|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | André Kallåk Anundsen (Norges Bank (Central Bank of Norway)); Christian Heebøll (Department for Convergence and Competitiveness, European Central Bank) |
| Abstract: | With regard to the recent US house price cycle, we analyze how the interaction between housing supply restrictions, mortgage credit constraints and a price-to-price feedback loop affects house price volatility. Considering 247 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, we estimate a simultaneous boom-bust system for house prices, housing supply and subprime lending. The model accounts for regional differences in supply elasticities that are determined by local variations in topographical and regulatory supply restrictions. Our results suggest that tighter supply restrictions lead to both a larger house price boom and bust, and that this is due to supply restricted areas being signicantly more exposed to a financial accelerator effect and a price-to-price expectation mechanism. We further find that the presence of endogenous price acceleration mechanisms contribute to dilute the positive relationship between the total quantity response and the supply elasticity. |
| Keywords: | Regional boom-bust cycles, Housing supply restrictions, Subprime lending, Financial accelerator |
| JEL: | E32 E44 G21 |
| Date: | 2014–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bno:worpap:2014_18&r=ure |
| By: | Jan Eeckhout; Nezih Guner |
| Abstract: | We analyze the role of optimal income taxation across different local labor markets. Should labor in large cities be taxed differently than in small cities? We find that a planner who needs to raise revenue and is constrained by free mobility of labor across cities does not choose equal taxes for cities of different sizes. The optimal tax schedule is location specific and tax differences between large and small cities depends on the level of government spending and on the concentration of housing wealth. Our estimates for the US implies higher marginal rates in big cities, but lower than what is observed. Simulating the US economy under the optimal tax schedule, there are large effects on population mobility: the fraction of population in the 5 largest cities grows by 8.0% with 3.5% of the country-wide population moving to bigger cities. The welfare gains however are smaller. Aggregate consumption goes up by 1.53%. This is due to the fact that much of the output gains are spent on the increased costs of housing construction in bigger cities. Aggregate housing consumption goes down by 1.75%. |
| Keywords: | misallocation, taxation, population mobility, city size, general equilibrium |
| JEL: | H21 J61 R12 R13 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:804&r=ure |
| By: | ZHANG, ZHAOHUA; HITE, DIANE |
| Abstract: | Households choose where to live by trading off wages, house prices and local amenities. In this paper, I estimate the effect of crime on household location choice using a two-stage residential sorting model which incorporates the effect of mobility cost. The choice set in this paper is defined at the level of the metropolitan areas. The results from the second stage show that people are willing to pay more to move to a location with lower violent crime occurrences and are willing to pay more to move to a place with higher property crime; however, the effect of violent crime is larger than property crime. When recovering the willingness to pay (WTP) for the two types of crime using elasticities, the results show that people are willing to pay $651 and $977 for a one hundred unit decrease in violent crime and $23 and $27 for a one hundred unit increase in property crime for 2005 and 2010 respectively. The difference in difference results for the sorting model show that people are willing to pay less to move to a location in which the police number increases, and pay more to move to a location where the crime rate decreases while police force increases. The results of the difference in difference analysis, shows that the elasticity of WTP for the increase in police number in the hedonic price model, is slightly lower than that from the sorting model. |
| Keywords: | Location choice, Crime Rate, Residential Sorting Model, Consumer/Household Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, R23, R21, C35, |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea15:196826&r=ure |
| By: | François Geerolf; Thomas Grjebine |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal effect of house price movements on unemployment dynamics. Using a dataset of 34 countries over the last 40 years, we show the large and significant impact of house prices on unemployment fluctuations using property taxes as an instrument for house prices. A 10% (instrumented) appreciation in house prices yields to a 3.4% decrease in the unemployment rate. These results are very robust to the inclusion of the variables commonly used to explain unemployment rate developments. If house prices directly impact employment in construction, job volatility in this sector resulting in large employment fluctuations, they impact also total employment through their effects on non-residential investment and consumption, two determinants of labour demand. Housing booms have a specific effect on employment in the tradable sector as they lead to real exchange rate appreciations that affect manufacturing activity. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment;House Prices |
| JEL: | J60 E29 R32 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2014-25&r=ure |
| By: | Manuel Adelino; Antoinette Schoar; Felipe Severino |
| Abstract: | Earlier research has suggested that distortions in the supply of mortgage credit during the run up to the 2008 financial crisis, in particular a decoupling of credit flow from income growth, may have been responsible for the rise in house prices and the subsequent collapse of the housing market. Focusing on individual mortgage transactions rather than whole zip codes, we show that the apparent decoupling of credit from income shown in previous research was driven by changes in buyer composition. In fact, the relationship between individual mortgage size and income growth during the housing boom was very similar to previous periods, independent of how we measure income. Zip codes that had large house price increases experienced significant changes in the composition of buyers, i.e. home buyers (mortgage applicants) had increasingly higher income than the average residents in an area. Poorer areas saw an expansion of credit mostly through the extensive margin, i.e. a larger numbers of mortgages originated, but at DTI levels in line with borrower income. When we break out the volume of mortgage origination from 2002 to 2006 by income deciles across the US population, we see that the distribution of mortgage debt is concentrated in middle and high income borrowers, not the poor. Middle and high income borrowers also contributed most significantly to the increase in defaults after 2007. These results are consistent with an interpretation where house price expectations led lenders and buyers to buy into an unfolding bubble based on inflated asset values, rather than a change in the lending technology. |
| JEL: | G0 G01 G2 R2 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20848&r=ure |
| By: | Nancy van Beers; Michiel Bijlsma; Remco Mocking |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of house price shocks on the savings behaviour of Dutch homeowners over the period 2006-2011. Using unique administrative data, we build a balanced panel of slightly less than 2 million Dutch home owning households, containing information on house values, wealth, income and other background characteristics. We find a negative relationship between house price changes and savings, with the largest effects for young households with negative housing equity. In our baseline specification, we find larger effects for house price increases compared to house price decreases. Households of age 30 with loan-to-value ratios above one, save roughly 3 euro less for a 100 euro increase in house prices, while they save around 1 euro more for a 100 euro decrease. The asymmetric effect of price declines versus increases holds in most, but not all specifications. |
| JEL: | G12 R11 R21 R31 R52 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:299&r=ure |
| By: | Tom Engsted (Aarhus University and CREATES); Simon J. Hviid (Aarhus University and CREATES); Thomas Q. Pedersen (Aarhus University and CREATES) |
| Abstract: | We conduct an econometric analysis of bubbles in housing markets in the OECD area, using quarterly OECD data for 18 countries from 1970 to 2013. We pay special attention to the explosive nature of bubbles and use econometric methods that explicitly allow for explosiveness. First, we apply the univariate right-tailed unit root test procedure of Phillips et al. (2012) on the individual countries price-rent ratio. Next, we use Engsted and Nielsen's (2012) co-explosive VAR framework to test for bubbles. We find evidence of explosiveness in many housing markets, thus supporting the bubble hypothesis. However, we also find interesting differences in the conclusions across the two test procedures. We attribute these differences to how the two test procedures control for cointegration between house prices and rent. |
| Keywords: | Co-explosive VAR model, right-tailed unit root tests, date-stamping bubble periods, price-to-rent ratio |
| JEL: | C22 C32 G12 |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2015-01&r=ure |
| By: | Micha³ Bernard Pietrzak (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland); Justyna Wilk (Wroc³aw University of Economics, Poland); Roger Bivand (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) in Bergen, Norway); Tomasz Kossowski (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, Poland) |
| Abstract: | A lot of regional studies cover classification of territorial units due to considering research problem. This approach examines territorial diversification of a phenomena, as well as spatial interactions. The occurrence of spatial dependence can reveal the processes of creating or extanding spatial clusters. One of the significant determinants of research results is a way of classification. Different approach leads to diversified divisions of territorial units. The objective of this paper is to examine the influence of classification method selection on the spatial autocorrelation analysis results using join-count test. This test, in contradiction to the other methods proposed in the field of spatial statistics, analyzes spatial autocorrelation based on qualitative data. Therefore, it can be applied in the examination of spatial dependence between territorial units from distinguished classes of territorial units. |
| Keywords: | join-count test, spatial dependence, classification, qualitative data, economic development. |
| JEL: | C21 C51 J64 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pes:wpaper:2014:no21&r=ure |
| By: | Artz, Georgeanne M.; Kim, Younjun; Orazem, Peter |
| Abstract: | We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets. Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and rural areas. Firms are more likely to locate in markets with an existing cluster of firms in the same industry, with greater concentrations of upstream suppliers or downstream customers, and with a larger proportion of college-educated workers in the local labor supply. Firms are less likely to enter markets with no incumbent firms in the sector or where production is concentrated in relatively few sectors. The same factors encourage both stand-alone start-ups and establishments built by multi-plant firms. Commuting decisions exhibit the same pattern as new firm entry with workers commuting from low to high agglomeration markets. Because agglomeration economies are important for rural firm entry also, policies encouraging new firm entry should focus on relatively few job centers rather than encouraging new firm entry in every small town. |
| Keywords: | firm entry; education; specialization; local monopoly; industrial diversity; upstream and downstream firms; stand-alone versus expansion start-ups |
| JEL: | L26 M13 R11 |
| Date: | 2014–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38342&r=ure |
| By: | Yang Tang (Nanyang Technological University); Ping Wang (Washington University in St. Louis); Carlos Garriga (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | market fundamentals |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:765&r=ure |
| By: | David Castells (Department of Econometrics. University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | The link between urban concentration and economic growth at country level is not straightforward, as there are benefits as well as costs associated with urban concentration. Indeed, recent empirical evidence suggests different effects of urban concentration on growth depending on the level of development and the world region under analysis. This paper revisits the literature on urban concentration and economic growth to shed some light on these previous results. In particular, differences in the process of urbanisation, and in the quality of the urban environment itself, have been suggested as most likely defining the balance between benefits and costs from urban concentration, and are probably behind differences in the relationship between concentration and growth. However, empirical evidence in this regard remains very limited. The aim of the paper is to fill this gap by paying special and explicit attention to differences between world regions in terms of urban infrastructure, essentially access to basic urban services. The main contribution of the paper is to therefore provide empirical evidence on the role that the urban environment plays in the relationship between urban concentration and economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration, urbanisation, urban concentration, infrastructure, congestion diseconomies, growth, Sub-Sahara Africa JEL classification: O1, O4, R1 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:201505&r=ure |
| By: | Mara Giua |
| Abstract: | The capacity of the Regional Policy of the European Union (EU) to reduce the gap between the core and the periphery of the Union is still controversial. This paper revisits the question by exploiting treatment effect methods with a spatial approach never previ ously applied to the analysis of this policy. The spatial discontinuity represented by the administrative boundaries between‘Objective 1’ and ‘non-Objective 1’ regions makes it possible to estimate the causal impact of the EU Regional Policy on Italian ‘Objective 1’ regions where the EU has addressed a large amount of resources over the past decades. By focusing on the sub-sample of municipalities contiguous to the ‘policy-change boundary ’and by matching them according to the segment of the boundary of which they belong, the ‘Spatial RDD' model shows that the EU Regional Policy produced a positive impact on employment levels. The positive impact is concentrated in a specific set of economic sectors directly relevant to the policy action. In addition, there is no evidence of any displacement of resources away from other non-treated regions. |
| Keywords: | Regional Policy of the European Union, treatment effect methods, policy evaluation, regions, European Union, RDD |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0197&r=ure |
| By: | Muravyev, Alexander; Talavera, Oleksandr |
| Abstract: | We exploit a recent natural experiment in Ukraine’s school system to study how stricter requirements for proficiency in the state language affect linguistic minority students’ demand for education. The reform obligated linguistic minority students to take a standardized school exit test in Ukrainian, thus denying them access to translated versions of the test. We study the implications of this reform for students in schools with Hungarian and Romanian/Moldovan languages of instruction. Using school-level data and employing difference-in-difference estimation techniques, we find that the reform resulted in a decline in the number of subjects taken by minority students. They particularly withdrew from linguistically-demanding subjects such as History and Biology, taking more Math instead. Given the implications for minority students’ fields of future study, the reform may have affected their educational outcomes in a distortive way. |
| Keywords: | language policy, linguistic minorities, education, Ukraine |
| JEL: | I2 I28 J1 J15 |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:61252&r=ure |
| By: | Erik B. Johnson (Quinnipiac University); Jason Pearcy (Montana State University) |
| Abstract: | While there is a rich literature on both the spatial impact of taxation and the efficient composition of differential classified taxes, there is a paucity of research on the role of spatial land competition in the choice of these taxes. This paper analyzes the efficient choice of a classified land tax under differing types of spatial competition through the use of open or closed city models with absentee landowners or pubic land ownership. A key result of this analysis is that when there are absentee landowners, changes in efficient classified land taxes do not change the composition of the city. The same is not true with public ownership where classified taxes result in changes in population, resident utility, and land usage. Comparing an open and closed city with absentee landowners, different tax rates are set in a closed city, but it is never efficient to have different tax rates in an open city. |
| Keywords: | Efficient Taxation, Spatial Competition, Local Public Finance, Land Tax |
| JEL: | R1 R5 H21 H3 |
| Date: | 2014–01–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnu:wpaper:1003&r=ure |
| By: | Eric Isenberg; Bing-ru Teh; Elias Walsh |
| Abstract: | Researchers often presume that it is better to use administrative data from grades 4 and 5 than data from grades 6 through 8 for conducting research on teacher effectiveness that uses value-added models because (1) elementary school teachers teach all subjects to their students in self-contained classrooms and (2) classrooms are more homogenous at the elementary school level. |
| Keywords: | Value-added , roster confirmation , teacher |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:0b27337b097f4908a1e240342feb3d3e&r=ure |
| By: | Dan Goldhaber Duncan Dunbar Chaplin |
| Abstract: | In an influential paper, Jesse Rothstein (2010) shows that standard value-added models (VAMs) suggest implausible and large future teacher effects on past student achievement. This is the basis of a falsification test that appears to indicate bias in typical VAM estimates of teacher contributions to student learning on standardized tests. |
| Keywords: | Value added , falsification tests , teacher evaluation |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:93f34c834817419a9efccecdf9c28e0c&r=ure |
| By: | Andrea Eisfeldt (UCLA Anderson School of Management); andrew demers (nyu) |
| Abstract: | In the wake of the 2008 housing bust, Single Family Rental (SFR) strategies have become popular investment vehicles for private equity funds and hedge funds. Industry estimates place the number of homes purchased by SFR investors from 2011-2013 at over 350,000, which is about 10% of all transactions. However, these purchases are not evenly distributed geographically. Homes purchased for SFR strategies are in fact concentrated in states that experienced larger house price declines from 2007-2010 because investors have focused purchases on distressed and foreclosed properties. In these areas, then, well over 10% of recent transactions are SFR related. The emergence and evolution of SFR strategies poses a number of interesting questions for housing capital. First, are investor purchases quantitatively important for explaining the observed 11% nationwide house price appreciation (HPA) in 2013? Distressed markets such as Las Vegas, Phoenix, Miami, Detroit and Riverside all exhibited HPA over 10% from 2011-2013. Second, are single family rental strategies a sound investment, and if so, what are the main drivers of SFR portfolio returns? In this paper, we propose to study these questions using detailed, monthly zip code level data on single family home prices as well as monthly zip code level rents by home type and number of bedrooms along with a simple discounted cash flow model of SFR returns. In our initial work, we document the following stylized facts: (1) In the cross section, as well as in the time series, the returns to SFR strategies are driven mainly by house price appreciation. (2) Long run HPA is determined by a cointegration relationship with income. We build on work in house price forecasting (as performed by practitioners such as Case-Shiller, Moody's, Core Logic, and Goldman Sachs) to show that SFR strategies thus far have succeeded mainly due to corrections to short run deviations from trend house prices. (3) There is substantial heterogeneity at the MSA level in house price appreciation. We find that this appreciation is related not only to overall income growth and land supply inelasticities, but also to which percentiles of the income distribution the MSA serves. We argue that this is because, in recent decades, only the top percentiles of the income distribution have experienced income growth. As a result, other moments beyond the mean or median of the income distribution matter for the impact of income growth on house prices, consistent with within city assignment models of house prices. (4) The heterogeneity in HPA within an MSA across zipcodes is at least as large as the heterogeneity in HPA across MSA's. We explore the extent to which traditional risk measures, gentrification effects, and/or innovations to housing finance, can explain cross-zipcode patterns in HPA, and relate our findings to the prior literature. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:737&r=ure |
| By: | Tadashi Matsumoto; Loïc Daudey |
| Abstract: | The development of Asian cities is characterised by rapid and continuous urbanisation on an unprecedented scale, with rapid economic growth led in most places by the manufacturing industry, and rapidly increasing motorisation. The result has been escalating greenhouse gas emissions, sprawling urban development and local environmental impacts, as well as disparities in income, education levels and job opportunities in the urban population. These trends differ sharply from those in most of the OECD area and call for a green growth model that differs from those identified in previous OECD studies and that addresses the specific circumstances of Asian cities.<P> This paper proposes an analytical framework for assessing policies for green growth in rapidly growing cities in the emerging world. It builds on Cities and Green Growth: A Conceptual Framework (Hammer et al., 2011) and is adapted to the urban policy context of dynamic Asia. Its three main elements are: i) identification of the key policy strategies for urban green growth in fast-growing Asian cities, highlighting similarities to and differences from OECD cities; ii) opportunities for green growth; and iii) enabling strategies for implementing urban green growth. |
| Keywords: | transport, Asia, water, government policy, climate change, cities, land use, green growth, solid waste management, energy |
| JEL: | O18 O19 Q53 Q54 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2015–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2015/1-en&r=ure |
| By: | Trippl, Michaela (CIRCLE, Lund University); Asheim, Björn (CIRCLE, Lund University); Miorner, Johan (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this working paper is to contribute to the debate on how to identify regions with less developed research and innovation systems. We look at both conceptual and empirical approaches that figure prominently in scholarly work on regional innovation systems. Based on a critical review and discussion of the literature we shed light on a large number and variety of barriers and weaknesses that may hamper regional innovation and industrial change. It is shown in this paper that the regional innovation system concept can essentially inform the current debate on the design and implementation of smart specialisation strategies. It offers rich insights into various dimensions of regional innovation systems that may be weakly developed and allows for the development of typologies that capture the heterogeneity of these systems. We also demonstrate that empirical approaches to identify regions with less-developed research and innovation systems fall short of taking account of the conceptual advances made in the recent past. |
| Keywords: | Regional innovation systems; innovation barriers; regional industrial change; smart specialisation strategies |
| JEL: | O30 O31 O38 R10 R11 R50 |
| Date: | 2015–01–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2015_001&r=ure |
| By: | Kazuyuki Iwata; Toshi H. Arimura; Tetsuya Shimane |
| Abstract: | Governments in developed countries have implemented various regulations to manage air pollutants from automobiles, such as emission standards and subsidies for low emission vehicles. Japan is a unique example of a country that has overcome the severe air pollution of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) through the mandatory retirement of old, high emission vehicles in metropolitan areas. To date, however, it is not clear which policy instruments have been effective in mitigating the air pollution from automobiles. The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effectiveness of policy instruments in attaining cleaner air in Japanese metropolitan areas. Using data from 1990 to 2005, we estimate the concentration functions of NOx and PM using a spatial econometric model. We find that most regulations and subsidies decreased the concentration levels of both pollutants. Traditional emission standards were found to be more effective than other policy instruments. Vehicle replacement subsidies were more cost-effective than those for PM-removal equipment. Furthermore, the empirical results indicate that the effect of subsidies for vehicle replacement on one municipality¡¯s air had spillover effects by improving the pollutant concentrations in the surrounding municipal areas. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e77&r=ure |
| By: | Balcazar, Carlos Felipe; Nopo, Hugo |
| Abstract: | Good teachers are essential for high-quality educational systems. However, little is known about teachers'skills formation during college. By combining two standardized tests for Colombian students, one taken at the end of senior year in high school and the other when students are near graduation from college, this paper documents the extent to which education majors relatively improve or deteriorate their skills in quantitative reasoning, native language, and foreign language, in comparison to students in other programs. Teachers'skills vis-a-vis those in other majors deteriorate in quantitative reasoning and foreign language, although they deteriorate less for those in math-oriented and foreign language-oriented programs. For native language, there is no evidence of robust differences in relative learning mobility. |
| Keywords: | Tertiary Education,Teaching and Learning,Education For All,Primary Education,Secondary Education |
| Date: | 2015–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7168&r=ure |
| By: | Kristensen, Iryna (University of Salzburg) |
| Abstract: | Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are argued to be able to add greater value to innovation processes by fortifying the quality of innovation systems by linking regional public and private actors together and exploiting a wide range of sources of innovation. The effectiveness of interface management and resource allocation as well as the dynamics of multifaceted interactions, however, will strongly depend on the degree of proximity between innovation agents. While it is difficult to determine the optimal degree of proximity for multi-sector cooperation in addressing systemic challanges, there is little doubt that certain level of cognitive, organizational, institutional, social and geographical closeness is conductive to interaction and learning. This paper applies a partnership-based approach to investigate the interrelation between dimensions of proximity and systemic failures and observes potential regional and sectoral variations with respect to proximity dimensions and their implication for regional innovation system efficiency. A matrix linking five dimensions of proximity with four categories of systemic problems serves as a basis for analysis. Six PPPs from two regions in Sweden (i.e. Sydsverige and Övre Norrland) are selected for empirical study. |
| Keywords: | Public-Private Partnerships; Regional Innovation Policy |
| JEL: | L32 O38 |
| Date: | 2015–01–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sbgwpe:2015_001&r=ure |
| By: | Tomasz Komornicki (Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland) |
| Abstract: | The aim of the paper is to indicate the possible direction of the use of certain measures and indicators to operationalize the concept of territorial cohesion in general and in Polish conditions. The starting point is the five “territorial keys” proposed in the Background Report of the Polish Presidency of the European Union: a) accessibility, b) services of general economic interests, c) territorial assets, d) city networking, e) functional regions. For each of the territorial keys the set of indicators was proposed. Their usefulness and formal availability were analyzed. Analyzing the question of how to measure (quantify) territorial cohesion, it seems appropriate to divide the territorial keys for: a) keys-problems and b) keys-tools. The accessibility, services of general economic interests and city networking are undoubtedly keys-problems. The functional regions is a key-tool. The nature of the key territorial assets is double. Lack of assets is a problem, but at the same time proper identification of local resources is a tool - the basis for an effective place-based policy. |
| Keywords: | territorial capital, territorial keys, accessibility, regional development |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R23 R41 R53 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iro:wpaper:1405&r=ure |
| By: | Celeste K. Carruthers; Marianne H. Wanamaker |
| Abstract: | Gains in 20th century real wages and reductions in the black-white wage gap have been linked to the mid-century ascent of school quality. With a new dataset uniquely appropriate to identifying the impact of female voter enfranchisement on education spending, we attribute up to one-third of the 1920-1940 rise in public school expenditures to the Nineteenth Amendment. Yet the continued disenfranchisement of black southerners meant white school gains far outpaced those for blacks. As a result, women’s suffrage exacerbated racial inequality in education expenditures and substantially delayed relative gains in black human capital observed later in the century. |
| JEL: | H75 I24 N32 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20864&r=ure |
| By: | Lambert, D. M.; English, B. C.; Menard, R. J.; Wilson, B.; He, L.; Yu, T. E.; Jensen, K. |
| Abstract: | This research applies recent developments in the analysis of firm location determinants, applying local geographic concentration indices to determine and the extent to which clustering influences the location decisions of cellulosic biofuel facilities. We focus on ethanol production from switchgrass and drop-in fuels made through pyrolysis. The economic sectors analyzed would be involved in the extraction, production, and distribution of intermediate and final fuel products, and the financing of businesses supporting these activities. We augment a cost-minimizing site location model with information about local employment patterns that would be engaged with a switchgrass-based cellulosic fuel sector. Employment concentration is determined using recent developments in the derivation of the traditional location quotient as a maximum likelihood estimator. The null hypotheses are that differences arising from advantages associated with each county are not different. Rejection of this hypothesis suggests that some sites have comparative advantage with respect to location advantage. The null hypothesis also suggests that the inclusion of labor concentration information in the overall cost structure will not impact the distribution of facilities. Region-wide economic impacts that follow the addition of multiple facilities are not expected to be different after inclusion of the employment location quotients as site suitability criteria. |
| Keywords: | cellulosic ethanol, pyrolysis, switchgrass, facility siting, employment concentration, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Q1, Q4, |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea15:196691&r=ure |
| By: | Jacek Adam Zaucha (Institute for Development, Sopot, Poland; University of Gdansk, Faculty of Economics, Department of Macroeconomics, Gdańsk, Poland) |
| Abstract: | The paper presents the results of literature research on the role of institutions in development. The paper refers to the new economic geography and its findings on the importance of immovable territorial assets for local and regional development. This observation also plays important role in so called place-based policy paradigm proposed by Barca. Institutions such as social norms, social capital, governance can be clarified as such type immovable assets that cannot be easily replicated in other parts of the words and form specific development milieu. This paper examines how the concepts of immovable resources (assets) has been used in formal growth models by the mainstream economics. Presented and discussed research efforts show that the institutions, according to leading economists, are an important determinant of economic growth. The growth models usually assume that institutions affect the size of resources (especially human capital) and their productivity. In these models, they are recognized as an element of total factor productivity or in the equations portraying the accumulation of factors of production. The main problem that makes research on the effects of institutions at the regional level are far from the conclusiveness, is the complexity of the same category, universal character of many institutions at least at country level and the difficulty in choosing the appropriate indicators for its measurement The paper uses the results of the project financed by the Polish National Science Centre “Concept of the territorial cohesion in cohesion policy. Implications for Economic Growth "(number 2012/05 / B / HS4 / 04212). |
| Keywords: | growth, territorial assets, institutions, regional institutions |
| JEL: | O43 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iro:wpaper:1402&r=ure |
| By: | Swenson, David A. |
| Abstract: | This analysis measures the regional economic value of the University of Northern Iowa. There are two dimensions evaluated: the overall worth of operating the university and the value of student spending in the area economy. This analysis incorporates a number of best practices for measuring the worth of universities to regional economies. |
| Keywords: | university; input-output; economic impacts |
| Date: | 2015–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38338&r=ure |
| By: | Adonis Antoniades |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical studies have shown that during the financial crisis of 2007-2008 banks that were more heavily exposed to liquidity risk contracted their supply of credit more sharply. I contribute to the identification of this effect by relying on the use of micro-level data on US mortgage loan applications, which allows me to identify liquidity risk as an important determinant of the contraction of credit in the mortgage market, but as separate from the precipitous fall in credit demand, disruptions in the securitization and subprime markets, shifts in asset risk, and changing risk-aversion among loan officers. |
| Keywords: | liquidity risk, bank lending channel, credit lines, core deposits, mortgage credit |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:473&r=ure |
| By: | Skogstad, Karl |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the determinants of national defence budgets in the post-Cold War era using a spatial econometric framework. Using data for 124 countries over a 16 year time period, I examine spatial relationships in defence spending to investigate how countries account for the military spending of other countries when setting their budgets. Using specially developed weighting matrices, the regression results indicate that defence budgets are positively spatially correlated. These results provide support for the use of "external" factors when examining defence budgets over this time period. The importance of a country's spatial location when setting its budget is further examined through the identification of regions of high and low defence spending. |
| Keywords: | Defence Budgets; Spatial; External Factors |
| JEL: | F52 H56 |
| Date: | 2015–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:61465&r=ure |
| By: | Saguatti, Annachiara; Erickson, Kenneth; Gutierrez, Luciano |
| Keywords: | Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae14:182757&r=ure |
| By: | Pyddoke, Roger (VTI); Swärdh, Jan-Erik (VTI) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyse how the use of privately owned cars in Sweden varies across a number of background parameters including fuel price, disposable income, car purchase cost index, children over 18, employment and the car owners’ distance to work. These factors are analysed separately for men and women, individuals living in urban, rural and sparsely populated areas as well as disposable income quartiles. In particular the adaptation of car use of low income car owners in rural and sparsely populated areas to fuel cost and disposable income variations is analysed. Register data of the whole population in Sweden taken from the Swedish tax authorities for 1999-2008 as well as kilometre readings from the National Vehicle Inspection is used. This allows tracking individual changes in car use over ten years as well as to contrast car use in rural and sparsely populated areas to car use in urban areas. Car use is modelled with a dynamic panel data specification, permitting proper methods to deal with endogeneity problems. Small geographical differences in the sensitivity to variations in disposable income are found. For fuel cost on the other hand, there is a tendency towards higher price sensitivity in rural areas especially in the two lowest income quartiles. In sparsely populated areas, there is no higher sensitivity of fuel price compared to urban areas. The income elasticity of car use is fairly small and decreases with increasing disposable income. This latter finding is compatible with the hypothesis of car driving saturation in the rich countries around the world. The car travel elasticity with respect to fuel price is estimated to be between -0.2 and -0.4 in the short run. Here the pattern is as expected with decreasing fuel-price elasticity with increasing income. |
| Keywords: | Car use; Fuel-price elasticity; Register data; Dynamic panel data |
| JEL: | D12 R41 |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2015_001&r=ure |
| By: | Wouter Zwysen |
| Abstract: | Using multilevel models on the German Socioâ€Economic Panel Study this paper shows that disadvantaged young adults (16â€35 years old) are more affected by the business cycle than their similarly educated counterparts from more advantaged backgrounds. We propose that a disadvantaged background lowers desirability on the labour market, which matters more to employers as the labour market tightens. When the local unemployment rate is high, young adults from adisadvantaged background are less likely to be hired for good jobs or hired at all than their more advantaged counterparts. These results are robust to different operationalisations and sibling fixed effects. |
| Keywords: | labour; family and networks; income and poverty |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp725&r=ure |
| By: | Ali, Hoda Abd El Hamid |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of industrial clusters in the development of the Egyptian universities & research institutes (URIs), and economic performance. The study hypothesizes that the large industrial clusters in Egypt are old and traditional, and have weak impact on URIs, and economic performance. To this end, we examine Egypt regions where that contain long-existing and traditional industrial clusters are compared to all other regions. The analysis is conducted separately for seven industries, and by using a Mann-Whitney U test and a spearman correlation we find that the more recent and technical industrial clusters in Egypt have a positive and significant impact on URIs , but they have a weak impact on economic performance. The Egyptian experience suggests that the most important contribution of clusters to URIS is one in which corporations contribute money to universities, or enter in to informal consulting arrangements with a professor, neither of which typically of professional patent applications or even through the mobility of university graduates. |
| Keywords: | Egypt, universities and research institutes, clusters, National innovation system, and development |
| JEL: | O1 O12 O14 O3 |
| Date: | 2100 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:60111&r=ure |
| By: | Semih Tumen; Tugba Zeydanli |
| Abstract: | The literature documents that job satisfaction is positively correlated with worker performance and pro- ductivity. We examine whether aggregate job satisfaction in a certain labor market environment can have an impact on individual-level job satisfaction. If the answer is yes, then policies targeted to increase job satisfaction can increase productivity not only directly, but through spillover externalities too. We seek an answer to this question using two different data sets from the United Kingdom characterizing two different labor market environments: Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) at the workplace level (i.e., narrowly defined worker groups) and British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) at the local labor market level (i.e., larger worker groups defined in industry x region cells). Implementing an original empirical strategy to identify spillover effects, we find that one standard deviation increase in aggregate job satisfac- tion leads to a 0.42 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the workplace level and 0.15 standard deviation increase in individual-level job satisfaction at the local labor market level. These social interactions effects are sizable and should not be ignored in assessing the effectiveness of the policies designed to improve job satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | Job satisfaction; social interactions; spillovers; hierarchical model; WERS; BHPS. |
| JEL: | C31 D62 J28 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:378&r=ure |
| By: | Tony Dobbins (Bangor University); Alexandra Plows (Bangor University) |
| Abstract: | Current academic and policy prescriptions based on supply-side human capital theory assumptions are inadequate for understanding and adjusting to labour market unpredictability in regional economies like Wales, in the United Kingdom. This paper presents arguments in support of alternative more integrated approaches that match supply and demand in regional labour markets. The role of regional Labour Market Intermediaries (LMIs) in performing this matching function and brokering employment relationships is an important research issue. Here, one LMI in Wales, Shaping the Future, is explored using qualitative ethnographic methods. |
| Date: | 2014–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bng:wpaper:14005&r=ure |
| By: | Swenson, David A. |
| Abstract: | This is part of a reform effort published by the Association of Public Land Grant Universities, entitled Economic Engagement: Economic Impact Guidelines. Chapter 2 of this workshop compendium focuses on problems and solutions associated with measuring universities' contributions to regional economic activity. Economic Impact GuidelinesDECEMBER 2014 |
| Keywords: | input-output; impact analysis; University economic impacts |
| Date: | 2014–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38385&r=ure |
| By: | Swenson, David A. |
| Abstract: | This analysis measures the regional economic value of The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (hereafter, UIHC). The assessment looks at UIHC operational expenditures using a properly specified regional input-output model that accurately reflects its major spending categories and its primary territory of economic influence. This analysis does not contain an estimate of the regional economic boost attributable to patients or the families of patients traveling to the Iowa City metropolitan area for services or other visits. An estimate of those values would require a scientifically valid survey of visitors and patients that details average duration of stay and the amount of spending accruing regionally. This study analyzes only the economic activity associated with the operation of the UIHC as a public health care institution. |
| Keywords: | input-output; economic impact; University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics |
| Date: | 2015–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38339&r=ure |