adopting market-oriented school choice reforms. Evidence shows that they aect both student and teacher sorting across school sectors. Previous studies have analyzed student and teacher sorting in isolation from each other. This is the first paper to unify parental school choice and teacher sorting in an equilibrium framework. Using data from the large-scale Chilean voucher plan, this paper extends the existing literature in three ways. First, it evaluates how much of the treatment effect of Chilean voucher schools is due to teacher quality. Second, it examines the welfare implications of school specialization in different types of students. Third, it evaluates the impact of school choice expansion with endogenous public and private school teacher quality. There are three main results. First, better teacher quality accounts for 19 percent of the private school eectiveness in Chile. Second, assortative matching of students to teachers by ability can be welfare improving for low-ability students if the schools that have less able teachers are also those that specialize in the weakest students. Third, under the Chilean plan, highly skilled teachers are attracted into private schools from outside of teaching, with only limited cream skimming of teachers from public schools. |
| Keywords: | school vouchers, teachers, student sorting, structural model, Structural estimation |
| JEL: | I22 J45 C51 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2014-012&r=ure |
| By: | Leguizamon, Susane; Christafore, David |
| Abstract: | We estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of individuals to have increased spatial access to hospitals using a spatial hedonic price model. Employing a dataset of over 90,000 detailed housing observations, we find that WTP of individuals to live one mile closer to a hospital is positive if the hospital is a designated public hospital, lower for private hospitals and insignificant for non-profit hospitals. Areas comprised of a relatively large population of black residents value spatial access significantly more and, for higher concentrations, exhibit a positive willingness to pay for all hospital types. This is likely due to increased transportation costs of individuals in minority areas. |
| Keywords: | Health Care, Housing Markets, Cost-Benefit Analysis |
| JEL: | I11 I18 R53 |
| Date: | 2014–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55926&r=ure |
| By: | Brännäs, Kurt (Department of Economics, Umeå School of Business and Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper suggests and studies count data models corresponding to previously studied spatial econometric models for continuous variables. A novel way of incorporating spatial weights is considered for both time and space dynamic models with or without simultaneity. The paper also contains a brief discussion about estimation issues. |
| Keywords: | Integer-valued; Space; Time; Regional; Thinning; Estimation |
| JEL: | C31 C32 C51 R12 R15 R23 |
| Date: | 2014–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0883&r=ure |
| By: | Leung, Charles Ka Yui (City University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | Central to recent debates on the "mis-pricing" in the housing market and the proactive policy of central bank is the determination of the "fundamental house price." This paper builds a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that produces reduced-form dynamics that are consistent with the error-correction models proposed by Malpezzi (1999) and Capozza et al (2004). The dynamics of equilibrium house prices are tied to the dynamics of the house-price-to-income ratio. This paper also shows that house prices and incomes should be co-integrated, and hence provides a justification of using co-integration tests to detect possible "mis-pricing" in the housing market. |
| Keywords: | prices; business fluctuations; cycles; economic growth; real estate markets |
| JEL: | E30 O40 R30 |
| Date: | 2014–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddgw:177&r=ure |
| By: | Paul Cheshire |
| Abstract: | Britain's crisis of housing affordability is nothing to do with foreign speculators, according to Paul Cheshire. Rather, it is a result of decades of misguided planning policies that constrain the supply of land and turn houses into something like gold or artworks. Houses have been converted from places in which to live into people's most important financial asset. |
| Keywords: | Housing, house prices, planning, greenbelt, land development |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:421&r=ure |
| By: | Fredrik Andersson; John C. Haltiwanger; Mark J. Kutzbach; Henry O. Pollakowski; Daniel H. Weinberg |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new approach to the measurement of the effects of spatial mismatch that takes advantage of matched employer-employee administrative data integrated with a person-specific job accessibility measure, as well as demographic and neighborhood characteristics. The basic hypothesis is that if spatial mismatch is present, then improved accessibility to appropriate jobs should shorten the duration of unemployment. We focus on lower-income workers with strong labor force attachment searching for employment after being subject to a mass layoff – thereby focusing on a group of job searchers that are plausibly searching for exogenous reasons. We construct person-specific measures of job accessibility based upon an empirical model of transport modal choice and network travel-time data, giving variation both across neighborhoods in nine metropolitan areas, as well as across neighbors. Our results support the spatial mismatch hypothesis. We find that better job accessibility significantly decreases the duration of joblessness among lower-paid displaced workers. Blacks, females, and older workers are more sensitive to job accessibility than other subpopulations. |
| JEL: | J64 R23 R41 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20066&r=ure |
| By: | Camilo Alberto Cárdenas Hurtado; María Alejandra Hernández Montes; Jhon Edwar Torres Gorron |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the structural determinants of differentials in unemployment rates and labour markets’ performance for colombian cities. Following the framework proposed by Elhorst (2003) and using cross-sectional data for 23 metropolitan areas, we apply an extension of a principal axes method proposed by Bécue-Bertaut and Pagès (2004, 2008), Multiple Factor Analysis for Multiple Contingency Tables (MFACT), in order to establish unobserved factors that are relevant when disentangling the heterogeneity captured by groups of variables that are considered to explain regional unemployment differentials. Our findings suggest that differences on qualified labour supply levels, participation incentives and age structure are important to understand regional heterogeneity on labour markets and unemployment rates. In addition, we find that cities that display high unemployment rates do not necessarily share the same characteristics, that is, frictions that originate unemployment are not the same across colombian cities. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment rate, regional, heterogeneity, differentials, factor analysis |
| JEL: | R23 J40 |
| Date: | 2014–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:011122&r=ure |
| By: | Nicolás Ajzenman; Sebastian Galiani; Enrique Seira |
| Abstract: | Reliable estimates of the effects of violence on economic outcomes are scarce. We exploit the manyfold increase in homicides in 2008-2011 in Mexico resulting from its war on organized drug traffickers to estimate the effect of drug-related homicides on house prices. We use an unusually rich dataset that provides national coverage on house prices and homicides and exploit within-municipality variations. We find that the impact of violence on housing prices is borne entirely by the poor sectors of the population. An increase in homicides equivalent to one standard deviation leads to a 3% decrease in the price of low-income housing. In spite of this large burden on the poor, the willingness to pay in order to reverse the increase in drug-related crime is not high. We estimate it to be approximately 0.1% of Mexico’s GDP. |
| JEL: | I3 K4 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20067&r=ure |
| By: | Alan Manning; Diego Battiston; Richard Dickens; Jonathan Wadsworth |
| Abstract: | Although most UK immigrants are likely to be eligible to apply for social housing, there is no evidence that they have preferential access - if anything the reverse seems to have been the case. But it does seem that there is less discrimination against immigrants and ethnic minorities now than in the past and this removal of discrimination, coupled with a failure to increase the social housing stock, has reduced the availability of social housing for UK native households. According to research by Professor Alan Manning, this is probably the source of the feeling among some white people that social landlords actively discriminate against them in favour of immigrants and ethnic minorities. They are probably right to think that the part of the population attracted to social housing has been neglected, but they are wrong to think that this neglect applies just to them and not to immigrants as well. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, social housing |
| JEL: | F22 R21 H75 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:420&r=ure |
| By: | Brian Gill; Brittany English; Joshua Furgeson; Moira McCullough |
| Keywords: | teacher effectiveness, alternative assessment, high stakes test , student evaluation, curriculum based assessment, teacher expectations of students, teacher made tests, student educational objectives, case studies |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8118&r=ure |
| By: | Allison Shertzer; Tate Twinam; Randall P. Walsh |
| Abstract: | Zoning has been cited as a discriminatory policy tool by critics, who argue that ordinances are used to locate manufacturing activity in minority neighborhoods (environmental racism) and deter the entry of minority residents into good neighborhoods using density restrictions (exclusionary zoning). However, empirically documenting such discriminatory behavior is complicated by the fact that zoning and land use have been co-evolving for nearly a century in most American cities, rendering discrimination and sorting observationally equivalent. We employ a novel approach to overcome this challenge, studying the introduction of comprehensive zoning in Chicago. Using fine-scale spatial data on the location of African Americans and immigrants across the city along with maps of pre-existing land use, we find strong evidence of environmental racism. Both southern black and immigrant neighborhoods appear to have been targeted for increased levels of industrial use zoning. We also find evidence of a pre-cursor to modern day exclusionary zoning. |
| JEL: | K32 N42 Q15 R52 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20108&r=ure |
| By: | Calsamiglia, Caterina (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Guell, Maia (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis) |
| Abstract: | School choice aims to improve (1) the matching between children and schools and (2) students’ educa-tional outcomes. Yet, the concern is that disadvantaged families are less able to exercise choice, which raises (3) equity concerns. The Boston mechanism (BM) is a procedure that is widely used around the world to resolve overdemands for particular schools by defining a set of priority points based on neigh-borhood and socioeconomic characteristics. The mechanism design literature has shown that under the BM, parents may not have incentives to provide their true preferences, thereby establishing a trade-off between preferences and perceived safety. However, the set of possible Nash equilibria arising from the BM is large and has varying properties, and what will actually happen is an empirical question. We exploit an unexpected change in the definition of neighborhood in Barcelona, which provides an exogenous change in the set of schools perceived as safe and allows us to separate housing and schooling decisions to assess the importance of this trade-off in the data. We find that safety carries a large weight in family choice. The huge majority of parents opt for schools for which they have the highest priority—the neighborhood schools—excluding other preferred schools. Similar to the previous literature, we also find that some parents seem naive, but using school registry data, we find that a significant fraction of them have the outside option of private schools, which allows them to take higher risks to access the best public schools. At the other extreme, some of the naive are not matched to any of the schools they applied for. Our results suggest that when allowing school choice under the BM with priorities: (1) the gains in terms of matching seem limited, because the equilibrium allocation is not very different from a neighborhood-based assignment, (2) estimating the effect of choice on outcomes by implementing such a mechanism may lead to a lower bound on the potential effects of having choice, and (3) important inequalities emerge beyond parents’ naivete found in the literature. |
| Keywords: | School choice; Boston mechanism; Priorities |
| JEL: | C78 D63 I24 |
| Date: | 2014–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmwp:712&r=ure |
| By: | Ayadi, Mohamed; Mattoussi, Wided |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine the pattern of spatial concentration of manufacturing industries observed in Tunisia and explore the factors driving firms. choices of location at the provincial level. We consider specialization and competition indicators as the |
| Keywords: | industrial concentration, concentration index, competition index, Tunisia |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-072&r=ure |
| By: | ZHANG Hong-yong |
| Abstract: | This study empirically analyzes the effect of agglomeration economies on firm-level product innovation (new products), using Chinese firm-level data from 1998 to 2007. In terms of new product introduction and new product output, Chinese firms benefit from urbanization economies (as measured by the number of workers in other industries in the same city and by the diversity of industries in the same city). Conversely, there were no positive effects of localization economies (as measured by the number of other workers working for neighboring firms in the same industry and in the same city). These results suggest that, in China, urbanization economies play an important role in fostering product innovation by urban size and diversity. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14022&r=ure |
| By: | ITO Takahiro; KUBOTA Kohei; OHTAKE Fumio |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of the informal school curriculum (hidden curriculum) on subsequent preference formation. The estimation results using Japanese data show that the hidden curriculum at public elementary schools varies widely from place to place, and is associated with preference formation. In particular, those who have experienced "participatory and cooperative learning" practices are more likely to be altruistic, cooperative, reciprocal, and have national pride. In contrast, the influence of educational practices emphasizing "anti-competition" is negatively associated with these attributes. Robustness checks also show that our estimates are less likely to be biased due to omitted variables or reverse causality. These findings imply that elementary school education, as a place for early socialization, plays a role in the formation of social preferences. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:14024&r=ure |
| By: | Hyejin Youn; Lu\'is M. A. Bettencourt; Jos\'e Lobo; Deborah Strumsky; Horacio Samaniego; Geoffrey B. West |
| Abstract: | Understanding cities is central to addressing major global challenges from climate and health to economic resilience. Although increasingly perceived as fundamental socio-economic units, the detailed fabric of urban economic activities is only now accessible to comprehensive analyses with the availability of large datasets. Here, we study abundances of business categories across U.S. metropolitan statistical areas to investigate how diversity of economic activities depends on city size. A universal structure common to all cities is revealed, manifesting self-similarity in internal economic structure as well as aggregated metrics (GDP, patents, crime). A derivation is presented that explains universality and the observed empirical distribution. The model incorporates a generalized preferential attachment process with ceaseless introduction of new business types. Combined with scaling analyses for individual categories, the theory quantitatively predicts how individual business types systematically change rank with city size, thereby providing a quantitative means for estimating their expected abundances as a function of city size. These results shed light on processes of economic differentiation with scale, suggesting a general structure for the growth of national economies as integrated urban systems. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1405.3202&r=ure |
| By: | R. Patuelli; M. Mussoni; G. Candela |
| Abstract: | Culture is more and more considered as an important driver of tourism. However, it is critical, for policymakers, to evaluate the potential returns from investments in culture and generally cultural offer, in particular in multiregion settings with a potentially inefficient distribution of cultural offer. Our paper focuses on the role of distance (between the tourist’s origin and destination regions) in mediating the tourism impact of cultural offer. This research question is investigated by means of a spatial interaction model, applied to the case of Italian domestic tourism. We find that distance indeed matters: a destination’s endowment in culture appears to be more attractive for long-distance tourists, while an origin region’s endowment seems to dinsincentivate long-distance trips to a greater extent. |
| JEL: | C23 L83 R12 Z10 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp943&r=ure |
| By: | BROSIUS Jacques; RAY Jean-Claude; VERHEYDEN Bertrand; WILLIAMS Donald R. |
| Abstract: | Luxembourg has a very unusual labor market, with only 29% of Luxembourgish nationals. The remaining workforce is composed of immigrants (27%) and cross- border workers (44%) who live in one of the three surrounding countries which are France, Germany and Belgium. Research on economic outcomes of immigrants has been a major focus of labor market research in many countries, but the cross-border population has only attracted scarce attention. Even though this topic is of limited relevance in most countries at the national level, similar situations as in Luxembourg can be found in regional and local labor markets in most other countries, around ma- jor cities for example. In this paper we use the example of Luxembourg to investi- gate the determinants of the wage gap between natives and cross-border workers. We first analyze whether this specific commuting workforce is concerned, like the non na- tional population in many other labor markets, by segregation into low-wage firms. We then use a matched employer-employee dataset to investigate the role that firm-specific characteristics play in determining the wage gap. This approach opens interesting per- spectives for expanding the literature on the native-immigrants wage gap. |
| Keywords: | wage gap; cross-border labor market; segregation; multilevel modeling |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J71 R23 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2014-04&r=ure |
| By: | Rappaport, Jordan (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City) |
| Abstract: | The monocentric city framework is generalized to comprise a system of metros. A "representative" closed metro calibrates parameters and establishes a reservation utility and perimeter land price that must be matched by open metros. The open metros are assumed to have exogenous productivity below and above that in the representative metro. For a given level of productivity, transportation technology proves to be the most important quantitative determinant of population, land area, population density, and house prices across and within metros. Changes in highway capacity primarily affect these quantities while leaving commute speeds unchanged. Open metro land area asymptotes to a maximum at only moderately high relative productivity. Open metro land area and population fall to near zero at only moderately low relative productivity. Individuals with long commutes who are required to work a fixed number of hours have a marginal value of leisure time that is far above their wage. The framework yields a number of quantitative insights into how preferences, production technologies, and transportation technologies shape outcomes within and across metros. |
| Keywords: | Monocentric City; Urban Systems; Commuting Congestion; Value of Time |
| Date: | 2014–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp14-03&r=ure |
| By: | Rudiger Ahrend; Catherine Gamper; Abel Schumann |
| Abstract: | Even though metropolitan areas account for half of the population, and an even larger share of economic activity of OECD countries, almost no systematic information on governance structures in these areas exists. This study – based on a novel data set – gives an overview of governance arrangements in OECD metropolitan areas. It shows that organisations dedicated to metropolitan area governance are common, but often have little powers. Nevertheless, the existence of such organisations is related with better performance on a range of important outcome variables, such as public transport systems, environmental issues, and urban sprawl. |
| Keywords: | data collection, metropolitan areas, local governance |
| JEL: | H11 H70 R50 |
| Date: | 2014–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2014/4-en&r=ure |
| By: | Acosta,Manuel; Azagra-Caro,Joaquín M.; Coronado,Daniel |
| Abstract: | This paper tracks university-to-firm patent citations rather than the more usual patent-to-patent or paper-to-patent citations. It explains regional and non-regional citations as a function of firms’ absorptive capacity and universities’ production capacity in the region rather than explaining citations as a function of distance between citing and cited regions. Using a dataset of European Union regions for the years 1997-2007, we find that fostering university R&D capacity increases the attractiveness of the local university’s knowledge base to firms in the region, but also reduces wider searches for university knowledge. Increasing the absorptive capacity of local business encourages firms to access university knowledge from outside the region. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge flows, patent citations, spillovers, regions |
| JEL: | O31 O33 R12 |
| Date: | 2014–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201405&r=ure |
| By: | C. Kirabo Jackson; Rucker Johnson; Claudia Persico |
| Abstract: | The school finance reforms (SFRs) that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K–12 education spending in U.S. history. We analyze the effects of these reforms on the level and distribution of school district spending, as well as their effects on subsequent educational and economic outcomes. In Part One, using a newly compiled database of school finance reforms and a recently available long panel of annual school district data on per-pupil spending that spans 1967–2010, we present an event-study analysis of the effects of different types of school finance reforms on per-pupil spending in low- and high-income school districts. We find that SFRs have been instrumental in equalizing school spending between low- and high-income districts and many reforms do so by increasing spending for poor districts. While all reforms reduce spending inequality, there are important differences by reform type: adequacy-based court-ordered reforms increase overall school spending, while equity-based court-ordered reforms reduce the variance of spending with little effect on overall levels; reforms that entail high tax prices (the amount of taxes a district must raise to increase spending by one dollar) reduce long-run spending for all districts, and those that entail low tax prices lead to increased spending growth, particularly for low-income districts. In Part Two, we link the spending and reform data to detailed, nationally-representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011 (the Panel Study of Income Dynamics) to study the effect of the reform-induced changes in school spending on long-run adult outcomes. These birth cohorts straddle the period in which most of the major school finance reform litigation accelerated, and thus the cohorts were differentially exposed, depending on place and year of birth. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms as an exogenous shifter of school spending across cohorts within the same district. Event-study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 20 percent increase in per-pupil spending each year for all 12 years of public school for children from poor families leads to about 0.9 more completed years of education, 25 percent higher earnings, and a 20 percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; we find no effects for children from non-poor families. The magnitudes of these effects are sufficiently large to eliminate between two-thirds and all of the gaps in these adult outcomes between those raised in poor families and those raised in non-poor families. We present several pieces of evidence to support a causal interpretation of the estimates. |
| JEL: | H0 H52 H71 H72 I0 I24 I3 J0 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20118&r=ure |
| By: | Jesus Gonzalez-Feliu (LET - Laboratoire d'économie des transports - CNRS : UMR5593 - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État [ENTPE] - Université Lumière - Lyon II); Josep-Maria Salanova Grau (Hellenic Institute or Transport - Center of Research and Technologie Hellas) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a comparison between genetic and semi-greedy algorithms for a collaborative VRP in city logistics. In order to compare the performance of both algorithms on real-size test cases, we develop a cluster-first route second algorithm. The clustering phase is made by a seep algorithm, which defines the number of used vehicles and assigns a set of customers to it. Then, for each vehicle, we build a min-cost route by two methods. The first is a semi-greedy algorithm. The second is a genetic algorithm. We test both approaches on real-size instances Computational results are presented and discussed. |
| Keywords: | city logistics systems; two-echelon vehicle routing; cross-docking; simulation; collaboration |
| Date: | 2014–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00986648&r=ure |
| By: | Richard E. Baldwin; Toshihiro Okubo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies tax competition in an economic geography model that allows for agglomeration economies with trade costs and heterogeneous firms. We find that the Nash equilibrium involves the large country charging a higher tax than the small nation, with this rate being too low from a social point of view. Lower trade costs lead to an intensification of competition, a drop in Nash tax rates, and a narrowing of the gap. Since large, productive firms are naturally more sensitive to tax differences in our model, large firms are the crux of tax competition in our model. This also means that tax competition has consequences for the average productivity of the big and small nations‟ industry; by lowering tax rates, the small nation can attract high-productivity firms. |
| Keywords: | firm heterogeneity, spatial sorting, Nash equilibrium tax, tax cooperation, average productivity |
| JEL: | H32 P16 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2014-36&r=ure |
| By: | David B. Audretsch; Dirk Christian Dohse; Annekatrin Niebuhr |
| Abstract: | Does regional unemployment increase or rather decrease entrepreneurial activity? Although this question has been hotly debated among researchers for decades the answers yielded so far are ambiguous and inconclusive. The paper proposes an innovative approach that takes not only interregional differences in unemployment rates, but also in unemployment duration and the human capital of the unemployed—i.e. in the structure of regional unemployment—into account. Both, the skill structure of the unemployed and the share of long-term unemployment are found to have an important impact on regional start-up activity. Moreover, the impact of unemployment structure on new firm formation is found to vary with the knowledge-intensity of the start-ups |
| Keywords: | regional unemployment, new business formation, skill structure, long-term unemployment |
| JEL: | M13 R12 J64 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1924&r=ure |
| By: | Salvador Barrios; Diego Martínez |
| Abstract: | We analyse the role played by fiscal equalisation schemes in determining sub-national borrowing. We test econometrically the link between the regional government primary fiscal balances and the GDP per capita in Canada, Germany and Spain. We find that either poor or rich regions can display higher regional public borrowing on average and explain how these results can be linked to the institutional design of regional equalisation systems in place in these countries. Particularly, elements such as tax effort and fiscal capacities play a relevant role in this regard. Reforms of these schemes can therefore prove instrumental in reducing regional heterogeneity in public borrowing. |
| Keywords: | fiscal equalisation, public deficit, fiscal capacity, taxation. |
| JEL: | H7 H6 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gov:wpaper:1401&r=ure |
| By: | Angjellari-Dajci, Fiorentina; Boylan, Robert; Cebula, Richard |
| Abstract: | In this study, we examine the impact of real estate brokerage firm characteristics on real estate prices from 2008 to 2013. We focus on single-family homes and condominiums in Duval County, the largest county in the Northeast Florida real estate market. Contrary to most research findings to date, we have strong evidence to suggest that homebuyers will fare better if they associate with small brokerage firms to represent their interests in the purchase transaction. Contrary to the previously published research, we found that firms associated with a national franchise garnered lower final sales prices. |
| Keywords: | real estate brokers; housing market; hedonic pricing model |
| JEL: | H24 R21 R29 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2014–05–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:55897&r=ure |
| By: | Kentaro Nakajima, Toshiyuki Matsuura, Nobuaki Yamashita |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the agglomeration effects of multinational firms on the location decisions of first-time Japanese manufacturing investors in China for the period 1995-2007. This is accomplished by exploiting newly constructed measures of inter-firm backward and forward linkages formed in a home country. The conditional and mixed logit estimates reveal that agglomeration by first-tier suppliers and customers draws subsequent investment into a location. However, such agglomeration effects are not pervasive and do not extend to the second and third tiers. Instead, we find that agglomeration by third-tier suppliers generates a countervailing force, making a location relatively unattractive. |
| JEL: | F23 L22 R3 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csg:ajrcwp:1401&r=ure |
| By: | Muehlenbachs, Lucija (Resources for the Future); Spiller, Elisheba; Timmins, Christopher |
| Abstract: | Using data from Pennsylvania and New York and an array of empirical techniques to control for confounding factors, we recover hedonic estimates of property value impacts from shale gas development that vary with geographic scale, water source, well productivity, and visibility. Results indicate large negative impacts on nearby groundwater-dependent homes, while piped-water-dependent homes exhibit smaller positive impacts, suggesting benefits from lease payments. At a broader geographic scale, we find that new wellbores increase property values, but these effects diminish over time. Undrilled permits cause property values to decrease. Results have implications for the debate over regulation of shale gas development.Classification-JEL: Q32, Q33, Q50, Q53 |
| Keywords: | shale gas, groundwater, property values, hedonic models, nearest neighbor matching, differences-in-differences, triple differencesCreation-Date: 2013-12-09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-13-39-rev&r=ure |
| By: | Rodolfo Metulini (IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies); Paolo Sgrignoli (IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies); Stefano Schiavo (Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento); Massimo Riccaboni (IMT Lucca Institute for Advanced Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between migration and trade, with the aim of measuring both direct and indirect network effects. We analyze trade of diferentiated and homogeneous goods using an econometric approach inspired by spatial econometrics, proposing a new way to define country neighbors based on the most intense links in the migration network. We find that migration significantly affects trade across categories both in direct and in indirect way. The indirect impact highlights a stronger competitive effect of third country migrants for homogeneous goods. We also confirm that the effect of migration channels is higher on differentiated goods. |
| Keywords: | Trade; Migration; Gravity model; Spatial econometrics, Networks |
| JEL: | F14 F22 C21 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ial:wpaper:5/2014&r=ure |
| By: | Meersman, Hilde (University of Antwerp); Strandenes, Siri Pettersen (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Van de Voorde, Eddy (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | Price level and price transparency are input to shippers’ choice of supply chain and transport mode. In this paper, we analyse current port pricing structures in the light of the pricing literature and consider opportunities for improvement. We present a detailed overview of pricing criteria, who sets prices and who ultimately foots the bill for port-of-call charges, cargo-handling fees and congestion charges. Current port pricing practice is based on a rather linear structure and fails to incorporate modern pricing tools such as price differentiation or revenue management. Consequently, ports apply neither profit maximising pricing nor pricing designed to exploit available capacity more efficiently. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure pricing; pricing models; seaports. |
| JEL: | D49 R48 |
| Date: | 2014–04–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_014&r=ure |
| By: | Oksana Zaporozhets (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on a subway user, one of the main characters of mundane mobility in big cities. It is based on the field research conducted by the author in two Russian cities (Moscow and Kazan) in 2013-2014. The subway is considered not only as public transportation, but more broadly as a regulation tool that is used by homo mobilis to construct a wide network of relationships: with a city, with time, with one's daily activities. The notion of “affect management” - the urbanite's ability to manage their own emotional states and experiences - is suggested to describe the role of the subway in everyday life planning. |
| Keywords: | mundane mobility, subway, subway user, affect management, Moscow, Kazan |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:52hum2014&r=ure |
| By: | José I. Castillo-Manzano (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, University of Seville (Spain)); Mercedes Castro-Nuño (Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, University of Seville (Spain)); Xavier Fageda (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The connection between road traffic safety and criminal behavior has recently become a topic of interest in the literature, although little emphasis placed on the relationship with road accidents. Evidence worldwide shows that people who commit other offences characteristic of antisocial attitudes, are more prone to suffer road traffic accidents and infringe traffic laws. Here we examine the records of the 28 current member states of the European Union over the period 1999-2010. Our aim is to test the hypothesis that crime rates (and specifically, motor vehicle-related crimes) may be considered as predictors of fatal road traffic accidents. If they may, this could justify, at least prima facie, the tendency in several countries to consider traffic offences as crimes in their penal codes and to toughen the punishment imposed on those who commit them. We also analyze the effect of the severity of the legal system applied to traffic offences. Our results reveal that road traffic fatality rates are higher in countries whose inhabitants have more aggressive behavior, while the rates are lower in countries with more severe penal systems. |
| Keywords: | Road fatalities, Motor Vehicle Crime, Law enforcement, Panel Data, European Union JEL classification: C33, I18, K42, R41. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:201415&r=ure |
| By: | Luis Fernando Gamboa |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This paper provides recent evidence about the benefits of doing preschool on future performance. Anon-parametric matching procedure is used employing data for Colombia. In addition, the number of years at preschool is also considered as a way to check the existense of an intensity effect. The importance is measured through two outcomes: math and verbal scores at a national mandatory test (Saber11). It is found that students who had the chance of going to a preschool obtain higher scores in math (6.7%) and verbal (5.4%) than those who do not attending to preschool and a considerable fraction of this gaps comes from the upper quintiles of student's performance suggesting that preschool matters when is done at high quality instituions. When we include the number of years at the preschool, the gap rises up to 12% in verbal and 17% in math. |
| Keywords: | Preschool, Education, Colombia |
| JEL: | C14 I21 O54 |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:011084&r=ure |
| By: | Giovanni Peri; Kevin Shih; Chad Sparber |
| Abstract: | Scientists, Technology professionals, Engineers, and Mathematicians (STEM workers) are fundamental inputs in scientific innovation and technological adoption, the main drivers of productivity growth in the U.S. In this paper we identify the effect of STEM worker growth on the wages and employment of college and non-college educated native workers in 219 U.S. cities from 1990 to 2010. In order to identify a supply-driven and heterogeneous increase in STEM workers across U.S. cities, we use the distribution of foreign-born STEM workers in 1980 and exploit the introduction and variation of the H-1B visa program granting entry to foreign-born college educated (mainly STEM) workers. We find that H-1B-driven increases in STEM workers in a city were associated with significant increases in wages paid to college educated natives. Wage increases for non-college educated natives are smaller but still significant. We do not find significant effects on employment. We also find that STEM workers increased housing rents for college graduates, which eroded part of their wage gains. Together, these results imply a significant effect of foreign STEM on total factor productivity growth in the average US city between 1990 and 2010. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O33 R10 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20093&r=ure |
| By: | Lynn M. Fisher; Lauren Lambie-Hanson; Paul S. Willen |
| Abstract: | We measure the effect of foreclosures on the sale prices of nearby properties using a dataset of condominiums in Boston. A foreclosure in the same association and at the same address depresses the sale price by 2.5 percent, but properties in the same association but located at a different address have an effect that is tightly estimated at zero. Since properties in the same association are close substitutes, we argue that the evidence points against the pecuniary externality of property coming on the market and toward a physical externality as the source of measured foreclosure externalities. |
| JEL: | G12 R3 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20080&r=ure |
| By: | Rafael Sanchez (Escuela de Gobierno, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez); Francisca Pacheco |
| Date: | 2014–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uai:wpaper:wp_033&r=ure |
| By: | Kristin Hallgren; Susanne James-Burdumy; Irma Perez-Johnson |
| Keywords: | Race to the Top, State Improvement Grants, Teacher Evaluation, Education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2014–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:8121&r=ure |
| By: | Chhair, Sokty; Newman, Carol |
| Abstract: | The potential benefits of the geographical clustering of economic activity have been well documented in the literature, yet there is little empirical evidence quantifying these effects in developing country contexts. This is surprising given the emphasis |
| Keywords: | clustering, productivity spillovers, competition effects, informal firms, Cambodia |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-065&r=ure |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Students in OECD countries are expected to receive a total of 7 751 hours of instruction on average during their primary and lower secondary education – the bulk of that time is compulsory. In general, the higher the level of education, the greater the number of instruction hours a year. Reading, mathematics and science take up around 50% of the compulsory curricular time in primary education but only 40% at the lower secondary level. The wide variation in instruction hours across OECD countries suggests there is little consensus on the most effective policies related to school time. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaaf:22-en&r=ure |
| By: | Jan in'tVeld; Robert Kollmann; Beatrice Pataracchia; Marco Ratto; Werner Roeger |
| Abstract: | We study the joint dynamics of foreign capital flows and real activity during the recent boom-bust cycle of the Spanish economy, using a three-country New Keynesian model with credit-constrained households and firms, a construction sector and a government. We estimate the model using 1995Q1-2013Q2 data for Spain, the rest of the Euro Area (REA) and the rest of the world. We show that falling risk premia on Spanish housing and non-residential capital, a loosening of collateral constraints for Spanish households and firms, as well as a fall in the interest rate spread between Spain and the REA fuelled the Spanish output boom and the persistent rise in foreign capital flows to Spain, before the global financial crisis. During and after the global financial crisis, falling house prices, and a tightening of collateral constraints for Spanish borrowers contributed to a sharp reduction in capital inflows, and to the persistent slump in Spanish real activity. The credit crunch was especially pronounced for Spanish households; firm credit constraints tightened later and more gradually, and contributed much less to the slump. |
| Keywords: | international capital flows; boom-bust cycle; sudden stop; housing market; financial frictions; spain; european monetary union |
| JEL: | C11 E21 E32 E62 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/160267&r=ure |
| By: | Wojciech Kopczuk; David J. Munroe |
| Abstract: | Houses and apartments sold in New York and New Jersey at prices above $1 million are subject to the so-called 1% "mansion tax" imposed on the full value of the transaction. This policy generates a discontinuity (a "notch") in the overall tax liability. We rely on this and other discontinuities to analyze implications of transfer taxes in the real estate market. Using administrative records of property sales, we find robust evidence of substantial bunching and show that the incidence of this tax for transactions local to the discontinuity falls on sellers, may exceed the value of the tax, and is not explained by tax evasion (although supply-side quality adjustments may play a role). Above the notch, the volume of missing transactions exceeds those bunching below the notch. Interpreting our results in the context of an equilibrium bargaining model, we conclude that the market unravels in the neighborhood of the notch: its presence provides strong incentive for buyers and sellers in the proximity of the threshold not to transact. This effect, the identification and recognition of which is novel to this paper, is above and beyond the standard extensive margin response. When present, unraveling affects interpretation and estimation of bunching estimates. Finally, we show that the presence of the tax affects how the market operates away from the threshold---taxation increases price reductions during the search process and in the bargaining stage and weakens the relationship between listing and sale prices. We interpret these results as demonstrating that taxation affects the ultimate allocation in this search market. |
| JEL: | H2 H7 R3 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20084&r=ure |
| By: | Luis Fernando Gamboa; Erika Londoño |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This document aims to provide evidence about the existence of different patterns in equality of opportunities in academic achievement during the last fifteen years in Colombia. The outcomes selected for measuring inequality are the scores obtained on SABER 11 in math as well as reading. It is found that inequality has grown around 11% in the country, and that this trend is common for all the metropolitan areas included in the analysis. Most of the increase found comes from factors related to the school market. The fraction of unfair inequality, conditional to the circumstances included in the definition of “types”, is higher than 20% of gross ine quality in 2012. |
| Keywords: | Inequality of Opportunities, Education, Colombia |
| JEL: | I24 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2014–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:011040&r=ure |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | On average across OECD countries, students who are highly motivated to learn mathematics because they believe it will help them later on score better in mathematics – by the equivalent of half a year of schooling – than students who are not highly motivated. Students’ motivation to learn mathematics is lower in education systems that sort and group students into different schools and/or programmes. |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduddd:39-en&r=ure |
| By: | Mark R. Rosenzweig; Junsen Zhang |
| Abstract: | We use unique data characterizing individual savings for twins and non-twins in urban China to examine why the savings rates of the young are elevated relative to the middle-aged, despite rising individual life-cycle incomes. We show that inter-generational co-residence masks the true life-cycle patterns of individual savings in standard Chinese household data sets, which are aggregated at the household level. Moreover, we show that to understand life-cycle savings behavior it is necessary to take into account inter-generational co-residence, an important phenomenon in China and in many developing countries. To test a model that describes joint life-cycle savings and co-residence decisions by two generations, we use a variety of standard twins methods. The estimates provide support for the model, including that individuals born into larger families provide less financial support to parents and are more likely to co-reside with parents when young, but do not have different savings rates. We also found that inter-generational co-residence is lower the higher the incomes of the young but higher when the parents have higher incomes and that inter-generational co-residence, net of income, is associated with higher savings for the young but not higher savings for the old. Our results highlight the importance of high housing costs and the prevalence of inter-generational shared housing as key reasons for the higher savings rates for the urban young in China, but also indicate that in urban China neither old-age support by the young nor the one-child policy are major factors. |
| JEL: | D12 J12 O12 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20057&r=ure |
| By: | Abate, Megersa (VTI); Vierth, Inge (VTI); de Jong , Gerard (Significance) |
| Abstract: | In freight transportation, decisions regarding the choice of transport mode (or chains of modes) and shipment size are closely linked. Building on this basic insight, in this paper we estimate and review various joint econometric models using the Swedish National Commodity Flow surveys. Robust parameter estimates from this exercise will be used to update the current deterministic Swedish national freight model system (the SAMGODS model) to a stochastic one. |
| Keywords: | Discrete–continuous models; Mode choice; Shipment size choice; Freight; Modeling |
| JEL: | L91 R00 |
| Date: | 2014–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2014_009&r=ure |
| By: | Osborne, Theresa; Pachon, Maria Claudia; Araya, Gonzalo Enrique |
| Abstract: | In Central America, like many other developing regions, high transport costs are cited as an impediment to trade and economic growth. Prices for road freight transport -- a key mode of transport comprising a significant share of total transport costs for intra- and extra-regional trade, are particularly high. Averaging 17 cents per ton-kilometer on main trading routes, these rates stand out even relative to other inefficient developing country markets (e.g., central and west Africa). However, the policy and other factors associated with increased prices have not been well understood. This paper uses data from a survey of trucking companies operating on the region's main trade corridors to analyze the determinants of firms'costs of providing service, as well as the effect of market structure and competition on prices. The analysis finds that whereas improved cost efficiencies could reduce prices by 3 cents per ton-kilometer, increased competition on national routes -- those entirely within a nation's borders -- would reduce prices by significantly more. Although there are many trucking companies, including small and somewhat informal operators, the degree of competition varies by route because of domestic restraints on competition and the prohibition on international competition on national routes. The paper shows empirically that imperfect competition accounts for at least 35 percent of mean prices on national routes. In addition, a lack of competition is likely to explain the persistence of an inefficient market structure, as well as a lack of innovation to reduce costs and enhance the quality of service. |
| Keywords: | Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Markets and Market Access,Economic Theory&Research,Roads&Highways,Airports and Air Services |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6844&r=ure |
| By: | Xavier Fageda (Faculty of Economics, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a frequency equation to explain the determinants of network airline service levels at their hub airports. Drawing on European data for 2002-2013, we find that network airlines reduce frequencies when the share of low-cost airlines increases both on the route and at the hub airport. On the contrary, frequency choices of network airlines are not affected by competition from low-cost airlines operating in nearby secondary airports. We also find some evidence that mergers in Europe may result in a re-organization of the route structure in favor of the hubs of the larger airline. |
| Keywords: | hub airports, competition, network airlines, low-cost airlines JEL classification: |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:201414&r=ure |
| By: | Brian Baugh; Itzhak Ben-David; Hoonsuk Park |
| Abstract: | Several states have recently implemented laws requiring the collection of sales tax on online purchases. In practice, however, only Amazon.com has been affected. We find that households living in these states reduce Amazon expenditures by 9.5%, implying an elasticity of –1.3. We find the effect to be more pronounced for large purchases, for which we estimate an elasticity of –3.2. Further, we find that the decline in Amazon purchases is offset by a 2.0% increase in purchases at local brick-and-mortar retailers and a 19.8% increase in purchases at the online operations of competing retailers. |
| JEL: | D12 D40 L51 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20052&r=ure |
| By: | Raven Molloy; Christopher L. Smith; Abigail Wozniak |
| Abstract: | Interstate migration has decreased steadily since the 1980s. We show that this trend is not primarily related to demographic and socioeconomic factors, but instead appears to be connected to a concurrent secular decline in labor market transitions. We explore a number of reasons for the declines in geographic and labor market transitions, and find the strongest support for explanations related to a decrease in the net benefit to changing employers. Our preferred interpretation is that the distribution of relevant outside offers has shifted in a way that has made labor market transitions, and thus geographic transitions, less desirable to workers. |
| JEL: | J0 J11 J6 N3 |
| Date: | 2014–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20065&r=ure |
| By: | Gelli, Aulo; Espejo, Francisco; Shen, Jing; Kristjansson, Elizabeth |
| Abstract: | School-feeding is an important intervention to attract children to school and augment their learning. The benefits of school-feeding cover several domains. Key to the overall assessment of these benefits is understanding how different implementation model |
| Keywords: | impact, school-feeding, learning, economic indicators |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-036&r=ure |
| By: | Ricardo Argüello; Andres F. García; Daniel Valderrama |
| Abstract: | Abstract: Recent empirical work emphasizes the importance of the extensive margin of trade (new exporters, new export activities) for long run export growth. In this context, understanding the determinants of duration of new exporters is key for underpinning the dynamics of exports growth. As new exporters tend to show low survival rates, identifying the determinants of export duration is highly relevant for academic and policy purposes. In this paper, we explore whether information externalities arising from different levels of spatial interaction allow new exporters to increase the duration of their trade activities. For this, we use transaction level data on Colombian exports between 2004 and 2011. Results show that export networks, understood as the agglomeration of exporting firms at different spatial levels, reduce the risk of dropping out from exporting and that this effect is stronger the more similar are export activities carried out by firms. |
| Keywords: | Information externalities, export duration, export dynamics, duration analysis, survival of trade |
| JEL: | F14 C41 |
| Date: | 2013–11–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000092:011035&r=ure |
| By: | Perihan Ozge Saygin; Andrea Weber; Michèle A. Weynandt |
| Abstract: | Social networks are an important channel of information transmission in the labor market. This paper studies the mechanisms by which social networks have an impact on labor market outcomes of displaced workers. We base our analysis on administrative records for the universe of private sector employment in Austria where we define work-related networks formed by past coworkers. To distinguish between mechanisms of information transmission, we adopt two different network perspectives. From the job-seeker's perspective we analyze how network characteristics affect job finding rates and wages in the new jobs. Then we switch to the perspective of the hiring firm and analyze which types of displaced workers get hired by firms that are connected to a closing firm via past coworker links. Our results indicate that employment status and the firm types of former coworkers are crucial for the job finding success of their displaced contacts. Moreover, 21% of displaced workers find a new job in a firm that is connected to their former workplace. Among all workers that were displaced from the same closing firm those with a direct link to a former coworker are twice as likely to be hired by the connected firm than workers without a link. These results highlight the role of work related networks in the transmission of job information and strongly suggest that job referrals are an important mechanism. |
| Keywords: | Social Networks, Job Displacement, Plant Closure, Referral Hiring |
| JEL: | J63 J64 M51 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:nrnwps:2014_06&r=ure |
| By: | Eléonora MORGANTI (IFSTTAR/AME/SPLOTT - Systèmes Productifs, Logistique, Organisation des Transports et Travail - IFSTTAR - PRES Université Paris-Est); Jesus Gonzalez-Feliu (LET - Laboratoire d'économie des transports - CNRS : UMR5593 - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État [ENTPE] - Université Lumière - Lyon II) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes last mile logistics for fresh food products and the food deliveries schemes to urban food outlets, i.e. corporate retail chains, independent retailers and hotel, restaurants and catering (Ho.Re.Ca.) sector. We present two concepts: that of food hub and that of last food mils, as well as an analysis framework to understand food last mile distribution. To illustrate it, two experiences of urban food distribution are compared to a reference situation using the proposed framework. |
| Keywords: | food hub; last food mile; urban distribution center (UDC); city logistics; profession knowledge |
| Date: | 2014–02–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00986647&r=ure |
| By: | Bernier, Quinn; Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela |
| Abstract: | Increasingly, resilience is being incorporated into planning and social protection policy. People have been facing shocks, both natural and anthropogenic, forever, devising and innovating a variety of institutional responses to cope with, recover from, and prevent future impacts. Central to these shocks and this coping capacity, but often underexplored, is the role of social capital. This paper, using the case studies of iddirs (funeral societies) in Ethiopia and migrant networks in the Philippines, explores the contribution of local forms of social capital to building and strengthening the resilience of individuals and communities, focusing on their contributions to coping, adaptive, and transformative capacities. This paper argues that understanding clearly the role that existing social capital can play in building resilience is a necessary first step for policymakers. The authors suggest policy interventions to fill gaps where and when necessary while supporting and deepening existing social capital. |
| Keywords: | food security, Nutrition security, Community organizations, Networks, resilience, Social capital, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:2020cp:4&r=ure |
| By: | Milena Klasing Chen (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Sophie Hooge (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Blanche Segrestin (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris); Armand Hatchuel (CGS - Centre de Gestion Scientifique - MINES ParisTech - École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) |
| Abstract: | The public transport sector faces several challenges today, due to increasing demand, aggravated by limited funding. Although the dual need for original solutions and cost reductions has been identified, a lack of innovation has been pointed out in literature. Through a systematic review of scholars' literature and its comparison to a low cost approach by a public transport operator, this article aims to provide relevant data on what really counts to drive public transport innovations. We also show that a low cost perspective can bring benefits to the sector as a powerful innovation driver. |
| Keywords: | low cost; public transport; innovation |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00988174&r=ure |