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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Öner, Özge (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) ) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the role of retailers as an urban amenity. Using data for Swedish rural and city municipalities for 2002–2008, ‘accessibility to shops’ measures are constructed for the shops in the municipalities and in the hosting regions separately to examine the relationship between consumption possibilities and place attractiveness in a spatial continuum. Place attractiveness is proxied by a Q ratio for Swedish housing investment based on Tobin’s Q. Access to stores within municipal market boundaries is found to be relevant for the place attractiveness of city municipalities, whereas no such relationship is evident for rural municipalities. |
| Keywords: | Housing; Urban amenities; Retail; Q theory; Regional hierarchy |
| JEL: | L81 R12 R14 R31 |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1055&r=ure |
| By: | Caterina Calsamiglia ; Francisco Martínez-Mora ; Antonio Miralles |
| Abstract: | We study the effects that school choice mechanisms and school priorities have on the degree of sorting of students across schools and neighborhoods, when school quality is endogenously determined by the peer group. Using a model with income or ability heterogeneity, we compare the popular Deferred Acceptance (DA) and Boston (BM) mechanisms under several scenarios. With residential priori-ties, students and their households fully segregate into quality-ranked schools and neighborhoods under both mechanisms. With no residential priorities and a bad public school, DA does not generate sorting in general, while BM does so between a priori good public schools. With private schools, the best public school becomes more elitist under BM. |
| Keywords: | school choice, mechanism design, peer effects, local public goods. |
| JEL: | I21 H4 D78 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lec:leecon:15/01&r=ure |
| By: | Arthur Acolin ; Richard K. Green |
| Abstract: | Brazil has largely accomplished its urban transition but housing conditions for many residents of its urban centers remain such that they have large negative effects on individual and social welfare. This report develops a comprehensive measure of housing adequacy based on seven different deficiencies and estimates the number of households living in these conditions in Sao Paulo metropolitan region over the period 2007-2013 using PNAD data. These housing situations necessitate policy responses but the nature of these interventions differs and cannot be limited to programs to build new units for owner occupancy using public subsidies. Our main departure from existing measures of housing needs is to estimate housing costs for owners using the owner equivalent rent approach and develop a measure of affordability that combines housing and transportation costs as a share of income. This first attempt to develop a comprehensive affordability indicator is limited by data constraints but indicates that the rise in the number of households spending or who would be spending more than 45 percent of their income on housing and transportation costs combined has been increasing rapidly over the period studied. |
| Keywords: | housing; affordability; transportation |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:luk:wpaper:9387&r=ure |
| By: | Monika Piazzesi ; Martin Schneider ; Johannes Stroebel |
| Abstract: | This paper studies housing markets with multiple segments searched by heterogeneous clienteles. We document market and search activity for the San Francisco Bay Area. Variation within narrow geographic areas is large and differs significantly from variation across those areas. In particular, search activity and inventory covary positively within cities and zip codes, but negatively across those units. A quantitative search model shows how the interaction of broad and narrow searchers drives housing market activity at different levels of aggregation and shapes the response to shocks as well as price discounts due to market frictions. |
| JEL: | E00 G12 R30 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20823&r=ure |
| By: | Kumar, Niteen |
| Abstract: | Urbanization as an important area for development intervention and as a reflection of economic prosperity is established beyond doubt. However in the recent decades a considerable body of research has undermined a large share of urban population outside the ambit of metropolises and global city regions. This paper attempts to unearth the trends and spatial structure as well as potentiality of future urban development in one the most backward regions of India i.e. Jharkhand. The paper outlines the different facets of urbanization process along with the heterogeneity of urbanization process in Jharkhand. The spatial imbalances have been focused in depth in the proceeding sections along with emphasis on the potentiality of future urban growth in the region. The results depict lopsided urbanization with maximum concentration of population in class I cities. At the same time it shows revival of lower order towns. |
| Keywords: | Urbanization, Structural Trends, Spatial Imbalance, Jharkhand, Future Urbanization |
| JEL: | R00 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:61280&r=ure |
| By: | Jens Kolbe ; Henry Wüstemann ; ; |
| Abstract: | Urban Green Space (UGS) such as parks and forests provide a wide range of environmental and recreational benefits. One objective in the conservation efforts of UGS is to analyse the benefits associated with UGS in order to make them more visible and to provide support for landscape planning. This paper examines the effects of UGS on house prices applying a Hedonic Pricing Method (HPM). The data set contains over 85,046 geo-coded apartment transactions for the years 1995- 2012 and contains information on three intrinsic variables of the real estate (e.g. transaction price, floor area and age). In order to examine the capitalization of UGS in real estate prices we further incorporate crosssection geo-coded data for the different types of UGS: forests, parks, farmland and fallow land drawn from the European Urban Atlas (EUA) of the European Environment Agency for the year 2006. In order to control for additional open space categories we further incorporated geo-coded data on water bodies and fallow land. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS) we calculated the coverage of UGS in pre-defined buffers around households as well as the distance in a continuous fashion (Euclidian distance) between UGS and the households. Our results show a capitalization of UGS in real estate prices but the effect of the structural variables is higher. We found a positive price effect of parks, forests and water and an inverse relation between the price variable and the presence of fallow land and farmland. |
| Keywords: | Urban Green Space (UGS), Open Space, Hedonic Pricing Method (HPM), GISAnalysis |
| JEL: | R31 C14 Q50 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2015-002&r=ure |
| By: | Tim Bollerslev (Duke University, NBER and CREATES ); Andrew J. Patton (Duke University, NBER and CREATES ); Wenjing Wang (Moody’s Analytics, Inc. ) |
| Abstract: | We construct daily house price indices for ten major U.S. metropolitan areas. Our calculations are based on a comprehensive database of several million residential property transactions and a standard repeat-sales method that closely mimics the methodology of the popular monthly Case-Shiller house price indices. Our new daily house price indices exhibit dynamic features similar to those of other daily asset prices, with mild autocorrelation and strong conditional heteroskedasticity of the corresponding daily returns. A relatively simple multivariate time series model for the daily house price index returns, explicitly allowing for commonalities across cities and GARCH effects, produces forecasts of monthly house price changes that are superior to various alternative forecast procedures based on lower frequency data. |
| Keywords: | Data aggregation, Real estate prices, Forecasting, Time-varying volatility |
| JEL: | C22 C32 C53 G17 R21 |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2015-02&r=ure |
| By: | Frank Ethridge ; Maryann Feldman ; Tom Kemeny ; Ted Zoller |
| Abstract: | The idea that local social capital yields economic benefits is fundamental to theories of agglomeration, and central to claims about the virtues of cities. However, this claim has not been evaluated using methods that permit more confident statements about causality. This paper examines what happens to firms that become affiliated with a highly-connected local individual or "dealmaker." We adopt a quasi-experimental approach, combining difference-in-differences and propensity score matching to address selection and identification challenges. The results indicate that firms who link to highly-connected local dealmakers are rewarded with substantial gains in employment and sales when compared to a control group. |
| Keywords: | Cities, economic development, social networks, social capital |
| JEL: | R11 O12 O18 L14 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0170&r=ure |
| By: | Shirazi, Nasim Shah (The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI) ); Syed Ali, Salman (The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI) ); Zafar, Atiq-uz (The Islamic Research and Teaching Institute (IRTI) ) |
| Abstract: | Housing is one of the basic needs. It is linked with many other sectors of the economy. Promoting this sector consequently promotes employment, consumption and investment in the economy. A number of factors limit the supply of housing especially in the urban cities. Non-transparent ownership, vague property rights, weak legal and regulatory framework and ineffective foreclosures laws, ineffective land registration system, high transaction costs, and inadequate long term housing finance funds have been the major issues of the housing sector. Several Islamic modes of housing finance exist in the market. Musharakah Mutanaqisah (diminishing partnership or Diminishing Balance Partnership; DBP) is the most widely used mode of housing finance followed by Ijarah and Murabahah for completed properties. For property under construction, Ijarah Mawsoofa Bi Dhimma (IBMD) is the most widely used followed by DBP and Istisna.The paper suggests some possible solutions for removing some of the constraints on housing finance |
| Date: | 2015–01–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:irtiwp:1435_010&r=ure |
| By: | De Cara, Stéphane ; Fournier, Anne ; Gaigné, Carl |
| Abstract: | ’Buying local food’ is sometimes advocated as a means of reducing the ’carbon footprint’ of food products. This statement overlooks the trade-off between inter- and intra-regional food transportation. We investigate this issue by using an m-region, new economic geography model. The spatial distribution of food production within and between regions is endogenously determined. We exhibit cases where locating a significant share of the food production in the least-urbanized regions results in lower transport-related emissions than in configurations where all regions are self-sufficient. The welfare-maximizing allocation of food production does not exclude the possibility that some regions should be self-sufficient, provided their urban population sizes are neither too large nor too small. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural location, Transport, Greenhouse gas emissions, Food miles, Local food, Environmental Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2014–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae14:182678&r=ure |
| By: | Giorgio Primiceri (Northwestern University ); Andrea Tambalotti (Federal Reserve Bank of New York ); Alejandro Justiniano (Federal Reerve Chicago ) |
| Abstract: | We present a model of housing with collateral constraints on both on borrowers and lenders. The constraint on the borrowers corresponds to the usual collateral requirement on the purchase of new houses that has been extensively studied in the literature. The contribution of our analysis is to study constraints on the supply of credit, modeled as limitations in the share of mortgages that lenders can hold in their portfolios. These limits are motivated by risk weighted capital requirements on commercial banks, as well as minimum asset quality restrictions on large institutional investors. The analysis begins with a simple stylized model to understand the implications of transitioning to higher levels of credit supply. To quantify the macroeconomic effects of credit supply expansions we embed borrower and lender constraints into a rich dynamic model, calibrated using evidence on the expansion of off-balance sheet vehicles and market-based funding by financial intermediaries, as well as micro (Survey of Consumer Finances) and macro data (Flow of Funds, NIPA). Our results suggest that the housing boom which preceded the Great Recession was due to a progressive loosening of lending constraints in the residential mortgage market. This view is consistent with a number of empirical observations, such as the rapid increase in house prices and household debt, the stability of debt relative to collateral values, and the fall in mortgage rates. These empirical facts are difficult to reconcile with the popular view that attributes the housing boom to a loosening of borrowing constraints associated with lower collateral requirements. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:766&r=ure |
| By: | Mariesa Herrmann ; Lisa Dragoset ; Susanne James-Burdumy |
| Abstract: | Infographic |
| Keywords: | SIG, School Improvement Grants, Low Performing Schools, Education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2015–01–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:798977e6cf60449797121d49a80ad4c8&r=ure |
| By: | Matthew T. Johnson ; Stephen Lipscomb ; Brian Gill |
| Abstract: | Teacher value-added models (VAMs) must isolate teachers’ contributions to student achievement to be valid. Well-known VAMs use different specifications, however, leaving policymakers with little clear guidance for constructing a valid model. |
| Keywords: | Value-added models , teacher evaluation , education |
| JEL: | I |
| Date: | 2015–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:4a9776a57ae9477e80df47e7d9319a25&r=ure |
| By: | C. Kirabo Jackson ; Rucker C. Johnson ; Claudia Persico |
| Abstract: | Since Coleman (1966), many have questioned whether school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K–12 education spending in US history. To study the effect of these school-finance-reform-induced changes in school spending on long-run adult outcomes, we link school spending and school finance reform data to detailed, nationally-representative data on children born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms, and their associated type of funding formula change, as an exogenous shifter of school spending and we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts that were differentially exposed to school finance reforms, depending on place and year of birth. Event-study and instrumental variable models reveal that a 10 percent increase in per-pupil spending each year for all twelve years of public school leads to 0.27 more completed years of education, 7.25 percent higher wages, and a 3.67 percentage-point reduction in the annual incidence of adult poverty; effects are much more pronounced for children from low-income families. Exogenous spending increases were associated with sizable improvements in measured school quality, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases in teacher salaries, and longer school years. |
| JEL: | H0 I20 I24 J00 J1 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20847&r=ure |
| By: | Jens Kolbe ; Rainer Schulz ; Martin Wersing ; Axel Werwatz |
| Abstract: | We use Adaptive Weights Smoothing (AWS) of Polzehl and Spokoiny (2000, 2003, 2006) to estimate a map of land values for Berlin, Germany. Our data are prices of undeveloped land that was transacted between 1996-2009. Even though the observed land price is an indicator of the respective land value, it is in uenced by transaction noise. The iterative AWS applies piecewise constant regression to reduce this noise and tests at each location for constancy at the margin. If not rejected, further observations are included in the local regression. The estimated land value map conforms overall well with expert-based land values. Our application suggests that the transparent AWS could prove a useful tool for researchers and real estate practitioners alike. |
| Keywords: | land value, adaptive weight smoothing, spatial modeling |
| JEL: | C14 R14 R15 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2015-003&r=ure |
| By: | Taryn Dinkelman ; Sam Schulhofer-Wohl |
| Abstract: | The direct benefits of infrastructure in developing countries can be large, but if new infrastructure induces in-migration, congestion of other local publicly provided goods may offset the direct benefits. Using the example of rural household electrification in South Africa, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for migration when evaluating welfare gains of spatial programs. We also provide a practical approach to computing welfare gains that does not rely on land prices. We develop a location choice model that incorporates missing land markets and allows for congestion in local land. Using this model, we construct welfare bounds as a function of the income and population effects of the new electricity infrastructure. A novel prediction from the model is that migration elasticities and congestion effects are especially large when land markets are missing. We empirically estimate these welfare bounds for rural electrification in South Africa, and show that congestion externalities from program-induced migration reduced local welfare gains by about 40%. |
| JEL: | H23 H43 H54 O15 O18 R13 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20842&r=ure |
| By: | Schulhofer-Wohl, Sam (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis ); Dinkelman, Taryn (Dartmouth College ) |
| Abstract: | The direct benefits of infrastructure in developing countries can be large, but if new infrastructure induces in-migration, congestion of other local publicly provided goods may offset the direct benefits. Using the example of rural household electrification in South Africa, we demonstrate the importance of accounting for migration when evaluating welfare gains of spatial programs. We also provide a practical approach to computing welfare gains that does not rely on land prices. We develop a location choice model that incorporates missing land markets and allows for congestion in local land. Using this model, we construct welfare bounds as a function of the income and population effects of the new electricity infrastructure. A novel prediction from the model is that migration elasticities and congestion effects are especially large when land markets are missing. We empirically estimate these welfare bounds for rural electrification in South Africa and show that congestion externalities from program-induced migration reduced local welfare gains by about 40% |
| Keywords: | rural infrastructure; migration; congestion; welfare; program evaluation; South AFrica |
| JEL: | H23 H43 H54 O15 O18 R13 |
| Date: | 2015–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmsr:506&r=ure |
| By: | Talita Dalton-Greyling and Fiona Tregenna |
| Abstract: | This study employs a novel approach to measure and analyse quality of life in the Gauteng City-Region of South Africa. A comprehensive composite index is constructed. Comparing the quality of life of different groups, groups such as Africans, residents in urban informal settlements and females scoring relatively low. The weighting of the dimensions of quality of life is compared across groups, with ‘housing and infrastructure’ and ‘social relationships’ explaining the most variance for groups with lower and higher quality of life respectively. The findings emphasise the unevenness of wellbeing. The study provides a basis for measuring and analysing quality of life in other countries. |
| Keywords: | quality of life, wellbeing, composite indices, Gauteng City-Region, measuring instruments |
| JEL: | C38 I31 O15 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:481&r=ure |
| By: | Karlsson, Charlie (Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), Blekinge Institute of Technology & Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS) ); Rouchy, Philippe (Blekinge Institute of Technology ) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to consider some of the challenges lying ahead of policy makers in the context of regional development. Regional economic development encompasses the economics and other resources that a region can mobilize for its own sustainable development and competitiveness. It is only recently that regions have developed tools and means for analysing the performance of their firms and organizations. Public and private governance bodies have recognized that ever-changing economic conditions bring renewed externalities, which are difficult to capture. Gaps in regional performances have been attributed to important, but often intangible factors such as social capital. Regional economics has taken on board those concerns by considering networks, trust and local procedures in their studies. Nevertheless, the issue remains that regional governance seems intractable in market terms alone. In this paper, we tackle the issue of governance in the context of regional development thanks to Buchanan’s approach of choices and costs. To provide such an assessment, we contribute by merging economics and sociology, where we shift the cost focus from the classic economic concern for equilibrium towards a concern for social utility. |
| Keywords: | Regional Development; Social Capital; Governance; Networks; Public Choice; Property Rights; Cooperation; Trust |
| JEL: | A14 B25 D70 P48 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2015–01–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0390&r=ure |
| By: | Nezih Guner (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona ); Jan Eeckhout (University College London and GSE-UPF ) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the role of optimal income taxation across different locations. Existing federal income tax schedules have a distortionary effect and result in the misallocation of labor across cities of different size. Because of higher productivity in big cities, wages for identically skilled workers are larger than in small cities. Progressive taxation thus implies that citizens in big cities pay higher taxes than in small cities. With mobility, utility is equalized, and the taxes are reflected in equilibrium wages and house prices. We solve for the optimal level of progressiveness. We find that the optimal level is not zero, but that it is less than what is observed in the US economy. Simulating the US economy under the optimal tax schedule, we find large effects on output and population mobility. GDP increases are in the range of 2.6–8.8%, and the fraction of population in 5 largest cities grows between 1.5–4.9%. The welfare effects however are small, 0.008–0.067%. This is due to the fact that the big output gains are lost in increased costs of living. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed014:750&r=ure |
| By: | Dorota Ciołek (Institute for Development, Sopot, Poland, University of Gdansk, Faculty of Economics, Department of Macroeconomics, Gdańsk, Poland ) |
| Abstract: | One of the key elements in territorial cohesion conception is idea of territorial capital in specific region. In this article we present an attempt of the territorial capital evaluation for Polish poviats (NTS 4) in period 2003-2011. The starting point was finding variables which in accurate way could reflect the level of such capital and for which official statistics for all regions are available. We implemented a concept of territorial keys (Boheme et al. 2011) according to which the most important components of the territorial capital are: accessibility, availability and quality of services of general economic interest, territorial capacities, the ability of regions to create economic and social networks and finally presence of functional regions. The broadest of these categories are territorial capacities, which include: territory-bound factors (industrial clusters etc.), wise management of cultural and natural assets, human capital and social capital. For each of the variables we present maps showing their spatial diversity in Polish poviats. In the case of variables for which during examined period significant changes were observed two maps are presented: for the beginning and for the last year. It allowed to observe the changes of analyzed categories in Polish poviats. |
| Keywords: | territorial capital, regional development, territorial statistics |
| JEL: | R11 R12 C10 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iro:wpaper:1406&r=ure |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | Almost one in three teachers across countries participating in the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) reports having more than 10% of potentially disruptive students with behaviour problems in their classes. Teachers with more than one in ten students with behaviour problems spend almost twice as much time keeping order in the classroom than their peers with less than 10% of such students in their class. Behaviour issues such as intimidation or verbal abuse among students are associated with student absenteeism. Schools that promote participation of students, teachers and parents in school decisions, combined with a culture of shared responsibility and mutual support, tend to have lower incidence of student misbehaviour. |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaah:9-en&r=ure |
| By: | Peter Nijkamp (VU University ); Jacques Poot (University of Waikato ) |
| Abstract: | Cultural diversity – in various forms – has in recent years turned into a prominent and relevant research and policy issue. There is an avalanche of studies across many disciplines that measure and analyse cultural diversity and its impacts. Based on different perspectives and features of the available data, a great variety of diversity indicators have emerged. The present paper aims to highlight some critical issues involved in applying such measures of cultural diversity. A selection of commonly used or recently advocated measures are reviewed. Measures of population diversity can be calculated at different spatial scales and used to analyse spatio-temporal heterogeneity. Additionally, there is a growing interest in measuring spatial dependence, particularly in the form of segregation or clusters. We conclude that there will be in the future considerable scope for adopting multidimensional and cultural distance-weighted measures of diversity. Such measures will be increasingly calculated by means of rich geo-referenced longitudinal micro data. However, adopted measures must be better motivated by behavioural theories. Further research on the determinants and impacts of observed measures of diversity is also likely to be fruitful, particularly in a dynamical setting. |
| Keywords: | diversity, dissimilarity measurement, ethnicity, culture, segregation, polarization, fractionalization |
| JEL: | C00 D63 J15 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1502&r=ure |
| By: | Moczall, Andreas (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany] ) |
| Abstract: | "What happens to the wages of regular workers in establishments subsidized with hiring subsidies? Does hiring programme participants result in windfalls that are distributed among regular workers? Do these reduce their wage demands to avoid being substituted by subsidized workers? Using linked employer-employee data from Germany, I estimate the effects of subsidizing an establishment on regular workers' wages using spell fixed effects regression. I find that hiring subsidy schemes do increase the daily wages of regular workers by up to almost one per cent in the manufacturing sector. These effects are limited to large establishments and abovemedian local unemployment rates. They occur within the establishment itself and are not merely the result of varying regional exposure to ALMP programmes. I conclude that hiring subsidies have a notable impact on regular workers beyond mere substitution." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | IAB-Linked-Employer-Employee-Datensatz, Eingliederungszuschuss, Beschäftigerverhalten, Lohnstruktur, Betrieb, arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahme - Auswirkungen |
| JEL: | J38 J68 H25 C23 |
| Date: | 2015–01–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201501&r=ure |
| By: | Esenaliev, Damir ; Gregory Kisunko ; Kisunko, Gregory |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates determinants of civic participation in local budget processes in rural areas in the Kyrgyz Republic by using data from the Life in Kyrgyzstan survey, conducted in 2012. The analysis of the data suggests that although civic awareness and interest in local budget processes is relatively high, the participation rate in local budgeting processes is low. The paper also shows that interest, awareness, and participation are positively associated with the age, education, employment, risk-taking attitudes, trust, and social capital of respondents. The paper documents that unawareness and lack of participation are largely related to being female, of non-Kyrgyz ethnic origin, inactive in the labor market, recent internal migrants, and residents of communities with poor infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | Debt Markets,Housing&Human Habitats,Governance Indicators,Knowledge for Development,Population Policies |
| Date: | 2015–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7154&r=ure |
| By: | Damiaan Persyn (European Commission – JRC - IPTS ); d'Artis Kancs (European Commission – JRC - IPTS ); Wouter Torfs (European Commission – JRC - IPTS ) |
| Abstract: | This paper outlines how regional labour market adjustments to macro-economic and policy shocks are modelled in RHOMOLO through participation, employment and migration decisions of workers. RHOMOLO, being a multi-sectoral, inter-regional general equilibrium model, is complex both in terms of its dimensionality and the modelling of spatial interactions through trade flows and factor mobility. The modelling of the labour market is therefore constrained by the tractability and computational solvability of the model. The labour market module consists of individual labour participation decisions, including the extensive margin (to participate or not) and the intensive margin (hours of work). Unemployment is determined through a wage curve and inter-regional labour migration decisions are modelled in a discrete-choice framework, with backward-looking expectations. |
| Keywords: | Participation, unemployment, labour migration, wage curve, CGE, new economic geography |
| JEL: | C68 D58 F22 J20 J61 J64 O15 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc89537&r=ure |
| By: | Yumi Saita ; Chihiro Shimizu ; Tsutomu Watanabe |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we empirically investigate how real estate prices are affected by aging. We run regional panel regressions for Japan and the United States. Our regression results show that, both in Japan and the U.S., real estate prices in a region are inversely correlated with the old age dependency ratio, i.e. the ratio of population aged 65+ to population aged 20-64, in that region, and positively correlated with the total number of population in that region. The demographic factor had a greater impact on real estate prices in Japan than in the U.S. Based on the regression result for Japan and the population forecast made by a government agency, we estimate the demographic impact on Japanese real estate prices over the next 30 years. We find that it will be -2.4 percent per year in 2012-2040 while it was -3.7 percent per year in 1976-2010, suggesting that aging will continue to have downward pressure on land prices over the next 30 years, although the demographic impact will be slightly smaller than it was in 1976-2010 as the old age dependency ratio will not increase as much as it did before. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e68&r=ure |
| By: | Tse, Chun Wing ; Wei, Jianwen ; Wang, Yihan |
| Abstract: | Social capital helps reduce adverse shocks by facilitating access to transfers. This study examines how various measures of social capital are associated with disaster recovery from 2008 Sichuan earthquake. We find that households having a larger Spring Festival network in 2008 do better in housing reconstruction. A larger network significantly increases the amount of government aid received for housing reconstruction. With regards to how Spring Festival network channels more government aid to the household, the results show that a larger network increases the number of people showing up to offer monetary and material support, which is linked to more government aid received. This suggests that Spring Festival network members assist the quake-affected households to apply for and obtain government aid. As for other measures of social capital, connections with government officials and communist party membership do not significantly contribute to disaster recovery. Human capital, measured by the years of schooling of household head, is also not positively correlated with housing reconstruction. |
| Keywords: | Natural Disasters, Social Capital, Sichuan, Risk and Uncertainty, Q54, H84, |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea15:195653&r=ure |
| By: | Victor Lavy |
| Abstract: | Research in economics of education about the effectiveness of educational programs and interventions have centered primarily on standardized test scores as a measure of success. However, since the ultimate goal of education is to improve lifetime well-being, attention shifted recently to long term consequences at adulthood, for example post-secondary schooling. However, the type of educational interventions studied is still limited and much remained to be unraveled. In this paper I study the long term consequences of free school choice by taking advantage of an experiment conducted two decades ago in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel. This school choice program was very effective in improving high school attainment and cognitive achievements six years later (Lavy 2010) and now I examine whether these effects persist beyond high school. The results indicate that treated students experience significant gains in post-secondary enrollment and in completed years of education and also have higher earnings at age 30. These significant positive treatment effects reflect mainly an increase in academic education, through increased enrollment in three-years academic colleges but not in research universities, and some shift away from vocational education at adulthood. Additional gains are reductions in eligibility and recipiency of disability welfare allowances. |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20843&r=ure |
| By: | Amromin, Eugene (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago ); Kearns, Caitlin (University of California - Berkeley ) |
| Abstract: | We explore a policy-induced change in borrower ability to shop for mortgages to investigate whether market competitiveness affects mortgage interest rates. Our paper exploits a discontinuity in the competitive landscape introduced by the Home Affordable Refinancing Program (HARP). Under HARP, lenders that currently service loans eligible for refinancing enjoyed substantial advantages over their potential competitors. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we show a jump in mortgage interest rates precisely at the HARP eligibility threshold. Our results suggest that limiting competition raised interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages by 15 to 20 basis points, translating into higher lender profits. The results are distinct from documented effects of consolidation and capacity reduction in mortgage lending and are robust to a number of sample restrictions and estimation choices. We interpret our findings as evidence that increases in pricing power lead to higher interest rates in mortgage markets. |
| Keywords: | Mortgage crisis; market competition; pricing power; HARP |
| JEL: | E52 G21 |
| Date: | 2014–11–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-2014-25&r=ure |
| By: | Klara Zwickl (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria ); Mathias Moser (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020 Vienna, Austria ) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes if neighborhood income inequality has an effect on informal regulation of environmental quality, using census tract{level data on industrial air pollution exposure from EPA's Risk Screening En- vironmental Indicators and income and demographic variables from the American Community Survey and EPA's Smart Location Database. Estimating a spatial lag model and controlling for formal regulation at the states level, wend evidence that overall neighborhood inequality - as measured by the ratio between the fourth and the second income quintile or the neighborhood Gini coefficient - increases local air pollution exposure, whereas a concentration of top incomes reduces local exposure. The positive coefficient of the general inequality measure is driven by urban neighborhoods, whereas the negative coefficient of top incomes is stronger in rural areas. We explain these findings by two contradicting effects of inequality: On the one hand, overall inequality reduces collective action and thus the organizing capacities for environmental improvements. On the other hand, a concentration of income at the top enhances the ability of rich residents to negotiate with regulators or polluting plants in their vicinity. |
| Keywords: | Informal Regulation; Income Inequality; Collective Action; Industrial Air Pollution Disparities, Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, Spatial Lag Model |
| Date: | 2014–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwiee:ieep1&r=ure |
| By: | Görlitz, Katja ; Gravert, Christina |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the effects of a high school curriculum reform that was introduced in one German state on high school dropout. The reform increased the standards of the curriculum by reducing the freedom of choice in course selection (amongst other things) resulting in an increase in the level and the weekly teaching hours in the subjects German, a foreign language, mathematics and natural sciences. Using a quasi-experimental evaluation design exploiting variation across time and states, we identify the reform effect on students' probability to graduate from high school. The results show that high school dropout rates have increased for males and females alike. However, the effect for males vanishes two years after reform implementation, while it remains persistent for females even after three years. |
| Keywords: | high school curriculum reform,high school dropout,school performance |
| JEL: | D04 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:20151&r=ure |
| By: | Cats, Oded (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands ); West , Jens (KTH ); Eliasson, Jonas (KTH ) |
| Abstract: | One of the most common motivations for public transport investments is increased capacity. However, appraisal methodologies for projects meant to increase capacity are relatively less well developed compared to methodologies for projects aiming to reduce travel times. Each of the consequences of capacity limitations - crowding, risk for denied boarding and unreliable waiting and travel times - can increase the generalized travel costs. The appraisal of capacity improvements requires supply and demand models able to capture the processes that lead to uneven distributions of vehicles and passengers and monetary valuations of e.g. crowding, delays and unexpected waiting times. This paper integrates these building blocks into a comprehensive framework for appraisal. A case study of a metro extension that partially replaces an overloaded bus network in Stockholm demonstrated that congestion effects may account for a substantial share of the expected benefits. A cost-benefit analysis based on a conventional static model will miss more than half of the benefits. This suggests that failure to represent dynamic congestion effects may substantially underestimate the benefits of projects primarily designed to increase capacity rather than reduce travel times. |
| Keywords: | Public transport; Capacity; Appraisal; Dynamic assignment; Cost-benefit analysis |
| JEL: | R40 |
| Date: | 2015–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2015_002&r=ure |
| By: | Kelly, Robert (Central Bank of Ireland ); O'Malley, Terry (Central Bank of Ireland ); O'Toole, Conor (Central Bank of Ireland ) |
| Abstract: | Macro-prudential policy is designed to address risk at a systemwide level, an example of which is mortgage default following excessive residential property lending in Ireland. Policy tools to address this risk, such as caps on loan- to-value and loan-to-income ratios, are used to build balance sheet resilience and by design should re ect the risk profile of borrower groups. This research considers whether default rates are different between first time buyers and second and subsequent buyers and finds that first time buyers have lower default rates having controlled for borrower and loan characteristics. This research is consistent with differential regulatory treatment of first time buyers with default risk remaining comparable to the remainder of mortgage lending. |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:ecolet:14/el/14&r=ure |
| By: | John P. Papay ; Richard J. Murnane ; John B. Willett |
| Abstract: | We report results from our long-standing research partnership with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. We make two primary contributions. First, we illustrate the wide range of informative analyses that can be conducted using a state longitudinal data system and the advantages of examining evidence from multiple cohorts of students. Second, we document large income-based gaps in educational attainments, including high-school graduation rates and college-going. Importantly, we show that income-related gaps in both educational credentials and academic skill have narrowed substantially over the past several years in Massachusetts. |
| JEL: | I2 I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:20802&r=ure |
| By: | Avdic, Danie (CINCH-Health Economics Research Center ) |
| Abstract: | The article analyzes to which extent residential proximity from an emergency hospital affects the probability of surviving an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The critical time aspect in AMI treatment provides an ideal application for evaluating this proximity-outcome hypothesis. Previous studies have encountered empirical difficulties relating to potential endogenous health-based spatial sorting of involved agents and data limitations on out-of-hospital mortality. Using policy-induced variation in hospital distance, arising from plausibly exogenous emergency hospital closures in the highly regulated Swedish health care sector, and data on all AMI deaths in Sweden over two decades, estimation results show a clear robust and gradually declining probability of surviving an AMI of about two percentage points (three percent) per additional ten kilometers distance from a hospital. The results further show that spatial sorting and sample selection from out-of-hospital mortality are likely to significantly attenuate the distance effect unless accounted for. |
| Keywords: | Myocardial infarction; geographical access; hospital closures; health policy; spatial sorting; self-selection; out-of-hospital mortality; causal effect |
| JEL: | C23 I14 I18 R41 |
| Date: | 2015–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2015_001&r=ure |
| By: | Cho, Sung Ju ; McCarl, Bruce A. ; Wu, Ximing |
| Abstract: | Climate change, coupled with biofuels development and other factors may well be changing US land usage patterns. We use a spatial econometric approach to estimate the drivers of US land use transitions in recent years. We consider transitions between six major land uses: agricultural land, forest, grassland, water, urban, and other uses. To examine drivers, we use a two-step linearized, spatial, multinomial logit model and estimate land use transition probabilities. Our results indicate that climate change is a driver of land use change and that movements to and from agricultural land and grassland exhibit opposite responses with climate change portending a movement out of cropland into grassland. These results indicate that adaptation to climate change through land usage change is ongoing but with spatial dependence. |
| Keywords: | Land use change, climate change adaptation, spatial econometrics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Q54, Q15, C31, |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:saea15:196684&r=ure |
| By: | Guccio, C.; ; Lisi, D.; |
| Abstract: | Over the last decades the role of social interactions has become increasingly important in the economic discussion and, by now, it is acknowledged that the interaction across agents can produce both positive and negative effects. In this paper we evaluate the role of social interactions in the hospital sector using the large incidence of caesarean section, usually considered an inappropriate outcome in the childbirth service. In doing so, we lay out a theoretical model of hospitals’ behavior where the effect of peers’ behavior emerges by the simple sharing of the same institutional authority. Then, using the risk adjusted cesarean section rate of a large panel of Italian hospitals, we empirically investigate whether the behavior of each hospital is affected by the behavior of hospitals within the same region, after controlling for demand, supply and financial factors. In particular, we perform our empirical test employing both peer effects estimate and the spatial econometric approach, exploiting the panel dimension of our data. Both estimates show a significant and strong presence of peer effects among hospitals, robust to sensitivity analyses. We interpret this evidence as a large presence of constraint interactions in the healthcare sector, with important implications for the healthcare policy. |
| Keywords: | social interactions; peer effects; caesarian section; spatial econometrics; |
| JEL: | I11 C31 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:14/28&r=ure |
| By: | Swenson, David A. |
| Abstract: | This analysis measures the regional economic value of Iowa State University. 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; economic impact; input output |
| Date: | 2015–01–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:38336&r=ure |
| By: | Yoshifumi Konishi Author-Name: Meng Zhao |
| Abstract: | We investigate the efficiency of vehicle taxation in second-best settings. A random-coefficients logit model is estimated for quarterly automobile sales data between 2004 and 2012 from the Japanese new car market. The quasi-experimental nature of the data is exploited in two ways. First, we construct the location of product-specific tax rates in the characteristics space as a set of instruments to control for endogeneity of observed car prices. Second, the large and persistent variation in effective vehicle prices, caused due to Japan's green car tax policy since 2009, are used to obtain consistent estimates of the own- and cross-price elasticities. Our results indicate evidence for substantial scale and composition effects: Though the policy successfully reduced sales-weighted average emissions, it also increased total sales substantially. Consequently, the policy-induced reduction in annual vehicle CO2 emissions was small. In contrast, a modified version of the emissions-based vehicle tax ¨¤ la Fullterton and West (2002), based on the fuel efficiencies of car models, could have reduced annual vehicle CO2 emissions substantially more while increasing total economic surplus relative to the no policy counterfactual. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e82&r=ure |
| By: | Akio Kawasaki |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the problem of hub airport privatization, similar to the studies by Matsumura and Matsushima (2012) and Mantin (2012). However, differentiating from their papers, this paper introduces a domestic airline network. That is, each country has one major hub airport and some local airports. The main result obtained in this paper is as follows. When at least one country has a small domestic airline network, the same result as that by Matsumura and Matsushima (2012) and Mantin (2012) is obtained. However, when both countries have a large domestic airline network, the public airport may be an equilibrium outcome. Furthermore, depending on the size of the airline network and the degree of airline competition, asymmetric equilibrium can also appear. |
| Date: | 2013–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcr:wpaper:e64&r=ure |
| By: | Elert, Niklas (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) ); Andersson, Fredrik (Örebro university ); Wennberg, Karl (The Ratio institute and Stockholm Scool of Economics ) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long - term impact of entrepreneurship education and training in high school on entrepreneurial entry, performance, and survival. Using propensity score matching, we compare three Swedish cohorts from Junior Achievement Company Program (JACP) alumni with a matched sample of similar individuals and follow these for up to 16 years after graduation. We find that while JACP participation increases the long - term probability of starting a firm as well as entrepreneurial incomes, there is no e ffect on firm survival |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship Education; Quasi - experiment; Performance |
| JEL: | D22 L25 L26 |
| Date: | 2014–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0245&r=ure |
| By: | Harless, Patrick |
| Abstract: | School assignment procedures aim to improve student welfare, but must balance efficiency and equity goals and provide incentives for students to report their preferences truthfully. Debate centers largely on two rules: immediate acceptance (IA), the so-called Boston mechanism, and deferred acceptance (DA). IA's strength is efficiency, while DA is touted for its superior strategic properties. Thinking of these as extremes, we advocate a compromise rule, immediate-acceptance-with-skips (IA+), which slightly modifies IA to achieve better strategic properties while retaining efficiency. IA+ proceeds in rounds of applications and, like IA, �finalizes assignments in each round. However, unlike IA or DA, IA+ allows students to "skip" applications to schools with no remaining capacity. We show that IA+ is efficient and less manipulable than IA+. Unfortunately, IA+ violates solidarity properties that both IA and DA satisfy. Considering robustness, we �find that each of the three rules satisfies a different set of three natural invariance properties. |
| Keywords: | School choice; deferred acceptance; immediate acceptance; immediateacceptance-with-skips; Boston mechanism |
| JEL: | C78 D63 H75 I28 |
| Date: | 2014–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:61417&r=ure |
| By: | Beata Wozniak-Jechorek (Poznañ University of Economics ) |
| Abstract: | The article will focus on regional diversity of the Polish Labor Market from institutional perspective. The Polish Labor Market is geographically diverse in terms of unemployment and employment rates, and also in terms of economic development. At the end of 2013 the difference between the lowest and the highest unemployment rate in the Polish regions was 12.1% (Wielkopolska located in the West Poland has unemployment rate of 9.6% and Warmia - Mazury in the East has unemployment of 21.7%). The question arises whether this difference comes from the structural or institutional sources? The paper will describe the character of Polish Labor Market whereas in the second part, it will trace the impact of institutional variables such as real wage, Kaitz index and Gender gap on the regional unemployment rate in 2002-2012 in Poland. |
| Keywords: | institutional economics, labor market, institutional unemployment, labor market’s institutions |
| JEL: | B15 B25 B52 J08 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pes:wpaper:2014:no54&r=ure |
| By: | Zhenguo Lin ; Yingchun Liu ; Jia Xie |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship between immigrant status and mortgage delinquency in the United States. We find that after controlling for observables, newly arrived immigrants are likely to have a higher delinquency rate on mortgages than natives, while immigrants who have resided in the United States for more than 20 years are no different than natives in this regard. In addition, there is no evidence that the second generation of immigrants has a higher delinquency rate than the third-or-higher generation. Our results are robust to potential sample selection bias and functional misspecifications. |
| Keywords: | Debt Management, Financial stability |
| JEL: | G G2 G21 J J1 J15 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:15-1&r=ure |
| By: | Hossein Hassani (The Statistical Research Centre, Bournemouth University, UK ); Zara Ghodsi (The Statistical Research Centre, Bournemouth University, UK ); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa ); Mawuli K. Segnon (Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Department of Economics, 24098, Kiel, Germany ) |
| Abstract: | Accurate forecasts of home sales can provide valuable information for not only, policy makers, but also financial institutions and real estate professionals. Given this, our analysis compares the ability of two different versions of Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) methods, namely Recurrent SSA (RSSA) and Vector SSA (VSSA), in univariate and multivariate frameworks, in forecasting seasonally unadjusted home sales for the aggregate US economy and its four census regions (Northeast, Midwest, South and West). We compare the performance of the SSA-based models with classical and Bayesian variants of the autoregressive and vector autoregressive models. Using an out-of-sample period of 1979:8-2014:6, given an in-sample period of 1973:1-1979:7, we find that the univariate VSSA is the best performing model for the aggregate US home sales, while the multivariate versions of the RSSA is the outright favorite in forecasting home sales for all the four census regions. Our results highlight the superiority of the nonparametric approach of the SSA, which in turn, allows us to handle any statistical process: linear or nonlinear, stationary or non-stationary, Gaussian or non-Gaussian. |
| Keywords: | Home Sales, Forecasting, Singular Spectrum Analysis, Classical and Bayesian (Vector) Autoregressive Models |
| JEL: | C32 R31 |
| Date: | 2014–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201482&r=ure |
| By: | Briones, Roehlano M. ; Gundaya, Debbie M. ; Domingo, Sonny N. |
| Abstract: | The bus transport sector evolved from a highly regulated and concentrated market with a handful of players in the 1970s to a more liberalized albeit still regulated market with hundreds of small operators. Major reforms in bus transport regulation were carried out in the early 1990s and 2000s among which were more liberal policy and a supposed moratorium on new franchises. The current market operates under a complicated regime where regulation and enforcement is shared by several agencies. Market inefficiencies manifest in too many operators and buses, and indiscipline in the road adding to traffic congestion problems in the Metro. The fragmented nature of both the sector`s regulatory and supply side impedes synchronization among stakeholders and incurs huge costs to industry operators and the riding public. |
| Keywords: | competition policy, Philippines, bus transport sector, congestion cost, transport policy |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2015-02&r=ure |
| By: | Evan Rawley ; Robert Seamans |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of collocation on local within-firm performance, or intra-firm spillovers, by decomposing spillovers into one-time stock and recurring flow effects. Stock effects include one-time learning effects. Flow effects include ongoing resource sharing as well as cannibalization. Using data on the population of U.S. hotels and restaurants from 1977-2007, we exploit changes in the number of collocated establishments owned by the same firm to estimate the relative importance of stock and flow benefits. We find that collocation improves the productivity of new and existing establishments by 1-2%, even when correcting for endogenous sorting into collocation. The results, in conjunction with our field work, suggest that collocation generally facilitates the transfer of knowledge within the firm, but that flow effects of collocation are more sensitive to the broader economic environment. |
| Date: | 2015–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:15-01&r=ure |