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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Coen Teulings (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands); Ioulia Ossokina (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Henri L.F. de Groot (VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands) |
| Abstract: | The direct impact of local public goods on welfare is relatively easy to measure from land rents. However, the indirect effects on home and job location, on land use, and on agglomeration benefits are hard to pin down. We develop a spatial general equilibrium model for the valuation of these effects. The model is estimated using data on transport infrastructure, commuting behavior, wages, land use and land rents for 3000 ZIP-codes in the Netherlands and for three levels of education. Welfare benefits are shown to differ sharply by workers' educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | local public goods, agglomeration, spatial equilibrium, residential sorting, land rents |
| JEL: | H54 R13 R23 |
| Date: | 2014–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140101&r=ure |
| By: | Paolo Veneri |
| Abstract: | An increasing amount of empirical evidence documents that city-size distribution within a country follows a power law, often in the form of Zipf’s law. This paper provides new comparative evidence on city size distribution across OECD countries. It uses a database where urban agglomerations are consistently identified across different countries, through an algorithm based on population density and commuting patterns. The paper investigates whether Zipf’s law fits well with data. A robustness check is carried out using a traditional administrative definition of cities. Results show that Zipf’s law describes well city size distribution not only at country level, but also at wider spatial scales. The law does not fit as well with the data when using a traditional administrative definition of cities. |
| Keywords: | city size distribution, Zipf’s law, rank-size rule, metropolitan areas |
| JEL: | O40 R12 |
| Date: | 2013–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2013/27-en&r=ure |
| By: | Elizabeth Ananat (Duke University); Shihe Fu (Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE) Xiamen University); Stephen L. Ross (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | We demonstrate a striking but previously unnoticed relationship between city size and the black-white wage gap, with the gap increasing by 2.5% for every million-person increase in urban population. We then look within cities and document that wages of blacks rise less with agglomeration in the workplace location, measured as employment density per square kilometer, than do white wages. This pattern holds even though our method allows for non-parametric controls for the effects of age, education, and other demographics on wages, for unobserved worker skill as proxied by residential location, and for the return to agglomeration to vary across those demographics, industry, occupation and metropolitan areas. We find that an individual’s wage return to employment density rises with the share of workers in their work location who are of their own race. We observe similar patterns for human capital externalities as measured by share workers with a college education. We also find parallel results for firm productivity by employment density and share college-educated using firm racial composition in a sample of manufacturing firms. These findings are consistent with the possibility that blacks, and black-majority firms, receive lower returns to agglomeration because such returns operate within race, and blacks have fewer same-race peers and fewer highly-educated same-race peers at work from whom to enjoy spillovers than do whites. Data on self-reported social networks in the General Social Survey provide further evidence consistent with this mechanism, showing that blacks feel less close to whites than do whites, even when they work exclusively with whites. We conclude that social distance between blacks and whites preventing shared benefits from agglomeration is a significant contributor to overall black-white wage disparities. |
| Keywords: | black-white wage gap, agglomeration, human capital externalities, information networks, total factor productivity |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J31 R23 R32 |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2014-019&r=ure |
| By: | Daniel Arribas-Bel (VU University Amsterdam); Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam); Jacques Poot (The University of Waikato, New Zealand) |
| Abstract: | Cultural diversity is a complex and multi-faceted concept. Commonly used quantitative measures of the spatial distribution of culturally-defined groups 'such as segregation, isolation or concentration indexes' are often only capable of identifying just one aspect of this distribution. The strengths or weaknesses of any measure can only be comprehensively assessed empirically. This paper provides evidence on the empirical properties of various spatial measures of cultural diversity by using Monte Carlo replications of agent-based modeling (MC-ABM) simulations with synthetic data assigned to a realistic and detailed geographical context of the city of Amsterdam. Schelling's classical segregation model is used as the theoretical engine to generate patterns of spatial clustering. The data inputs include the initial population, the number and shares of various cultural groups, and their preferences with respect to co-location. Our MC-ABM data generating process generates output maps that enable us to assess the performance of various spatial measures of cultural diversity under a range of demographic compositions and preferences. We find that, as our simulated city becomes more diverse, stable residential location equilibria are only possible when particularly minorities become more tolerant. We test whether observed measures can be interpreted as revealing unobserved preferences for co-location of individuals with their own group and find that the segregation and isolation measures of spatial diversity are shown to be non-decreasing in increasing preference for within-group co-location, but the Gini coefficient and concentration measures are not. |
| Keywords: | cultural diversity, spatial segregation, agent-based model, Monte Carlo simulation |
| JEL: | C63 J15 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2014–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140081&r=ure |
| By: | Jorge De la Roca; Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano; Diego Puga |
| Abstract: | Higher ability workers benefit more from bigger cities while housing costs there are higher for everyone, and yet there is little sorting on ability. A possible explanation is that young individuals have an imperfect assessment of their ability, and, when they learn about it, early decisions have had a lasting impact and reduce their incentives to move. We formalize this idea through an overlapping generations model of urban sorting by workers with heterogenous ability and self-confidence, with the latter defined as individuals' assessment of their own ability. We then test the location patterns predicted by the model over the life cycle on panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. We find that the city-size choices of individuals at different stages vary with ability and self-confidence in a way that closely matches our theoretical predictions. |
| Keywords: | Cities, sorting, agglomeration, self-confidence, learning |
| JEL: | R10 R23 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1305&r=ure |
| By: | Leonardo Fabio Morales; Lina Marcela Cardona-Sosa |
| Abstract: | Using data from Medellín, second largest city in Colombia, we asses in this paper how a set of neighborhood characteristics determines wages and labor supply for workers in the city. We use GIS data to construct measures of the quality of environments where workers live. This paper focuses in the impact in labor supply and wages of the following set of characteristics: availability of public transportation, crime levels and density of economic activity. The empirical methodology consist of the estimation of linear equations for wages and worked hours, and we control for the selection of individuals into the neighborhoods they are observed. In order to do this we estimate in a first stage a probabilistic model of neighborhood selection from which selection correction terms are obtained; these correction terms and included in the linear equations for wage and worked hours in a second stage. In addition, we control for sample selection as well. We find that the endogeneity of the location decision tends to overestimate the magnitude of the effect of neighborhood characteristics on labor market outcomes. Nevertheless, the effect of some characteristics is still significant and important after we control for the possibility of selection into neighborhoods. |
| Keywords: | Labor Economics, Labor Supply, Urban Analysis, Housing Demand. |
| JEL: | J01 J22 O18 R21 |
| Date: | 2014–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:012163&r=ure |
| By: | Or Levkovich; Jan Rouwendal (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | In the globalized economy the presence of migrants is essential for urban and regional growth, and it is therefore important to know what makes a city an attractive place for highly skilled migrants. This paper aims to shed light on this issue by considering the location choice of highly-educated foreign workers, and if and how their valuation of urban amenities differs from domestic workers. To do so, we apply a residential location-choice model to estimate the attractiveness of residential locations in the Dutch Randstad for low and high-skilled, domestic and foreign workers, and calculate and compare their willingness to pay for each of these amenities. |
| Keywords: | urban amenities, foreign workers |
| JEL: | R53 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140093&r=ure |
| By: | Nannan Yuan (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University); Shigeyuki Hamori (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether government interventions are effective in regulating Chinafs house prices. To do so, we also consider other control variables such as real land price, per capita real disposable income, and newly started floor spaces. Using panel data of 30 provinces and cities for the period 2002:Q2 to 2012:Q4, we provide empirical evidence by applying both static and dynamic models to examine the effectiveness of Chinafs government interventions on house prices. The main empirical results show that after enacting interventional policies, the growth rate of house prices decreased, indicating that government interventions are effective. In addition, a greater supply of land and houses also help to regulate house prices. |
| Keywords: | government intervention, house prices, effectivenesst |
| JEL: | E44 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koe:wpaper:1427&r=ure |
| By: | Olaf Merk; Thai-Thanh Dang |
| Abstract: | The relation between ports and their cities have evolved: it is no longer evident that well-functioning ports have automatically a net positive impact on the port-city. There are various trajectories and many ports and port-cities attempt to stimulate port-city development by a range of public policies. Yet, little is known about effectiveness of policies to promote performance of ports and port-cities. This paper aims at filling this gap, by assessing the effectiveness of port-city policies, within various policy areas including port development, port-city economic development, transportation, environment, research and development, spatial development and communication. This is done via a principal component analysis (PCA), based on a database constructed for the purpose of this paper with outcome variables and scores of policies for a set of 27 large world port-cities, that makes it possible to identify policies that are associated with effective policy outcomes and show patterns of related policy outcomes and policies. |
| Keywords: | transportation, policy evaluation, port-cities, port development, principal component analysis |
| JEL: | C38 L98 R42 |
| Date: | 2013–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2013/25-en&r=ure |
| By: | Zhiling Wang; Thomas de Graaff; Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the impact of cultural composition on regional attractiveness from the perspective of migrant sorting behaviour. We use an attitudinal survey to quantify cultural distances between natives and immigrants in the area concerned, and estimate the migrants’ varying preferences for both cultural diversity and cultural distance. To account for regional unobserved heterogeneity, our econometric analysis employs artificial instrumental variables, as developed by Bayer et al. (2004). The main conclusions are twofold. On the one hand, cultural diversity increases regional attractiveness. On the other hand, average cultural distance greatly weakens regional attractiveness, even when the presence of network effect is controlled for. |
| Keywords: | migration, cultural diversity, cultural distance, destination choice, sorting |
| JEL: | R2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140066&r=ure |
| By: | Fu, Shihe; Gu, Yizhen |
| Abstract: | Most highways in urban China are tolled to finance their construction. During the eight-day National Day holiday in 2012, highway tolls are waived nationwide for passenger vehicles. We use this to test highway tolls’ effect on air pollution. Using daily pollution and weather data for 98 Chinese cities in 2011 and 2012 and employing both a regression discontinuity design and differences-in-differences method with 2011 National Day holiday as a control, we find that eliminating tolls increases pollution by 20% and decreases visibility by one kilometer. We also estimate that the toll elasticity of air pollution is 0.16. These findings complement the scant literature on the environmental impact of road pricing. |
| Keywords: | highway toll; air pollution; visibility; regression discontinuity design; differences-in-differences |
| JEL: | H23 Q53 R41 R48 |
| Date: | 2014–10–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59619&r=ure |
| By: | Claire Nauwelaers; Karen Maguire; Giulia Ajmone Marsan |
| Abstract: | The Bothnian Arc is a cross-border area on the border of Finland and Sweden that covers the most populated areas along the upper Bothnian Bay, spanning 800 kilometres. It has a population of around 710 000, across 55 000 km² with an economic output of USD 31 billion. The Bothnian Arc collaboration was initiated by local authorities, with strong commitment of the mayors of the cities of Oulu and Luleå (300 kilometres apart). Despite a peripheral location in all respects, some parts of the Bothnian Arc have shown a remarkable vitality, notably Oulu (Finland), driven by an innovation ecosystem that builds on the heritage of Nokia and the contribution of Oulu University. Luleå (Sweden) has recently attracted the European Facebook data centre. The area is looking to go beyond ad hoc projects for a more strategic approach to innovation-driven collaboration to be the dynamic hub of the north. This case study is part of the project Regions and Innovation: Collaborating Across Borders . A summary of this working paper appears in a report of the same name. |
| Keywords: | Sweden, Finland, innovation, science and technology, regional growth, cross-border, regional development, regional innovation strategies, Bothnian Arc, Oulu, regional innovation, Luleä |
| JEL: | L52 L53 O14 O18 O38 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2013–11–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2013/17-en&r=ure |
| By: | Florida, Richard (University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and Global Research Professor at NYU); Mellander , Charlotta (Prosperity Institute of Scandinavia, Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), & Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS), Sweden.) |
| Abstract: | The prevailing geographic model for high-technology industrial organization has been the “nerdistan,” a sprawling, car-oriented suburb organized around office parks, of which Silicon Valley is the prototypical example. This seems to contradict a basic insight of urban theory, which associates dense urban centers with higher levels of innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. Our research examines the geography of recent venture capital finance startups in the United States across metros and within a subset of them by neighborhood and finds compelling evidence that the model is changing. Venture capital investments are clustering in larger, denser urban centers with high levels of human capital, like San Francisco and Lower Manhattan, as well as in walkable suburbs. We suggest that the suburban model might have been an historical aberration, and that innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship are realigning in the same urban centers that traditionally fostered them. |
| Keywords: | Venture capital; investments; start-ups; cities; suburbs |
| JEL: | G20 O31 R00 |
| Date: | 2014–10–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0377&r=ure |
| By: | Joanna Clifton-Sprigg (The University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | Impacts of parental emigration on educational outcomes of children and, in turn, the children's influence on peers are theoretically ambiguous. Using novel data I collected on migration experiences and timing, family background and school performance of lower secondary pupils in Poland, I analyse empirically whether children with parents working abroad (PWA) influence school performance of their classmates. Migration is mostly temporary in nature, with one parent engaging in employment abroad. As many as 63% of migrant parents have vocational qualifications, 29% graduated from high school, 4% have no qualifications and the remaining 4% graduated from university. Almost 18% of all children are affected by parental migration and, on average, 6.5% of pupils in a class have a parent abroad. Perhaps surprisingly, estimates suggest that pupils benefit from the presence of PWA classmates. PWA pupils whose parents graduated from high school exert the biggest positive impact on their classroom peers. Further, classmates are differently affected by PWA children; those who themselves experienced migration within the family benefit most. This positive effect is likely driven by the student level interactions or increased teachers' commitment to classes with students from migrant families. |
| Keywords: | education of adolescents, migration, peer effects |
| JEL: | F22 I29 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edn:esedps:252&r=ure |
| By: | Bian, Timothy Yang (University of International Business and Economics); Gete, Pedro (Georgetown University and IE Business School) |
| Abstract: | We study housing dynamics in China using vector autoregressions identified with theoryconsistent sign restrictions. We study five potential drivers: 1) Population increases; 2) a relaxation of credit standards, for example, due to the shadow banking system; 3) increasing preferences towards housing, for example, due to a housing bubble or housing being a status asset to be competitive in the marriage market; 4) an increase in the savings rate; and 5) expected productivity progress. Our results show that fundamental shocks (population, credit and productivity) play a major role in the dynamics of house prices and residential investment before 2009. Preference shocks seem especially relevant in the last several years, and when the estimation uses price indices not coming from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. |
| JEL: | E3 F44 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddgw:193&r=ure |
| By: | Abdoulaye Diagne; Mouhamadou Moustapha Lô; Ousmane Sokhna; Fatoumata L. Diallo |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the impact of school canteen programs on the performance of rural primary schools in Senegal using a “randomized experiment”. 120 schools which had never had school canteens were selected in the four poorest regions of Senegal. They were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Students in the second (CP) and fourth (CE2) years of primary school were observed in each of the selected schools. Many tests (student, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney Levene, Chi2) were performed in order to verify the random nature of the treatment assignment. The results show that, at the school level, the two groups are relatively homogenous, but there are some differences at the individual level. Thus, the double difference methods used to estimate the impact of the meal program on academic performance. The results are as follows: the canteen has a positive and significant impact on the overall score of students in grade 2 (10.56 points). This result is confirmed in both mathematics (12.32 points) and French (8.72 points). However, the impact is not significant for older children (more than 10 years old) in CP. In terms of gender, the study shows a difference in the impact in favour of girls in the fourth grade. Looking at the cognitive impact, we find that, except for the level of knowledge, the canteen has a greater impact on the cognitive ability of the youngest (aged six and seven years). Competencies in memory (33.23 points) and reasoning (23.92 points) improved by more. These results are all significant at the 5% confidence level. However, school canteens do not improve the internal efficacy of public primary schools: dropouts and repeated grades have certainly decreased, but none of the results are statistically significant. By improving the nutritional intake of children who benefit from the meals supplied to the school, the canteens have positive externalities on the nutritional intake of children living with the beneficiary students. Moreover, there are interaction effects between the school canteen and two traditional schooling quality inputs: poverty and class size. Regarding these results, we can state that universalizing school canteens can be an effective method to accelerate progress towards quality education for all. |
| Keywords: | School canteens, primary education, rural areas, school dropouts, repeated grades, nutritional intake, evaluations, double difference. |
| JEL: | O1 I21 I28 I38 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:piercr:2013-14&r=ure |
| By: | Demyanyk, Yuliya (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | This paper debunks the common perception that “foreclosure will ruin your credit score.†Using individual-level data from a credit bureau matched with loan-level mortgage data, it is estimated that the very first missed mortgage payment leads to the biggest reduction in credit scores. The effects of subsequent loan impairments are increasingly muted. Post-delinquency foreclosures have only a minimal effect on credit scores. Moreover, credit scores improve substantially a year after borrowers experience 90-day delinquency or foreclosure. The data supports one possible explanation of this improvement: the absence of mortgage payments relaxes the borrowers’ budget constraint, allowing them to restore other forms of credit. |
| Keywords: | Credit Score; Foreclosure; Delinquency; Crisis |
| JEL: | D1 G2 R2 |
| Date: | 2014–10–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1423&r=ure |
| By: | Enrique Garcilazo; Joaquim Oliveira Martins |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the contribution of regions to aggregate growth in the OECD. We find a great degree of heterogeneity in the performance of OECD TL3 regions and among the OECD regional typology (urban, intermediate and rural). While the distribution in GDP and GDP per capita growth rates follows an approximately normal distribution, the regional contributions to aggregate growth follow a power law, with a coefficient around 1.2 (in absolute terms). This implies that Few-Large (FL) regions contribute disproportionately to aggregate growth whereas Many-Small (MS) individual regions contribute only marginally. Nevertheless, because the number of these smaller regions is very large and the decay of their contribution to growth is slow (generating a fat tail distribution), their cumulated contribution is actually around 2/3 of aggregate growth. For the period 1995-2007, only 2.4% of OECD TL3 regions contribute to 27% of OECD GDP growth, but the remaining 97.6% corresponds to 73%. We also found that the distribution of growth rates by size follows a non-monotonic pattern, with the largest concentration of above average regional growth rates being concentrated for middle-sized regions. This heterogeneity suggests that the possibilities for growth seem to exist in many different types of regions. |
| Keywords: | metrology |
| Date: | 2013–12–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2013/28-en&r=ure |
| By: | Cellini, Roberto; Di Caro, Paolo; Torrisi, Gianpiero |
| Abstract: | The concept of resilience has attracted increasing interest in regional economics. In the flourishing literature, however, results are far from being conclusive, even when referring to the same case study. Undoubtedly, this mixed evidence potentially stems also from different operationalization of the multifaceted resilience concept; the main difference being between studies using GDP series and those measuring regional economic performance in terms of fluctuations in employment levels. The different choices and the subsequent results, far from being interpreted as lack of robustness, are research specific; nevertheless, it is important to address what kind of relationship – if any – exists between the two measures. To this end, we analyse and compare the results concerning the regional resilience in Italy, over the last 40 years, focussing on the differences deriving from the choice between the two aforementioned measures. Our analysis reveals that the information contained in the different series, rather than being alternative and overlapping, is complementary. |
| Keywords: | Resilience, Adverse shock, Impact effect, Recovery. |
| JEL: | C32 O18 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2014–10–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:59660&r=ure |
| By: | Grahn-Voorneveld , Sofia (VTI) |
| Abstract: | The economic principle of road pricing is that a road toll should equal the marginal cost imposed by an additional user, since this will lead to efficient use of the transport facility. However, when the road is used by traffic both from the road providing region as well as by traffic from another region, the supplied road standard is likely to be too low, since the consumer surplus of the users from outside the region is not taken into account. This can be solved by letting an authority level higher than the road supplier use taxes and earmarked transactions to raise the road standard. (In Europe we see this done in the Trans European Network). To do this the higher authority needs very detailed information about the road and the users on local level. Further raising taxes and transactions also involve costs that can be substantial. Another problem is that transactions of this type it is hard to separate from other political interference. This paper analyzes how a limited toll on top of the marginal cost can serve the purpose of solving this problem locally, without involving a higher authority. |
| Keywords: | Marginal cost pricing; Congestion; Road quality |
| JEL: | R41 R48 |
| Date: | 2014–09–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2014_016&r=ure |
| By: | Pim Heijnen (University of Groningen); Adriaan Soetevent (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | This paper extends Hotelling's model of price competition with quadratic transportation costs from a line to graphs. We derive an algorithm to calculate firm-level demand for any given graph, conditional on prices and firm locations. These graph models of price competition may lead to spatial discontinuities in firm-level demand. We show that the existence result of D'Aspremont et al. (1979) does not extend to simple star graphs and conjecture that this non-existence result holds more generally for all graph models with two or more firms that cannot be reduced to a line or circle. |
| Keywords: | spatial competition, Hotelling, graphs |
| JEL: | D43 L10 R12 |
| Date: | 2014–10–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140131&r=ure |
| By: | Tommaso Agasisti (Politecnico di Milano School of Management, Milano) |
| Abstract: | This research conducts a comparison of secondary schools’ efficiency in an international perspective, focusing on five economies in the European Union (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain) and employing an institutionlevel dataset built through data from the 2012 edition of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Overall, around 2,700 schools from these five countries are included in the empirical analysis; it uses a bootstrap version of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and a common (international) frontier of efficient schools is assumed. The production process is modelled in a very simple way, by including human and capital resources, together with students’ socioeconomic background, among inputs; and average scores in reading and mathematics, as outputs. Although within-country dispersion of efficiency scores is much wider than between-countries differences, some between-countries efficiency differentials can be observed. A second-stage tobit regression reveals that some factors are statistically associated with schools’ efficiency, as for example the indexes for the quality of educational resources and teachers’ morale. Conversely, the efficiency scores are inversely correlated with the proportion of students who perform below proficiency level 2, suggesting that there is not a trade-off between efficiency and equity. All these evidences can stimulate interesting reflections for national and European-based policy-makers. |
| Keywords: | schools’ efficiency, equity, OECD-PISA2012, bootstrap DEA, cross-country comparison |
| JEL: | I21 I28 C14 H52 |
| Date: | 2014–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipu:wpaper:9&r=ure |
| By: | Berndt, Antje (Poole College of Management); Hollifield, Burton (Tepper School of Business); Sandås, Patrik (McIntire School of Commerce) |
| Abstract: | We develop an equilibrium model for origination fees charged by mortgage bro- kers and show how the equilibrium fee distribution depends on borrowers' valua- tion for their loans and their information about fees. We use non-crossing quantile regressions and data from a large subprime lender to estimate conditional fee dis- tributions. Given the fee distribution, we identify the distributions of borrower valuations and informedness. The level of informedness is higher for larger loans and in better educated neighborhoods. We quantify the fraction of the surplus from the mortgage that goes to the broker, and how it decreases as the borrower becomes more informed. |
| Keywords: | Mortgage broker compensation; Borrower Valuation; Borrower Informedness |
| JEL: | G21 |
| Date: | 2014–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:rbnkwp:0286&r=ure |
| By: | Paul Koster; Erik T. Verhoef (VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands); Simon Shepherd; David Watling (University of Leeds, United Kingdom) |
| Abstract: | This paper deals with first-best and second-best congestion pricing of a stylised two-link network with probabilistic route choice of travellers. Travellers may have heterogeneous values of travel times and may differ in their idiosyncratic route preferences. We derive first-best and second-best tolls taking into account how the overall network demand responds to generalized costs including the tolls that are levied. We show that with homogeneous values of times the welfare losses of second-best pricing, of one link only, may be smaller if route choice is probabilistic. Furthermore, we show that with heterogeneous values of times, common second-best tolls and group-differentiated tolls can be very close when route choice is governed by random utility maximisation, leading to low welfare losses from the inability to differentiate tolls. |
| Keywords: | Stochastic User Equilibrium, Second-best Congestion Pricing, Preference Heterogeneity, Scale Heterogeneity, Probabilistic Choice |
| JEL: | R40 R41 R48 |
| Date: | 2014–06–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140078&r=ure |
| By: | Rosangela Bando |
| Abstract: | School-based management programs aim to improve education outcomes by involving parents in allocation decisions about external funds transferred to the school. This paper explores the effects of two school-based management programs on parental investment in schools via voluntary contributions. One program provides both a cash grant and a matching scheme for privately raised funds. Difference-in-differences estimation shows that parents in richer schools increased voluntary contributions by 28 percent, while parents in poorer schools decreased voluntary contributions by 11 percent. This implies that a matching scheme results in higher inequality in resources available to schools. The second program provides only a cash grant to poor schools. Based on a randomized control, estimation shows that parents use 83 percent of the grant to substitute for voluntary contributions. A cash grant alone for poor schools results in an increase in resources available to the school in less than the cash grant transfer. |
| Keywords: | Education management, Educational Assessment, School-based management programs, Parental investment, School based matching, School grants, Voluntary contributions, Mexico |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:86814&r=ure |
| By: | Eliasson, Tove (IBF, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | Earlier research has shown that immigrant- and minority entrepreneurs have difficulties accessing capital through the formal financial markets. This essay studies what role immigrant employees within the local bank sector have for the probability of immigrants to run their own businesses. I use linked employer-employee data covering the whole Swedish labor market for the years 1987 to 2003 and utilize a nationwide refugee dispersal policy to get exogenous variation in the exposure to co-ethnic bank employees. Results suggest that there is a positive relation between co-ethnic bank employees and the probability of being self-employed. This effect is most pronounced for immigrants who arrived with low education, for males and for those residing in metropolitan regions. The effects are substantial and robust to a wide set of controls for labor market characteristics of the ethnic group at the local level. These results provides evidence of an ethnic component in the formal credit markets. |
| Keywords: | Self-employment; immigrant entrepreneurs; capital access; information asymmetry; minority representation |
| JEL: | G21 J71 M13 |
| Date: | 2014–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2014_019&r=ure |
| By: | Geert Mesters; Victor van der Geest; Catrien Bijleveld (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We test economic and sociological theories for the relationship between employment and crime, where social welfare is used as an identifying mechanism. We consider a sample of disadvantaged males from The Netherlands who are observed between ages 18 and 32 on a monthly time scale. We simultaneously model the offending, employment and social welfare variables using a dynamic discrete choice model, where we allow for state dependence, reciprocal effects and time-varying unobserved heterogeneity. We find significant negative bi-directional structural effects between employment and property crime. Robustness checks show that only regular employment is able to significantly reduce the offending probability. Further, a significant uni-directional effect is found for the public assistance category of social welfare on property offending. The results highlight the importance of economic incentives for explaining the relationship between employment and crime for disadvantaged individuals. For these individuals the crime reducing effects from the public assistance category of social welfare equivalent to those from employment, which suggests the importance of financial gains. Further, the results suggest that stigmatizing effects from offending reduce the future employment probability. |
| Keywords: | dynamic discrete choice, strain, social control, state dependence, reciprocal, unobserved heterogeneity |
| JEL: | K42 C32 C33 |
| Date: | 2014–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20140091&r=ure |
| By: | Matt Dickson; Paul Gregg; Harriet Robinson |
| Abstract: | We study the intergenerational effects of parents' education on their children's educational outcomes. The endogeneity of parental education is addressed by exploiting the exogenous shift in education levels induced by the 1972 Raising of the School Leaving Age (RoSLA) from age 15 to 16 in England and Wales. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children - a rich cohort dataset of children born in the early 1990s in Avon, England - allows us to examine the timing of impacts throughout the child's life, from pre-school assessments through the school years to the final exams at the end of the compulsory schooling period. We also determine whether there are differential effects for literacy and numeracy. We find that increasing parental education has a positive causal effect on children's outcomes that is evident at age 4 and continues to be visible up to and including the high stakes exams taken at age 16. Children of parents affected by the reform gain results just under 0.1 standard deviations higher than those whose parents were not impacted. The effect is focused on the lower educated parents where we would expect there to be more of an impact: children of these parents gaining results approximately 0.2 standard deviations higher. The effects appear to be broadly equal across numeracy and literacy test scores. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility, schooling, child development, ALSPAC |
| JEL: | I20 J62 J24 |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1295&r=ure |
| By: | Fujita, Yasuo; Takeda, Asami |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to conduct a preliminary analysis of the expected effects of a transport infrastructure project on firms’ locational choice and business environment in Mozambique, using a baseline firm survey. We compare firms’ locational choice factors and their perceptions of the business environment between the underdeveloped Nacala corridor, where a road improvement project is being implemented, and the well-developed Beira corridor as a comparator. On the firms’ locational choice, we find a statistically significant difference between the two corridors, after controlling for firms’ characteristics. While the firms emphasize closeness to customers in the Beira corridor, the firms emphasize better infrastructure in the Nacala corridor. We also find statistically significant differences in some business environment factors between the two corridors. In the Nacala corridor, the firms consider transport infrastructure to be problematic for operation and growth. In the Beira corridor, the firms believe some factors related to government administration and regulations are obstacles. These results are still preliminary. At this stage of our research, we can only point out the possibility that the conditions of transport infrastructure may affect private firms’ self-evaluation of their locational choice and their business environment. |
| Keywords: | Transport infrastructure , Locational choice , Business environment , Impact analysis , Mozambique |
| Date: | 2014–03–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jic:wpaper:74&r=ure |
| By: | Matthias Uhl (University of Marburg) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I estimate a structural panel vector autoregression to study the consequences of changes in U.S. state government fiscal policies for local economic activity in the short-term. My main result is that the state-level spending multiplier is relatively small and the tax multiplier relatively large. After four years, the government spending multiplier is 0.6 and the tax multiplier -2.62. This conclusion is found to be robust across different model specifications. I also find that both state spending and state revenue shocks increase out of state output. |
| Keywords: | Spending multiplier, Tax multiplier, Subnational government |
| JEL: | E62 H30 R50 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201446&r=ure |
| By: | Stan Veuger (American Enterprise Institute); Daniel Shoag (American Enterprise Institute) |
| Abstract: | We document the tight link between increased levels of economic and policy uncertainty and unemployment at the state-level during the 2007-2009 recession. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, Great Recession, economic uncertainty, geography |
| JEL: | A |
| Date: | 2013–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aei:rpaper:694&r=ure |
| By: | Adelino, Manuel (Duke University); Frame, W. Scott (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta); Gerardi, Kristopher S. (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest investors in subprime private-label mortgage-backed securities (PLS), influenced the risk characteristics and prices of the deals in which they participated. To identify the causal effect of the GSEs, we use the fact that PLS deals in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchased securities included separate mortgage pools: one specifically created for the GSEs and one or more others directed at other triple-A investors. Using within-deal variation, we find that the pools bought by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had similar ex-ante risk characteristics but performed much better ex-post relative to other mortgage pools in the same deals. These effects were concentrated in low-documentation loans and in issuers that were highly dependent on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Our results extend the importance of disciplining effects of large claimholders beyond information-sensitive securities, such as equities and bank debt, to information-insensitive arm's-length debt. |
| Keywords: | mortgage default; GSEs; securitization; private information |
| JEL: | G17 G21 G23 |
| Date: | 2014–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:2014-04&r=ure |
| By: | Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); Pinto, Santiago (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines illegal immigration in a spatial context. Consider two countries: a source and a host of illegal immigration. Both countries produce the same good employing labor. There are legal restrictions to the movement of labor across countries. The host country consists of two regions (jurisdictions or states). These two regions share their borders with the source country. The host country controls illegal immigration using two alternative policy instruments: (i) it devotes resources to stop illegal immigrants at the border preventing them from entering the country; and (ii) it allocates resources to internal enforcement. Enforcement levels, both internal and border, may a priori differ by regions. The paper compares the provision of enforcement chosen by a federal government in the host country to the levels that would prevail under different allocation of responsibilities between the federal and regional governments in deciding border and internal enforcement levels. |
| Keywords: | illegal immigration; fiscal competition; border enforcement; internal enforcement. |
| JEL: | D72 D78 F21 F23 |
| Date: | 2014–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2014-030&r=ure |
| By: | Quail, Amanda; Smyth, Emer |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:rb2014/3/2&r=ure |
| By: | Michael Drexl (Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) |
| Abstract: | Vehicle routing problems with multiple synchronization constraints (VRPMSs) are problems that exhibit, in addition to the usual task covering constraints present in any VRP, further synchronization requirements between the vehicles, concerning spatial, temporal, and load aspects. They have only recently caught the attention of scientists and are currently a very active ?eld of research. This paper describes a generic heuristic that allows to solve many important types of VRPMSs. |
| Keywords: | Heuristic, Vehicle Routing, Synchronization, Coordination, Trailer, Transshipment |
| Date: | 2014–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:1412&r=ure |
| By: | Marcos Yamada Nakaguma; Brandon Restrepo |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of Election Day alcohol bans on road traffic accidents, traffic-related injuries, and alcohol-related hospitalizations. Our analysis focuses on the 2012 Municipal Elections in Brazil, during which 11 out of 27 states imposed on its 2,733 municipalities the decision to implement alcohol bans. Using daily-level data on municipalities, we find that alcohol bans caused substantial reductions in road crashes (15%), traffic-related injuries (30-70%), and traffic-related hospital admissions (18%). An analysis of the hospitalization costs associated with traffic accidents reveals that banning the sale of alcohol saved Brazil’s healthcare system $150,000 per day, which is likely to be a lower bound of the total societal cost savings. Using this figure as a benchmark, we estimate the total cost savings to be up to $1 million for a one-day ban on alcohol. |
| Keywords: | Alcohol; ban; election; drunk driving; traffic accident; road crash; hospitalization, hospital admission; cost analysis |
| JEL: | I12 I18 |
| Date: | 2014–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2014wpecon21&r=ure |