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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Stefan Rehak; Marek Kacer |
| Abstract: | Proximity to the central business district (CBD) is considered to be a significant determinant of the real estate price formation as households are willing to pay more for housing that is closer to CBD in order to decrease the commuting costs. There is no consensus on the measure of distance, rather, various measures are used by different authors. Within a city, the opportunity costs of time in transportation represent a major part of the commuting costs. Thus, many authors believe that using travel time represents the accessibility to CBD more accurately than distance variables. An interesting question is how different distance measures influence the overall quality of the hedonic model and the estimated parameters in the model.This article draws on recent development in GIS techniques for computing travel distance and time between a number of points on a map using different travel modes to examine hedonic price functions for the apartment market in Bratislava. If real estate market is in equilibrium, attractiveness of location is fully capitalised into property prices. Our research is based on information from 1334 internet offers of apartments for sale in year 2016, which includes information about basic characteristics of individual apartments and the building in which the apartment is located. Using Google Maps Distance Matrix API service, we computed travel distance and travel time to the city centre for walking, public transportation (transit) and driving travel mode. In addition to distance to the city centre we also include the district in which the apartment is located. As the hedonic models of apartment prices usually suffer from the presence of spatial autocorrelation leading to biased and/or inefficient OLS estimates, we use both spatial and non-spatial models.In general, we have confirmed the negative slope of the distance gradient in Bratislava. District specific parameters generally decline with moving away from CBD and all distance measures showed negative coefficients. In addition, we found that the role of district-specific particularities is over-estimated in both spatial and non-spatial models when using crow fly measurement of distance to the city centre compared with other types of distance measurements. |
| Keywords: | Bratislava; distance gradient; GIS; Hedonic Model; Spatial econometrics |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_259&r=ure |
| By: | Deeksha Gupta (University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | During the housing boom, mortgage markets became increasingly concentrated with the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) being exposed to over 40 percent of U.S. mortgages in the 2000s. Research on the causes of the pre-crisis rise in risky lending has largely overlooked this trend. I develop a theory where this concentration in mortgage holdings can explain key features of the housing boom and bust. In the model, large lenders with many outstanding mortgages have incentives to extend risky credit to prop up house prices. An increase in concentration can lead to a credit boom with worsening credit quality and a subsequent bust with widespread defaults. The model can generate a negative correlation between credit and income growth across areas (such as ZIP codes) while maintaining a positive correlation between them across borrowers reconciling empirical evidence that has previously seemed contradictory. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:512&r=ure |
| By: | Díaz, Carlos; Patacchini, Eleonora; Verdier, Thierry; Zenou, Yves |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new theory of crime where leaders transmit a crime technology and act as a role model for other criminals. We show that, in equilibrium, an individual's crime effort and crime decisions depend on the geodesic distance to the leader in his or her network of social contacts. By using data on friendship networks among U.S. high-school students, we structurally estimate the model and find evidence supporting its predictions. In particular, by using a definition of a criminal leader that is exogenous to the network formation of friendship links, we find that the longer is the distance to the leader, the lower is the criminal activity of the delinquents and the less likely they are to become criminals. This result highlights the importance of the closeness centrality of the leaders in explaining criminal behaviors. We finally perform a counterfactual experiment that reveals that a policy that removes all criminal leaders from a school can, on average, reduce criminal activity by about 20% and the individual probability of becoming a criminal by 10%. |
| Keywords: | closeness centrality; Crime leaders; criminal decision; social distance |
| JEL: | C31 D85 K42 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13120&r=ure |
| By: | Marta Bottero; Laura Gabrielli; Alessandra Oppio |
| Abstract: | The quality of the built environment is a multidimensional notion, as it deals with the land use patterns and mixes, the spatial and temporal distribution of activities, the accessibility to services, the open spaces and green areas, the air quality, the arrangement and appearance of the physical elements of urban design. Although several studies have listed the environmental, social and economic benefits of good urban design for many stakeholders (Cabe, 2001), there is a small body of literature on their monetary value. Most of the scholars focus on the impact of open spaces, urban parks and amenities on residential property values (Anderson and West, 2006), without providing a real monetary estimation of the quality of public goods and services. The present paper focuses on the contribution of urban quality on real estate value. In particular, the Hedonic Pricing Model is used for estimating the marginal price of this variable. Starting from a previous work of the authors in which a multicriteria analytical framework (Keeney and Raiffa, 1976) for calculating an urban quality index has been proposed (Oppio et al., 2018), the research aims at integrating the multidimensional index in a standard hedonic model to estimate the monetary impact of public open spaces' good urban design on the real estate market. Furthermore, the integrated model has been applied on a pilot case study of 200 residential units located in the area of Garibaldi-Repubblica in Milan (Italy). The results of the model are represented using specific thematic value maps that allow the relationships between properties market values and urban quality driving forces to be analysed. |
| Keywords: | multidimensional evaluation; public-private concertation; Regression Analysis; spatial maps |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_221&r=ure |
| By: | Krishnamurthy, Chandra K. (The Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics); Ngo, Nicole S. (School of Planning, Public Policy, and Management, University of Oregon) |
| Abstract: | Demand-responsive parking pricing programs, in which parking is priced based upon occupancy, are increasingly being used in cities experiencing rapid growth as a way to optimize parking. Despite the potential of demand-responsive parking in minimizing parking-related externalities, there are few empirical estimates regarding the effects of parking management policies, particularly around transit usage and traffics flow. We use data from SFpark, a demand-responsive on-street parking pricing program for the city of San Francisco, along with a rich micro data-set on transit bus usage from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Using a difference-in-difference strategy, we find that SFpark is associated with sizeable increases in transit bus usage of about 21 and reductions in lane occupancy of 5 percentage points per census block. Our welfare computations suggest economic benefits of $36 million over the duration of the program (2011-2013) resulting from avoided pollution due to increased transit usage and from reduced congestion. These benefits easily exceed the nominal costs of the program. Our results not only suggest that demand-responsive pricing programs achieve their stated goals, but also mitigate many traffic-related externalities, yielding significant welfare benefits. |
| Keywords: | Parking policy; transportation; mass transit; air pollution |
| JEL: | L91 Q50 R40 |
| Date: | 2018–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:slucer:2018_006&r=ure |
| By: | Greg Howard (University of Illinois); Carl Liebersohn (MIT) |
| Abstract: | Locational preferences contributed substantially to the United States’ 2000-2006 housing boom. The increasing desirability of inelastic areas, much of which was due to manufacturing’s decline, caused 28 percent of the rise in housing prices. We document population movements towards inelastic areas and create a new local rent index that shows rents and house prices co-moved. We show theoretically why an increase in desirability of inelastic areas would raise prices nationally. Our model also explains the geographic consequences of a national price-rent ratio change. Finally, we quantify the geography channel by creating new elasticity measures of that cover the entire country. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:925&r=ure |
| By: | Isabelle Klein; Alexandra Weitkamp |
| Abstract: | Contrary to many forecasts, some major German cities are currently growing again or still raising. However, this growth confronts the cities with enormous challenges. In addition to growing pressure on infrastructural supply, demand for housing is rising. The result: the prices for housing are increasing rapidly.This high rental price level in cities makes it difficult for low-income households to afford adequate and sufficient living space on their own. In cities with above-average rent levels middle-income households are increasingly affected, although they do not get financial support like housing allowance. Percentage of housing costs in total monthly income is very high – partly over 30%. So, these households can be counted to so-called threshold households in Germany.This paper deals with the research question, how much income a household would need in order to afford adequate housing in the examined cities. Therefore, a model is developed which allows a calculation for the most affected household types: single, couple without children, couple with child/children & single parent with child/children. Beneath, some sub-questions should be answered by this model calculation: What is the number of households in the surveyed cities whose monthly expenditure is above the 30% threshold? And what is their spatial distribution over the urban area – are there quarters, which are highly affected? Data on purchasing power and social milieus as well as information on supply and stock rents should serve as a data basis for answering these questions.In addition, it will be determined how the calculated net household incomes (for the four household types) can be reconciled with the statutory income limits of municipal programs for the promotion of affordable housing. Are the established income limits sufficient or need to be adjusted? The results are compared with data from Sweden – in Sweden, more data is available at all. In Swedish cities, such as Stockholm or Gothenburg, rents are also increasing due to rising demand. The availability and quality of data on the different administrative levels will be analysed and discussed conclusively. Does a better data basis provide more possibilities for adjusting subsidies?Results will be a model and a better understanding of threshold households in different cities. |
| Keywords: | Affordable Housing; data availability; Housing costs; Housing Policy; threshold households |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_187&r=ure |
| By: | Karam Shaar; Fang Yao (Reserve Bank of New Zealand) |
| Abstract: | Understanding household consumption spending is crucial for modelling business cycles and designing macroeconomic policy. This paper investigates how household debt affects the marginal propensity to consume out of housing wealth. We use microdata from Statistics New Zealand’s "Household Economic Survey" (HES) to investigate how household leverage affects the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of housing wealth. HES data provide detailed information on household spending, income and loans. Empirically, estimating the effect of housing wealth changes on household expenditure faces two types of endogeneity issues. First, any evidence of an association between housing wealth variations and consumption changes could be driven by unobservable confounding factors such as future income expectations or household preferences. Second, naive regressions with total household spending can suffer from reversed causality, in which high housing-related spending leads to higher property values. We combine HES data with Real Estate Institute of New Zealand (REINZ) micro house price data to address the endogeneity issues that arise from using household-level cross-sectional data. In the empirical analysis, we first assess the validity of average local house prices as an instrument for individual house prices. The first stage regression suggests that the instrument can explain up to 22 percent of the variation in individual house prices reported in HES. We then run a benchmark regression of total household expenditure excluding housing-related spending on housing wealth. The IV estimation suggests that using household-level prices leads to downward bias, which is the result of various causes of endogeneity issues discussed above. The average MPC out of a one-dollar increase in exogenous housing wealth is around 2.2 cents. All regressions control for income, household characteristics, and regional and time fixed effects. We also split non-housing expenditure into durables and non-durables. In line with other studies in the literature, we find that durable consumption is more sensitive to changes in housing wealth than non-durables. We then focus on the role of household leverage in determining the MPC out of housing wealth. In this analysis, we study how leverage measures, such as the loan-to-house-value ratio (LVR) and the DTI, affect the estimated MPC out of housing wealth. Overall, we find that household leverage weakens the MPC associated with housing. To examine the robustness of these findings, we investigate whether household spending responds differently depending on the age and type 5 of home ownership. The findings confirm that the consumption of mortgagors is less sensitive to housing wealth as compared to outright homeowners. The regression with an age-housing wealth interaction also shows that the response of younger households to changes in their housing wealth is weaker than the response of older households, which tend to be less leveraged. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzb:nzbdps:2018/6&r=ure |
| By: | Markussen, Simen (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | Based on Norwegian administrative registers we provide new empirical evidence on the effects of the childhood neighborhood's socioeconomic status on educational and labor market performance. A neighborhood's status is measured annually by its prime age inhabitants' earnings ranks within larger commuting zones, and the childhood neighborhood status is the average status of the neighborhoods inhabited from birth to age 15. Identification of causal effects relies on within-family comparisons. Our results reveal a hump-shaped relationship between the socioeconomic status of the childhood neighborhood and school results at age 15-16, such that the optimal neighborhood is of medium rank. The top-ranked neighbor-hoods are as bad as the bottom-ranked. Similar results are obtained for educational and labor market outcomes measured at higher ages. |
| Keywords: | segregation, neighborhood effects, social mobility, educational outcomes |
| JEL: | C21 I24 R23 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11684&r=ure |
| By: | Wyness, Gillian (University College London); Murphy, Richard (University of Texas at Austin); Weinhardt, Felix (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | It is well established that teachers are the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes. However, to date there is scant robust quantitative research demonstrating that teacher training programs can have lasting impacts on student test scores. To address this gap, we conduct and evaluate a teacher peer-to-peer observation and feedback program under Randomized Control Trial (RCT) conditions. Half of 181 volunteer primary schools in England were randomly selected to participate in the two year program. We find that students of treated teachers perform no better on national tests a year after the program ended. The absence of external observers and incentives in our program may explain the contrast of these results with the small body of work which shows a positive in uence of teacher observation and feedback on pupil outcomes. |
| Keywords: | education; teachers; rct; peer mentoring; |
| JEL: | I21 I28 M53 |
| Date: | 2018–09–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:116&r=ure |
| By: | Christie Smith; Christoph Thoenissen (Reserve Bank of New Zealand) |
| Abstract: | We examine the business cycle effects that arise from an expansion of the population due to migration. We identify the contribution that migration shocks make to cyclical fluctuations, and illustrate their dynamic impact. The analysis presented here is conducted in per capita terms. We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to explore the consequences of migration. Households consume foreign- and domestically-produced goods, and housing. Domestically-produced goods are produced using effective labour and physical capital, where effective labour is a composite of physical labour and human capital. The level of human capital is particularly important for the dynamics of the migration shock as it amplifies the labour supply impact of a migration impulse. The model also embodies other frictions. Physical capital, for example, has a variable utilisation rate and adjusting the stock of capital is costly. Variable utilisation and capital adjustment costs are important for the dynamics of shocks. Variable utilisation provides an extra margin of adjustment in response to a shock, while capital adjustment costs serve to slow the propagation of shocks to investment. The model has three stocks of capital: physical capital; housing; and human capital. A migration inflow erodes the per capita stock of physical and housing capital, but the effect on the stock of human capital is ambiguous because migrants may have more or less human capital than domestic residents. The stock of migrant human capital relative to local resident human capital has a material impact on the dynamics of the migration impulse and on the contribution that migrant shocks make to business cycle fluctuations. Using the estimated DSGE model, we show that migration shocks account for a considerable portion of the variability of per capita gross domestic product (GDP). While migration shocks matter for the capital investment and consumption components of per capita GDP, there are other drivers of cyclical fluctuations in these expenditure components that are even more important. Migration shocks also matter for residential investment and real house prices, but once again other shocks play a larger role in driving volatility. In the DSGE model, the level of human capital possessed by migrants relative to that of locals materially affects the business cycle impact of migration. The impact of migration shocks is larger when migrants have substantially different – larger or smaller – levels of human capital relative to locals. When the average migrant has higher levels of human capital than locals, as seems to be common in most OECD economies, a migration shock has an expansionary effect on per capita GDP and its components, which also accords with the evidence from a restricted structural vector autoregression. |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzb:nzbdps:2018/7&r=ure |
| By: | D'Este, Rocco (University of Sussex); Einiö, Elias (CEP, London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of Asian segregation on students' academic performance in New York City primary schools. We use exogenous variation in the share of Asian students across cohorts and schools stemming from a fertility shock among Asian population in the Chinese year of the Dragon. A one-percentage-point increase in Asian student share reduces non-Asian math and ELA scores by 0.03 and 0.05 standard deviations. The effects are largest among black and Hispanic students. We find little evidence of effects among white students. The findings suggest that desegregation policies may generate net benefits in terms of student achievement. |
| Keywords: | primary education, Chinese Dragon year, ethnicity, student achievement, public schools, student composition, test score, Asian students, race, segregation |
| JEL: | I20 I29 J15 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11682&r=ure |
| By: | Marcén, Miriam; Morales, Marina |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we analyze the role of culture in determining whether, or not, an individual is a homeowner. We use data on first-generation immigrants who arrived in the United States under 6 years old. Following the epidemiological approach, those early-arrival immigrants grew up under the same US laws, markets, and institutions, so any dissimilarity in the proportion of homeowners by country of origin may be interpreted as a consequence of cultural differences. Our estimates indicate that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between the cultural proxy, that is, the proportion of individuals who are homeowners by country of origin, and the immigrants' choice of home-ownership. Results are maintained after controlling for home-country observable and unobservable characteristics, and are consistent in several subsamples. Neither the differences in the formation of couples (same or different origin) nor the existence (or not) of mortgage financing appear to be driving our findings. Additionally, we present evidence of different mechanisms of transmission of culture (horizontal transmission, respect for elders, and gender roles), which reinforces our results on the cultural effect. |
| Keywords: | Culture,Immigrants,Home-ownership |
| JEL: | J15 R20 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:244&r=ure |
| By: | Pavel Krivenko (Stanford) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the role of unemployment scarring and fear thereof for the recent U.S. housing bust. I study a quantitative lifecycle model of the housing market, which features an income process that is consistent with the large and long-lasting impact of unemployment on future earnings documented in recent empirical work. The model features exogenous moving shocks consistent with survey evidence which shows that many households move for reasons unrelated to their financial situation. These shocks reduce the selection into moving, thereby amplifying the quantitative importance of unemployment shocks and tighter credit conditions in the recent bust. The reason is that movers are more sensitive to labor market and credit conditions because they are younger, have lower wealth, and less secure jobs. Housing policies such as mortgage subsidies help stabilize prices and reduce foreclosures, even if only a small fraction of homeowners receive them. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:579&r=ure |
| By: | Carolina Guevara (Departamento de Matematica, Facultad de Ciencias, Escuela Politecnica Nacional, Ecuador); Stéphane Riou (Univ Lyon, UJM Saint-Etienne, GATE UMR 5824, F-42023 Saint-Etienne, France); Corinne Autant-Bernard (Univ Lyon, UJM Saint-Etienne, GATE UMR 5824, F-42023 Saint-Etienne, France) |
| Abstract: | The paper investigates whether the tertiarisation and the rapid urbanisation faced by developing countries favour agglomeration economies. Focusing on Ecuadorian cantons, a productivity equation is estimated using the GMM model with instruments controlling for endogeneity. The varying impact of industrial concentration, diversity, competition and density across industries is investigated and for the first time, the implication of the level of urbanisation on agglomeration externalities is studied. Stronger effects are found for services. The threshold of urbanisation at which diversity, density and competition agglomeration externalities all generate positive effects was 33% while they seem challenged by congestion in highly urbanised cantons. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration externalities, productivity, urbanisation, tertiarisation, Latin America |
| JEL: | O54 L80 O18 L60 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:1818&r=ure |
| By: | Kumar, N.; Raghunathan, K.; Arrieta, A.; Jilani, A.; Chakrabarti, S.; Menon, P.; Quisumbing, A. |
| Abstract: | Women’s self-help groups (SHGs) have increasingly been used as a vehicle for social, political, and economic empowerment as well as a platform for service delivery. Although a growing body of literature shows evidence of positive impacts of SHGs on various measures of empowerment, our understanding of ways in which SHGs improve awareness and use of public services is limited. To fill this knowledge gap, this paper first examines how SHG membership is associated with political participation, awareness, and use of government entitlement schemes. It further examines the effect of SHG membership on various measures of social network and mobility. Using data collected in 2015 across five Indian states and matching methods to correct for endogeneity of SHG membership, we find that SHG members are more politically engaged. We also find that SHG members are not only more likely to know of certain public entitlements than non-members, they are significantly more likely to avail of a greater number of public entitlement schemes. Additionally, SHG members have wider social networks and greater mobility as compared to non-members. Our results suggest that SHGs have the potential to increase their members’ ability to hold public entities accountable and demand what is rightfully theirs. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, International Development |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:275908&r=ure |
| By: | Owens, Raymond E. (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond); Rossi-Hansberg, Esteban (Princeton University); Sarte, Pierre-Daniel G. (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond) |
| Abstract: | We study the urban structure of the City of Detroit. Following many decades of decline, the city’s current urban structure is clearly not optimal for its size, with a business district immediately surrounded by a ring of largely vacant neighborhoods. We propose a model with residential externalities that features multiple equilibria at the neighborhood level. In particular, developing a residential area requires the coordination of developers and residents, without which it may remain vacant even if its fundamentals are sound. We embed this mechanism in a quantitative spatial economics model and use it to rationalize current city allocations. We then use the model to evaluate existing strategic visions to revitalize Detroit, and to design alternative plans that rely on ‘development guarantees’ to yield better outcomes. The widespread effects of these policies underscore the importance of using a general equilibrium framework to evaluate policy proposals. |
| JEL: | F0 H0 R0 |
| Date: | 2018–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmoi:0011&r=ure |
| By: | Mo Zheng |
| Abstract: | This paper applied both univariate and multivariate approaches to forecast the volatility of Swedish Real Estate Sector Index (OMX Stockholm Real Estate PI) from January 1st 2000 to January 1st 2018. OMX Stockholm Real Estate PI is an industry stock index, which contains all shares those are classified as a real estate company and listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. This index is constructed based on the guidance of Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB), which is designed to track the performance of real estate industries on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. Firstly, various univariate methods have been applied such as ARIMA, alternative GARCH models to perform the analysis and forecasting. Secondly, we analyzed the dynamic correlations of three time-varying indexes: OMX Stockholm Real Estate PI, OMX Stockholm 30 (OMX 30), and Nasdaq OMX Valueguard-KTH Housing Index (HOX Index). OMX30 is one of the Nordic most well-known stock indexes which includes the 30 most traded shares on the Stockholm Stock's Exchange and is considered as the indicator of the performance of the whole Stockholm Stock Exchange. Hox Index is the mostly used housing index in Sweden. Multivariate methods such as GMM, VAR lag model, ARCH models have been applied to investigate the relationship among indexes. Finally, we selected OMX Stockholm Real Estate PI, OMX Copenhagen Real Estate PI, OMX Helsinki Real Estate PI, Nordic Real Estate PI and US REITs to study the volatility spillover effects between US and Scandinavian countries and the existence of spillover effects among Nordic countries from period 2000 to 2018. As for now, we are working on the model constructions and selections, and the result parts are still in process. |
| Keywords: | ARIMA; Forecasting; GARCH; spillover; Volatility |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_222&r=ure |
| By: | Avinoam Meir (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) |
| Abstract: | The transformation of the Negev Bedouin from mobile pastoral life into immobile semi-urban market economy, primarily through state intervention, has not ended Bedouin-state conflict. Even under semi-urban life, forms of spatial mobility, originating in their past tribal culture remain conflictual. This paper analyzes how the process of planning an upgrade of Road 31 in the Negev by the state violates the social order by curtailing this indigenous mobility. Over the years the Bedouin have created numerous informal dirt roads in their spaces that connect informally and illegally to the formal Road 31. These roads connect particularly to the 'unrecognized Bedouin villages' where the conflict revolves over the 'right for producing indigenous space'. The spatial syntax of these spaces, manifested through these roads, reflects the internal micro socio-political structure of Bedouin groups, facilitating secure movement for rival families thus sustaining the internal local delicate social order. The planning of the upgrade project ignored these forms of local mobility and connection to Road 31. Although the state agreed to regularize only few of these informal roads and 'intersections', most Bedouin spaces are left disrupted in terms of indigenous mobility. We conclude that: (1) the conceptual framework of the 'new mobilities paradigm' provides an opportunity for a more profound analysis of Bedouin space, and through this, (2) surfacing new significant layers of indigenous socio-spatial endogenous regulative measures that concern mobility, imported by the Bedouin from pastoral into 'settled' life; these are often overlooked by the state, perpetuating thus the spatial conflict. |
| Keywords: | Mobility, indigeneity, road, Bedouin |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:7809490&r=ure |
| By: | Giorgetti, Isabella (Marche Polytechnic University); Picchio, Matteo (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona) |
| Abstract: | In 2007 the Italian central government started a program by transferring funds to regional governments to develop both private and public early childcare services. Exploiting the different timing of program implementation across regions, we evaluate its effectiveness in boosting the public supply of early childhood educational services. We find that the ratio between the available slots in public early childhood education and the population of those aged 0-2 increased by 18.1% three years after the start of the program, with respect to the pre-program level. The program impact was however nil in the South and totally driven by the Center-North. |
| Keywords: | early childcare services, public early childhood education, government transfers, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | C23 H52 H70 J13 R10 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11689&r=ure |
| By: | Aucejo, Esteban; James, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | Black females are 17 percentage points more likely to attend college than black males, making the gender gap among black youth larger than the black-white racial gap in college enrollment (14.7 pp). We estimate a sequential model of schooling and arrests to assess the major contributing factors to the gender imbalance in educational attainment within racial groups. First, we find that differences between males and females in measures of early behavior account for the majority of the gender gap for each racial group. Second, despite the fact that 50% of black males were arrested at least once before age 25, we find little evidence that arrest outcomes influence educational attainment, and that the negative correlation of educational attainment and arrests is entirely attributable to the same behavioral factors that explain the gender gap in education. Finally, we find that black males have the largest response to improvements in family background characteristics, such that equalizing the distribution of family background characteristics for black and white youths reduces the gender gap in college enrollment among black youth by 50% and completely eliminates the black-white racial gap in college enrollment. |
| Keywords: | Behavior; Educational Attainment; Factors; Gender Gap; race |
| JEL: | I2 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13123&r=ure |
| By: | Oluwaseun Fajana |
| Abstract: | The fundamental determinants of housing affordability states have been well studied over the years, with insights from both microeconomic and macroeconomic contexts. Microeconomic studies on the subject have focused on the dynamic analyses of households housing ladder transitions or housing consumption choice with numerous research confirming findings with regional and transnational comparisons. There are also a few other studies who have addressed the issue solely from an aggregate perspective focusing on number of transactions, states of housing disequilibrium and role of economic variables. Nonetheless both macro and micro analysis on the states of housing affordability confirm that British young household’s are further delaying home ownership; as there appears to be structural adjustments especially with changes in income distribution. Yet Andrew and Meen(2003b) have informed that the role of changing income distribution may not be the whole story as the role of changing demographics, credit markets and consumer attitudes have not been well explored; particularly with the extent to which extremely optimistic expectations about future house prices contributed to the run up of the recent housing boom remains an open question. This research aims to investigate amongst demographic and other socioeconomic factors; the effect of house price dynamics including price volatilities, expectations of capital growth, and wealth constraints, on the speed of initial transition into home ownership for British young households over time. To achieve this, the study applies a hazard cox model to a longitudinal micro data set exploring the dynamic behavior of British young household’s from the years 1991 to 2016. Britain provides an interesting case study as it experiences substantial house price volatility with huge spatial and inter-temporal variation; also as this geographical area has undergone several structural adjustments and is undergoing a major restructuring with the privatization of council housing. Thus the way various contending influences interact and shape entry into home ownership makes an important policy problem. |
| Keywords: | First time Buyers; House Price Volatility; Structural Change; survival analysis; Wealth |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_202&r=ure |
| By: | Mori, Tomoya; Wrona, Jens |
| Abstract: | We propose and apply a new theory-consistent algorithm, which uses disaggregated inter-city trade data to identify a pyramidic city system with central places and associated hinterlands. Because central places possess more industries than the cities in their hinterlands, and because industries, which are exclusive to central places, are more likely to export to the small, peripheral cities in the central place's hinterland, we find that aggregate exports from central places to their hinterlands are two to five times larger than predicted by gravity forces. Using a simple decomposition approach, we show that this upward bias results from aggregation along the extensive industry margin, which is why the bias is much smaller and only marginally significant if estimation is conducted in a theory-consistent way at the disaggregated industry level. |
| Keywords: | inter-city trade,central place theory,gravity equation,aggregation bias |
| JEL: | F14 F12 R12 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:dicedp:298&r=ure |
| By: | Dario Diodato; Frank Neffke (Center for International Development at Harvard University); Neave O'Clery (Center for International Development at Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | The fact that firms benefit from close proximity to other firms with which they can exchange inputs, skilled labor or know-how helps explain why many industrial clusters are so successful. Studying the evolution of coagglomeration patterns, we show that which type of agglomeration benefits firms has drastically changed over the course of a century and differs markedly across industries. Whereas, at the beginning of the twentieth century, industries tended to colocate with their value chain partners, in more recent decades the importance of this channels has declined and colocation seems to be driven more by similarities industries' skill requirements. By calculating industry-specific Marshallian agglomeration forces, we are able to show that, nowadays, skill-sharing is the most salient motive in location choices of services, whereas value chain linkages still explain much of the colocation patterns in manufacturing. Moreover, the estimated degrees to which labor and input-output linkages are reflected in an industry's coagglomeration patterns help improve predictions of city-industry employment growth. |
| Keywords: | Coagglomeration, Marshallian externalities, labor pooling, value chains, manufacturing, services, regional diversification |
| JEL: | J24 O14 R11 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:89a&r=ure |
| By: | Güneş, Pinar Mine (University of Alberta); Ural Marchand, Beyza (University of Alberta) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of macroeconomic shocks on child schooling in Turkey using household labor force surveys from 2005-2013. We use variation in local labor demand as an instrumental variable, particularly regional industry composition and national industry employment growth rates. The results demonstrate that child schooling is pro-cyclical in Turkey, with the most acute effects among children with less educated parents and living in rural areas. Finally, as hypothesized, we find asymmetric effects on child schooling based on skill composition of economic growth. Higher unemployment among unskilled workers increases schooling, whereas higher unemployment among skilled workers decreases schooling. |
| Keywords: | schooling, unemployment, business cycles, Turkey |
| JEL: | J13 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11686&r=ure |
| By: | Akbarpour, Mohammad (Stanford U); Malladi, Suraj (Stanford U); Saberi, Amin (Stanford U) |
| Abstract: | Identifying the optimal set of individuals to first receive information ('seeds') in a social network is a widely-studied question in many settings, such as the diffusion of information, microfinance programs, and new technologies. Numerous studies have proposed various network-centrality based heuristics to choose seeds in a way that is likely to boost diffusion. Here we show that, for some frequently studied diffusion processes, randomly seeding s plus x individuals can prompt a larger cascade than optimally targeting the best s individuals, for a small x. We prove our results for large classes of random networks, but also show that they hold in simulations over several real-world networks. This suggests that the returns to collecting and analyzing network information to identify the optimal seeds may not be economically significant. Given these findings, practitioners interested in communicating a message to a large number of people may wish to compare the cost of network-based targeting to that of slightly expanding initial outreach. |
| JEL: | D83 D85 O12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecl:stabus:3678&r=ure |
| By: | Bhuller, Manudeep (University of Oslo); Dahl, Gordon B (UC San Diego); Løken, Katrine V. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Mogstad, Magne (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | Using quasi-random assignment of criminal cases to judges, we estimate large incarceration spillovers in criminal and brother networks. When a defendant is sent to prison, there are 51 and 32 percentage point reductions in the probability his criminal network members and younger brothers will be charged with a crime, respectively, over the ensuing four years. Correlational evidence misleadingly finds small positive effects. These spillovers are of first order importance for policy, as the network reductions in future crimes committed are larger than the direct effect on the incarcerated defendant. |
| Keywords: | Incarceration; peer effects; criminal networks |
| JEL: | K42 |
| Date: | 2018–07–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2018_015&r=ure |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick (Anglia Ruskin University) |
| Abstract: | Using a data set that contains information on retrospective school-age bullying, as well as on workplace bullying in the respondents' present job, the outcomes of this study suggest that bullying, when it is experienced by sexual orientation minorities tends to persist over time. According to the estimations, it seems that school-age bullying of LGB people is associated with victims' lower educational level and occupational sorting into non-white-collar jobs, especially for gay/bisexual men. In addition, the outputs suggest that for both gay/bisexual men and lesbian/bisexual women, school-age bullying is positively associated with workplace bullying and negatively associated with job satisfaction. Additional results suggest a negative association between workplace bullying and job satisfaction. However, the outcomes show a positive association between the existence of an LGBT group in the workplace and job satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | school-age bullying, workplace bullying, job satisfaction, sexual orientation |
| JEL: | J16 J28 J70 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11699&r=ure |
| By: | Bahar, Dany (Brookings Institution) |
| Abstract: | Using a unique dataset on worldwide multinational corporations with precise location of headquarters and affiliates, I present evidence of a trade-off between distance to the headquarters and the knowledge intensity of the foreign subsidiary's economic activity, emerging from dynamics related to the proximity-concentration hypothesis. This trade-off is strongly diminished the higher the overlap in working hours between the headquarters and its foreign subsidiary. In order to rule out biases arising from confounding factors, I implement a regression discontinuity framework to show that the economic activity of a foreign subsidiary located just across the time zone line that increases the overlap in working hours with its headquarters is, on average, about one percent higher in the knowledge intensity scale. I find no evidence of the knowledge intensity and distance trade-off weakening when a non-stop flight exists between the headquarters and the foreign subsidiary. The findings suggest that lower barriers to real-time communication within the multinational corporation play an important role in the location strategies of multinational corporations. |
| Keywords: | multinational firms, multinational corporations, knowledge, location, proximity concentration hypothesis, FDI |
| JEL: | F23 L22 L25 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11697&r=ure |
| By: | Thiemo Fetzer; Stephan Kyburz |
| Abstract: | Can institutionalized transfers of resource rents be a source of civil conflict? Are cohesive institutions better in managing distributive conflicts? We study these questions exploiting exogenous variation in revenue disbursements to local governments together with new data on local democratic institutions in Nigeria. We make three contributions. First, we document the existence of a strong link between rents and conflict far away from the location of the actual resource. Second, we show that distributive conflict is highly organized involving political militias and concentrated in the extent to which local governments are non-cohesive. Third, we show that democratic practice in form having elected local governments significantly weakens the causal link between rents and political violence. We document that elections (vis-a-vis appointments), by producing more cohesive institutions, vastly limit the extent to which distributional conflict between groups breaks out following shocks to the available rents. Throughout, we confirm these findings using individual level survey data. |
| Keywords: | conflict, ethnicity, natural resources, political economy, commodity prices |
| JEL: | Q33 O13 N52 R11 L71 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:210&r=ure |
| By: | Ketterer, Tobias D.; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | The debate on whether institutions or geography prevail in driving economic growth has been rife (e.g., Sachs 2003 vs. Rodrik et al. 2004). Most of the empirical analyses delving into this debate have focused on world countries, whose geographical and institutional conditions differ widely. Subnational analyses considering groups of countries with, in principle, more similar institutional and geographical conditions have been limited and tended to highlight that geography is more important than institutions at subnational level. This paper aims to address whether this is the case by investigating how differences in institutional and ‘first-nature’ geographical conditions have affected economic growth in Europe's regions in the period 1995–2009. In the analysis we use a newly developed dataset including regional quality of government indicators and geographical charactersitics and employ two-stage least squares (2SLS) and instrumental variables-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM) estimation techniques with a number of regional historical variables as instruments. Our results indicate that at a regional level in Europe institutions rule. Regional institutional conditions – and, particularly, government effectiveness and the fight against corruption – play an important role in shaping regional economic growth prospects. This does not imply, however, that geography is irrelevant. There is evidence of geographical factors affecting regional growth, although their impact is dwarfed by the overriding influence of institutions. |
| Keywords: | regional economic growth; institutions; geography; quality of government; NUTS 2 regions; Europe |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2018–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:67544&r=ure |
| By: | Grace Li (International Monetary Fund) |
| Abstract: | Why do governments in developing economies invest in roads and not enough in schools? In the presence of distortionary taxation and debt aversion, the different pace at which roads and schools contribute to economic growth turns out to be central to this decision. Specifically, while costs are front-loaded for both types of investment, the growth benefits of schools accrue with a delay. To put things in perspective, with a “big push,” even assuming a large (15 percent) return differential in favor of schools, the government would still limit the fraction of the investment scale-up going to schools to about a half. Besides debt aversion, political myopia also turns out to be a crucial determinant of public investment composition. A “big push,” by accelerating growth outcomes, mitigates myopia—but at the expense of greater risks to fiscal and debt sustainability. Tied concessional financing and grants can potentially mitigate the adverse effects of both debt aversion and political myopia. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:338&r=ure |
| By: | Jacques Melitz; Farid Toubal |
| Abstract: | Somatic distance, or differences in physical appearance, proves to be extremely important in the gravity model of bilateral trade in conformity with results in other areas of economics and outside in the social sciences. This is also true independently of survey evidence about bilateral trust. These findings are obtained in a sample of the 15 members of the European Economic Association in 1996. Robustness tests also show that somatic distance, as well as co-ancestry, has a more reliable influence on bilateral trade than the other cultural variables. The article finally discusses the interpretation and breadth of application of these results. |
| Keywords: | Somatic Distance;Cultural Interactions;Co-ancestry;Trust;Language;Bilateral Trade |
| JEL: | F10 F40 Z10 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2018-11&r=ure |
| By: | Loughrey, Jason James; Donnellan, Trevor |
| Abstract: | This paper uses regional data for Western Europe to explore relative and absolute farmland size inequality and farm size concentration, demonstrating that specific indicators provide somewhat differing country characterisations. The paper uses exploratory spatial data analysis techniques to measure the degree of spatial dependence in farm size at a NUTS2 level. Regional farm size clusters are identified, some of which straddle national borders. The results have policy implications, demonstrating that the association between land inequality and farm productivity and resistance to change in farm support structures may relate to pan national regional considerations more so than national concerns. The research is conducted at a NUTS3 level for the Italian case and these findings suggest that the level of spatial disaggregation is an important consideration. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2017–08–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaae17:261112&r=ure |
| By: | Kadri Kuusk; Mikhail Martynovich |
| Abstract: | We investigate the evolution of relatedness linkages between Swedish industries during five sub-periods between 1991 and 2010. Distinguishing between the stable ties (present in all sub- periods) and non-stable ties (emerging, disappearing, etc), we demonstrate that the relatedness linkages change considerably over time. Furthermore, we show that the changes in the relatedness matrix matter for the impact of related variety on regional employment growth. We argue, therefore, that the relatedness linkages have a ?best before date? and that the choice of what relatedness indicator to apply and how deserves more consideration than it is usually given. |
| Keywords: | relatedness, evolution, related variety, regional growth, skill relatedness, Sweden |
| JEL: | L16 O33 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1834&r=ure |
| By: | Buysse, J.; Bral, A. |
| Abstract: | The monitoring of the transport of manure and its content is a cornerstone in the implementation of water quality objectives in nutrient management in agriculture. This paper uses a spatial price equilibrium model, applied to the market of manure in livestock dense regions, to assess the impact of an inflated stated nutrient content of transported manure. This paper shows that, due to the varying composition of manure, it is very difficult to monitor the real content of transported manure. The spatial price equilibrium model suggests that the inability of monitoring this nutrient content could be an important explaining factor for bad measured surface water quality. In addition, the paper also illustrates that monitoring the actual use of synthetic fertilizer does not function in the Flemish case study region. As an alternative policy approach we propose that a total ban on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer would be justified in region with manure nutrient surpluses. The total ban on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer could be complemented by a correction mechanism financed by a tax on livestock to compensate foregone revenues of reduced fertilizer availability for arable farms. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae18:276045&r=ure |
| By: | Abebe, Girum; Caria, Stefano; Fafchamps, Marcel; Falco, Paolo; Franklin, Simon; Quinn, Simon |
| Abstract: | We show that helping young job-seekers to signal their skills to employers can generate large and persistent improvements in labour market outcomes. We do this by comparing an intervention that improves the ability to signal skills (the 'job application workshop') to a transport subsidy treatment designed to reduce the cost of job search. We find that in the short-run both interventions have large positive effects on the probability of finding formal jobs. The workshop also increases the probability of having a stable job with an open-ended contract. Four years later, the workshop significantly increases earnings, job satisfaction and employment duration, while the effects of the transport subsidy have dissipated. These gains are concentrated among groups who generally have worse labour market outcomes. Overall, our findings highlight that young people possess valuable skills that are unobservable to employers. Making these skills observable generates earning gains that are far greater than the cost of the intervention. |
| Keywords: | job search; signaling; transport costs; urban growth; youth unemployment |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J61 J64 M53 O18 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13136&r=ure |
| By: | Qie He (University of Minnesota); Stefan Irnich (Johannes Gutenberg-University); Yongjia Song (Virginia Commonwealth University) |
| Abstract: | Two critical yet frequently conflicting objectives for logistics and transportation service companies are improving customer satisfaction and reducing transportation cost. In particular, given a network of customer requests with preferred service times, it is very challenging to find vehicle routes and service schedules simultaneously that respect all operating constraints and minimize the total transportation and customers’ inconvenience costs. In this paper, we introduce the Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows and Convex Node Costs (VRPTW-CNC), in which we model each customer’s inconvenience cost as a convex function of the service start time at that customer. The VRPTW-CNC combines and extends both the standard vehicle routing problem with time windows and some previous results on the optimal service scheduling problem over a fixed route. We propose a branch-cut-and-price algorithm to solve the VRPTW-CNC with general convex inconvenience cost functions. To solve the pricing problem, our labeling algorithm only generates labels that possibly lead to optimal schedule times over a route, which significantly improves the effectiveness of pricing. Extensive computational results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. |
| Keywords: | Vehicle routing problem, branch-cut-and-price, labeling algorithm, convex node costs, integrated routing and scheduling |
| Date: | 2018–03–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:1804&r=ure |
| By: | Manabu Nose |
| Abstract: | After a decade of rapid growth, industrialization has lost ground with shrinking manufacturing sector and high informality in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This paper explores how land market and labor regulations affect factor allocative efficiency and firm performance in SSA. Using pooled data on firm balance sheets for 40 countries in SSA, the results identify significant land and labor misallocations due to limited market allocation of land and inappropriate regulatory policies. Using variations in ethnic diversity and the intensity of regulatory actions to peer firms at subnational level as instrumental variables, local average treatment effects show large productivity gains from factor reallocations, especially for marginally productive firms. Panel data results for Nigerian firms confirm factor market inefficiency as a principal driver of declining productivity, while showing that the 2011 minimum wage reform increased firm size. The results imply that improving formal regulation is critical to support firm growth at the stage of weak legal capacity, while informal sector monitoring gets effective as legal capacity develops. |
| Keywords: | Africa;Firm growth, misallocation, land market, labor regulations, Labor Economics Policies, Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure, Labor Standards: Public Policy |
| Date: | 2018–08–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:18/184&r=ure |
| By: | Jed Armstrong; Hayden Skilling; Fang Yao (Reserve Bank of New Zealand) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the international policy debate on the effect of macroprudential policy on housing-market dynamics. We use detailed New Zealand housing market data to evaluate the effect of loan-to-value ratio (LVR) restrictions on house prices. The main challenge in identifying these effects is that housing markets are affected by a range factors over and above LVR policy. For example, New Zealand experienced a raft of policy changes and macroeconomic shocks during the periods in which LVR policy changes were implemented. Many of these shocks and policies are likely to have affected the housing market. For example, when the first LVR policy was implemented, retail interest rates were rising alongside an increasing expectation for monetary policy tightening, while the New Zealand Treasury was adjusting housing-related policies at the time of the second LVR policy. This paper uses the exemption for new builds from the LVR restrictions as a natural experiment to identify the effect of LVR policy. We find that, over the one year window around the new home exemption, the first LVR policy (referred to as ‘LVR 1’) had a 3 percent moderating effect on house prices, and this moderating effect is broadly similar across both Auckland and the rest of New Zealand. Interestingly, our estimates show that LVR 2 (which tightened restrictions on Auckland properties and loosened restrictions elsewhere) did not significantly stop Auckland house prices from rising. By contrast, house prices in the rest of New Zealand (RONZ) increased by 3 percent due to the relative loosening of the LVR restriction. In LVR 3, the RBNZ further tightened the LVR restrictions on property investors nationwide. The moderating effect of LVR 3 was clearly seen in Auckland with a 2.7 percent reduction in house prices. This LVR 3 effect is both statistically and economically significant, as during the same period the average house price increased by 5.8 percent. Overall, we estimate that the LVR policies reduced house price pressures by almost 50 percent. However, the effect of LVR policy is highly non-linear. When it becomes binding, LVR policy can be very effective in curbing housing prices. |
| Date: | 2018–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nzb:nzbdps:2018/5&r=ure |
| By: | Sebastian Heise (Federal Reserve Bank of New York); Tommaso Porzio (University of California, San Diego) |
| Abstract: | More than 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain created a unified Germany, the country still seems like two distinct nations in many aspects. We show that average wage in West Germany is, in real terms and controlling for individual characteristics, 20% larger than in East. What prevents workers from taking advantage of this wage difference? In this paper, we leverage rich matched employer-employee data together with a new theoretical framework to study workers' mobility across establishments and unemployment, both within and across East and West Germany, to uncover the drivers behind the “invisible border”. We show that the East-West wage gap is sustained by a strong regional identity of workers. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:605&r=ure |
| By: | Lu Shen; Kwong Wing Chau |
| Abstract: | Informal housing are housing units without legal title. Despite the lack of legal title, there is a huge black market for informal housing in China. Though it is clearly stated in the law that such transactions are prohibited by the law, in reality, under the pressure of high formal housing prices, the transactions of informal housing have never stopped. Since the informal property rights transferred in those transactions are neither recognized nor protected by the legal institution, disputes arise from these transactions. Different from foreign countries such as the United States, each state of which has its own law and legal system, China practices a unified legislative system. Under the system, various administrative regions may work out local statutes as long as they do not violate the Constitution or the state law or the administrative law. Though the marketization and transactions of informal housing in China is illegal according to the law, there is no criminal conviction on illegal selling or buying. Different from illegal behaviour such as drug selling, disputes over illegal selling of informal housing can always seek legal decisions from courts. Nonetheless, among the disputes over contract validity, ownership, or even will validity where informal housing is involved, different court decisions have been given to similar disputes over the transactions of informal housing though one of the national administrative law has clearly stated the prohibitions of transactions of informal housing in China. Despite under the uniform legal system in China and referring to the same national laws including contract law and relevant administrative law, courts in different cities interpret and practice laws in various manners and even lead to opposite decisions, suggesting certain ambiguity in the legislations. This study aims to explore court decisions and local statutes if there is any, which are relevant to informal housing issues in various cities and provinces in China. Court decisions in a way can reflect where legal institutions stand in the cases of informal housing issues and the variety of decisions given by the courts based on almost the same statues and legislations also imply a certain degree of ambiguity and flexibility in interpretation, which may also contribute to the pricing and transaction volume of informal housing units in real life. |
| Keywords: | China; Court cases; Informal Housing; Law; Property Rights |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_218&r=ure |
| By: | Anja Tolonen |
| Abstract: | Does industrial development change gender norms? This is the first paper to causally Anja Texplore the local effects of a continent-wide exogenous expansion of a modern industry on gender norms. The identification strategy relies on plausibly exogenous temporal and spatial variation in gold mining in Africa. The establishment of an industrial-scale mine changes local gender norms: justification of domestic violence decreases by 19%, women have better access to healthcare, and are 31% more likely to work in the service sector. The effects happen alongside rapid economic growth. The findings are robust to assumptions about trends, distance, and migration, and withstand a spatial randomization test. The results show that entrenched gender norms can change rapidly in the presence of economic development. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, female empowerment, local industrial development, gold minig=ng |
| JEL: | O12 O13 J16 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:209&r=ure |
| By: | Georgia Warren-Myers; Franz Fuerst; Gideon Aschwanden |
| Abstract: | Property and property values are increasingly threatened by sea level rise impacts. The implications may not necessarily be immediate, but property stakeholders and property values will be affected on multiple levels. If no action is taken, the effect on property values will be through a variety of direct, indirect, immediate and long-term impacts, which may jeopardise our property markets and broader financial structures with the ultimate cost being paid by owners, occupiers and the community. Limited information, lack of full disclosure and transparency of implications of future effects inhibit property stakeholders to identify risks associated with sea level rise to actively respond to mitigate or adapt to potential risks and for this risk to be adequately reflected in values. Albeit sea level rise in many areas won’t necessarily cause full inundation. The sea level rise modelling relied upon at present by Australian governments assumes a ‘flat water’ scenario. Further, with modelling becoming more accurate increases to sea level height expectations grows. Subsequently, current estimates being relied upon grossly underestimates the implications of sea level rise, particularly in the consideration of the impact of new flood levels and storm surges. This paper uses a case study area of the City of Port Phillip, a municipality on the bay in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It uses a bathtub approach using GIS modelling to examine a range of sea level heights and then incorporates existing factors like flooding and storm surge. The initial analysis examines the distribution of all properties affected within the municipality and the exponential increase in affected properties. A hedonic model was then used to examine residential sales prices over 5 years to examine whether existing flooding overlays have an effect on prices and also tested to see whether potential ‘sea level rise’ height was having an effect on sales prices. This is an important consideration for the development of policy and regulations in relation to building development and ownership and occupation. The results highlight that property stakeholders are not considering the risk implications of sea level rise into their property based activities and are under prepared for the future challenges and implications sea level rise and the ancillary effects of future flooding, inundation and storm surge. |
| Keywords: | Risk; Sea level rise; Value |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_192&r=ure |
| By: | Rodrigo Adão; Michal Kolesár; Eduardo Morales |
| Abstract: | We study inference in shift-share regression designs, such as when a regional outcome is regressed on a weighted average of observed sectoral shocks, using regional sector shares as weights. We conduct a placebo exercise in which we estimate the effect of a shift-share regressor constructed with randomly generated sectoral shocks on actual labor market outcomes across U.S. Commuting Zones. Tests based on commonly used standard errors with 5% nominal significance level reject the null of no effect in up to 55% of the placebo samples. We use a stylized economic model to show that this overrejection problem arises because regression residuals are correlated across regions with similar sectoral shares, independently of their geographic location. We derive novel inference methods that are valid under arbitrary cross-regional correlation in the regression residuals. We show that our methods yield substantially wider confidence intervals in popular applications of shift-share regression designs. |
| JEL: | C13 C26 F16 F22 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24944&r=ure |
| By: | Dauth, Wolfgang (University of Würzburg); Findeisen, Sebastian (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis); Suedekum, Jens (DICE Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf); Woessner, Nicole (DICE Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of industrial robots on employment, wages, and the composition of jobs in German labor markets between 1994 and 2014. We find that the adoption of industrial robots had no effect on total employment in local labor markets specializing in industries with high robot usage. Robot adoption led to job losses in manufacturing that were offset by gains in the business service sector. We analyze the impact on individual workers and find that robot adoption has not increased the risk of displacement for incumbent manufacturing workers. They stay with their original employer, and many workers adjust by switching occupations at their original workplace. The loss of manufacturing jobs is solely driven by fewer new jobs for young labor market entrants. Moreover, we find that, in regions with higher exposure to automation, labor productivity increases while the labor share in total income declines. |
| Keywords: | Automation; Labor market institutions; Inequality |
| JEL: | F16 J24 O33 R11 |
| Date: | 2018–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmoi:0013&r=ure |
| By: | Ohad Raveh; Yacov Tsur |
| Abstract: | Can economic growth increase public debt? Previous studies on the debt-growth nexus focused on the effects of debt on growth. We present an opposite perspective by showing that growth can reinforce deficit spending. A political economy model of endogenous public debt indicates that the underlying cause is political short-sightedness induced by reelection prospects. Reelection yields accountability but at the same time shortens incumbents’ time horizon, giving rise to political myopia and the ensuing budget deficit bias. Our model shows that economic growth exacerbates this undesirable effect of reelection. We test the model’s predictions using a panel of U.S. states over the period 1963-2007. Our identification strategy rests on constitutionally-entrenched differences in gubernatorial term limits that provide plausibly exogenous cross-state variation in political time horizon, and aggregate national TFP shocks that are exogenous to individual states. Our more conservative estimates indicate that overa course of five years, a one standard deviation positive TFP shock induces an increase of approximately $494 in real per capita public debt in politically myopic states. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, public debt, political myopia, term limits |
| JEL: | H63 C61 H74 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:oxcrwp:200&r=ure |
| By: | Chiumenti, Nicholas (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) |
| Abstract: | Permanent supportive housing (PSH) has become an important resource for Massachusetts service providers working to address chronic homelessness in the state. Nationally, and in the Commonwealth, the number of PSH beds available for homeless individuals and families now exceeds the amount of emergency shelter beds and other, non-permanent, housing options. While PSH is acknowledged as an important tool, there has been little research into the inventory level needed to effectively house the state’s current chronic homeless population, and what, if any, local shortages exist. This report uses publicly available inventory and homeless population count data to estimate the number of PSH beds needed to effectively house the chronically homeless individuals and families living in Massachusetts. In addition, this report looks at the Continuum of Care service regions to examine how differences in homeless populations affect local shortages of PSH within the state. The report finds that Massachusetts has made marked progress toward increasing the state’s PSH inventory, with at least one PSH bed available per chronically homeless individual in 2016 and 2017. There remains, however, a statewide shortage in PSH beds for chronically homeless families. The situation may vary considerably across localities, with some areas experiencing PSH shortages while neighboring areas have surpluses. Finally, using incomplete data on planned additions to the PSH inventory shows that less progress has being made at alleviating these two differences in supply. There are still more individual beds than family beds being added, with inventory additions for both types of PSH decreasing, and only a handful of Continuums of Care planning new PSH beds for the coming years. |
| Keywords: | Massachusetts; homelessness; housing; NEPPC |
| Date: | 2018–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbpr:2018_002&r=ure |
| By: | Alexa Hoeing; Annette Kaempf-Dern |
| Abstract: | Purpose: Since the introduction of the German states double bookkeeping the awareness of local governments increased, that the municipal inventory of real estates should be managed actively. The active management of real estates requires a deep knowledge of the property itself, its area, costs and return. However, in small and middle size municipalities there exist rarely any such strategies. The active management of a whole life cycle of state owned real estates is often perceived as a side activity of the construction division in many municipalities. Various property-related tasks, especially during the utilisation phase, are perceived reactive instead of active or even proactive.Additionally investment in human resources and financial means is essential, but for which usually funds are not available. Though, looking at the saving potential of an estimated 10 – 20% per year if a professional strategic real estate management is applied, it should be questionned, why the public real estate management is still given comparably little attention.This article addresses following questions: What is the situation on strategic management of municipal real estate today? What kind of strategies, structures and systems do they have? How are they going to decide?Design/methodology/approach: To work out foundations and develop a theoretical background an intense literature study is conducted. Participating municipalities for the case studies are already selected and confirmed. In those case studies interviews will be conducted with a standardized questionnaire. |
| Keywords: | decision theory; Future studies; Public Real Estate Management; Scenario Management; Strategic Management |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_281&r=ure |
| By: | Fornaro, Paolo |
| Abstract: | Abstract Immigrant entrepreneurship is the subject of a prolific economic literature, as well as a source of wide public debate. This is because the participation of immigrants to the business community can provide a significant contribution to innovation and to market dynamics. This report touches multiple aspects of immigrant entrepreneurship in Finland, looking at the years from 2006 to 2014. I find that while the number of self-employed immigrants has increased dramatically, the entrepreneurial rate has been stable. Moreover, the immigrant self-employment rate is similar to the one of natives. I find that the median earnings of foreign entrepreneurs are lower than the ones of Finnish entrepreneurs, but this is driven by the different industry distribution. Finally, I find an overrepresentation of foreign workers and entrepreneurs in the Helsinki region, while the immigrants’ self-employment rate is higher in poorer areas. I gather multiple evidence pointing toward the fact that difficulties in the job market push foreign residents to self-employment. For example, I find a negative correlation between the employment rate and the foreign share of entrepreneurial inflows, and a strong negative relationship between the employment rate and the immigrant self-employment rate at the regional level. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, self-employment, earnings differentials |
| JEL: | J24 J61 M13 |
| Date: | 2018–09–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:report:83&r=ure |
| By: | Guangyu Cao; Ginger Zhe Jin; Li-An Zhou |
| Abstract: | The recent rise of dockless bike-sharing is dominated by two platforms: one started first in 82 Chinese cities, 59 of which were subsequently entered by the second platform. Using these variations, we study how the entrant affects the incumbent’s market performance. To our surprise, the entry expands the market for the incumbent, not only boosting its total number of trips but also allowing the incumbent to achieve higher revenue per trip, improve bike utilization rate, and form a wider and more evenly distributed network. These market expansion effects dominate a significant market-stealing effect on the incumbent’s old users. Our findings suggest that platform entry can divert the perceived path to winners-take-all in a market with positive network effects, and competition with the outside goods is at least as important as the competition between platforms, especially when users multi-home across compatible networks. |
| JEL: | D22 L1 L4 L9 R4 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24938&r=ure |
| By: | Theriault, Veronique; Assima, Amidou; Vroegindewey, Ryan; Tschirley, David; Keita, Naman |
| Abstract: | The Malian agri-food system is transforming rapidly, in part due to increased demand for processed foods that are easy-to-prepare and ready-to-eat by the growing urban consumers. Yet, little is known about the scale and scope of this ongoing transformation in the agri-food system. To better understand the general trends in terms of diversity, availability and prevalence of imports as well as key characteristics of processed foods, we conducted a city-retail outlet inventory of processed dairy and cereal foods in 2016. We visited 100 retail outlets, including central and neighborhood markets, supermarkets as well as neighborhood and grocery stores, located across low, medium, and high income neighborhoods of four major cities in Mali. Findings show that: 1) there are 15 and 36 different types of processed dairy and cereal products; 2) availability of processed foods differs widely across neighborhoods, cities, and retail outlets; 3) there is a relatively high dependence on imports; and 4) there exist differences in product attributes across local and imported food products. Taken together, our results indicate that the transformation of the agri-food system is still at its early stages in Mali. The greatest opportunity for the expansion of the Malian agro-processing segment lies in making and selling more processed food items out of locally available raw agricultural materials, since it is where local firms are the most competitive. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Development |
| Date: | 2017–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:miffrp:261675&r=ure |
| By: | Florida, Richard (University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management & New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate); Mellander, Charlotta (Jönköping International Business School); King, Karen (Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management) |
| Abstract: | Abstract: This chapter examines the phenomenon “winner-take-all cities.” Large segments of the modern economy have been shown to conform to a “winner-take-all” pattern as superstar talent draws a disproportionate share of economic rewards (Rosen 1981; Adler 1985; Frank and Cook, 1996). But cities also conform to a winner-take-all pattern in which a small group of global “superstar cities” (Gyourko et al., 2013) account for a disproportionate share of talent, economic activity, innovation, and wealth (Florida, 2017). We track the distribution of several key factors to identify and describe this pattern of winner-take-all urbanism in global cities, using novel data on venture capital-backed startups and billionaire wealth, which we compare to the distribution of economic activity and population. Following the literature on global cities (Beaverstock et al., 1999; Taylor and Walker, 2001), we also examine the disproportionate share of these activities that are concentrated in so-called “alpha” global cities. We find clear evidence of a winner-take-all urbanism across the global economy and the world’s cities. |
| Keywords: | Winner-take-all cities; Winner-take-all urbanism; Alpha cities; Economic activity; Innovation; Wealth; Billionaires; Super-rich |
| JEL: | O50 R00 |
| Date: | 2018–09–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0471&r=ure |
| By: | Zheng Li (School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China); Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State Univeristy) |
| Abstract: | Misallocation of factors of production has been recently viewed as a promising explanation accounting for the large difference in total factor productivity (TFP) across countries. This paper differs from previous studies by concentrating on interregional capital misallocation and by focusing on the role of fiscal decentralization in shaping misallocation. Using a municipal level panel data set, we measure intra-provincial and inter-municipal capital misallocation in China over 2003-2015. The empirical results based on provincial level panel data suggest that revenue decentralization mitigates interregional misallocation while expenditure decentralization fails to exert a significant impact. We further find that this positive effect is more significant and much larger when it is the market rather than government intervention that is driving the flow of capital. The results are robust to different specifications, IV estimations and alternative measurement of interregional misallocation. Our study complements the literature on the causes of misallocation and enriches the understanding of the consequences of fiscal decentralization, especially in terms of economic growth and interregional inequality. |
| Date: | 2018–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper1816&r=ure |
| By: | Stanimira Milcheva; Yildiray Yildirim; Zhu Bing |
| Abstract: | A growing literature on how economic decision making is influenced by firms’ geographic location has emerged. We add to this stream of research by assessing the effects of geography in an asset pricing context from the firm’s perspective. We introduce a new concept of location for asset pricing accounting for the location of firms’ income-producing assets and use the information of the assets’ geographic allocation to provide a trading strategy. We use real estate and mining companies in the US to map the extract location of their income-producing assets – the properties and the mines – and to distinguish between firms with concentrated and dispersed business operations as defined by the Herfindahl index. We find that the dispersion of firms’ income-producing assets has a positive effect on returns yielding an alpha. On the other hand, concentrated firms underperform the market. Those vary with size and specialisation degree of the firms with small and specialised firms being more strongly negatively affected by the concentration effect and large and don-specialised firms more strongly positively affected by the dispersion effect. The research provides new insights into the role of location for asset pricing and shows that asset concentration can be a useful tool for strategic investment. The findings are in line with the information asymmetry theory that investors need to be rewarded for investing in a company for which it is hard to obtain and assess information about the firm’s assets due to its dispersion. |
| Keywords: | Fama French abnormal return; geographic diversification; long-short trading strategy; REITs |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_227&r=ure |
| By: | Ahmad Abed; Neil Dunse; Colin Jones |
| Abstract: | Housing plays a key role in our quality of life. It is important that countries understand and analyse their housing sectors to evaluate the “effects of national level policies on housing supply at the other and assess the efficiency and equity of housing policies” (Tipple, 2003:2). Ultimately governments put into place policies that assist local councils to plan, build, and manage places where people live. This includes policies that relate to diverse issues such as renting, public housing, and affordability, a concept that has “become a more important issue in housing Policy” in recent years (Bramley, 2012:133).Saudi Arabia is a developing country with a brief history of less than 90 years. Driven by the discovery of Oil in 1938, the country has gone through massive economic development and population growth in a very brief period. While this rapid urbanization process has affected all sectors in Saudi Arabia, the residential sector specifically has struggled to adapt to the realities of these changes.From a governmental perspective, support for the housing sector is limited to government budget allocations that lack strong governmental policy. In addition, there is no clear standard system concerning means of supporting housing (GIZ, 2013). Policies to promote the provision of affordable housing have largely failed.Therefore, this research aims to develop an affordable housing model that is applicable to middle-income households in Saudi Arabia. This is by identifying the critical drivers that influence the development of affordable housing solutions from both a planning policy and socio-cultural perspective in Saudi Arabia. These critical elements have directly contributed to the development and understanding of affordable housing policy as well as in conceptualizing the process for the purpose of this research. So, this paper will review the housing policy context within Saudi Arabia and present some of the initial findings from the analysis conducted. |
| Keywords: | Affordability; Affordable Housing; Housing; Housing Policy; Saudi Arabia |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_195&r=ure |
| By: | Wineman, Ayala; Jayne, Thomas S. |
| Abstract: | Although studies of the determinants of farmland prices are common in developed country settings, such analyses are extremely scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper offers a comprehensive examination of land values across Tanzania. Land prices rose significantly between 2008/09 and 2012/13, presenting a potential obstacle to land access for poor and aspiring farmers. A hedonic analysis reveals that indicators of agricultural potential, local population density, and access to markets/urban centers are all statistically significant determinants of land values in Tanzania. The paper concludes with a discussion of promising directions for future research on land values in SubSaharan Africa. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Development |
| Date: | 2017–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:miffrp:261670&r=ure |
| By: | Sasa Drezgic (University of Rijeka Faculty of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The paper tries to deal with issue how to increase local government investment finance without jeopardizing fiscal position of local government as well as overall macroeconomic stability. One of the key challenges is to resolve an everlasting conflict between central and subnational government tier related to different perspectives of each jurisdiction. Namely, central government level is more concerned for macroeconomic position and usually is more inclined to centralise debt management and limit borrowing powers of subnational government. On the other hand, subnational government utilizes borrowing for large local communal infrastructure needs but faces short-term perspective of political mandate, which demands control aimed for prevention of excessive borrowing. In addition, heterogeneity of local governments in terms of fiscal capacity and fiscal position makes general deficit sharing mechanisms as poor solution to intergovernmental fiscal management. General deficit sharing mechanisms usually base on fixed budgetary limits, which do not enable control for weak subnational government units and exert too high limitations for more progressive ones. Introduction of more precise dynamic fiscal rules, which account for specific fiscal standing of each local government and fiscal system, would provide incentive for more productive borrowing policies. Such mechanism overcomes short-term financing perspective that comes from short-term political horizon and mid-term focus of budgetary documentation. The results of the research brings clear policy recommendations. It is possible to replace existing deficit sharing mechanisms by more productive and efficient dynamic system. This would bring not just improved debt management control but provide incentive for more efficient borrowing. |
| Keywords: | subnational government investment, fiscal rules, borrowing, dynamic fiscal rules, deficit sharing |
| JEL: | E62 H60 H70 |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:6409411&r=ure |
| By: | Aziza Benkada (Université Mohammed Premier [Oujda]); Mohammed Belouchi; Assia Iallouchen (UAE - Université Abdelmalek Essaâdi); Mehdi Essarsar (UAE - Université Abdelmalek Essaâdi) |
| Abstract: | The adoption of the Advanced Regionalization project in 2015, is part of a new model of governance and territorial intelligence. Regional financial governance is a process that stems from the overflow of inherited formal institutional systems to a system where responsibilities are shared between the State and the regions. Growth, employment, cohesion and the reduction of regional disparities are all mentioned assets, which aims at empowering regional actors and giving them the capacity and resources to develop. |
| Keywords: | Advanced regionalization, regional development, territorial policies, territorial dynamics,territorial authorities, regional disparities, financial equalization, financial governance,the region. |
| Date: | 2018–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01863723&r=ure |
| By: | UGUR ERDOGAN (Istanbul University Business School) |
| Abstract: | Airports are essential parts of the air transport system. As the gateways to aviation, they play a key role in facilitating tourism, travel, global trade and regional welfare. In 2016, airlines worldwide carried 3.8 billion people with an increase of 7% according to previous year. IATA?s 20-year forecast states that air passenger numbers will reach to seven billion annually by 2034. The demand growth for air transport services is much higher than the growth of airport infrastructure. Shortage in airport capacity is one of the most important pressing issues affecting world air mobility today.If capacity is less than demand, the demand needs to be managed. To use an airport at a specific time, an airline must have a slot. A Slot is most commonly known as landing or take-off right at airports during a specified period of time. The distribution of slots is carried by an independent ?Slot co-ordinator?. London Heathrow Airport is the most heavily slot restricted airport in the world, and the slots are very valuable. At Heathrow, the slots in the slot pool is very limited. In 2016 only 3 pair of new slots given to airlines by the slot coordinator. Because of the unavailability and lack of new slots, Heathrow has a premium secondary slot market, that makes it unique in the world. In 1999, the UK High Court gave a historic judgement about the question of buying and selling of slots and approved a slot deal between British Airways and KLM. By this approval, airlines are allowed to pay money to other airlines for slot transactions at UK airports. Although slot trading is still uncommon and technically illegal at EU airports, slots traded freely at Heathrow airport. In 2016, a gulf carrier, Oman Air purchased a prime slot pair from KLM for 75 million USD. The previous record was 60 million USD for a slot pair American Airlines bought from SAS a year before.Airport slots are not always used by airlines that attach the highest value to them on behalf of airport side. The efficient use of airport capacity means uses of larger aircraft, longer average flight lengths, and higher passenger numbers for allocated slots. If there is an inadequate use of a slot by a short-haul and less passenger flight, buying of this slot by another airline for a long-haul flight can create additional value and efficiency to that slot time. |
| Keywords: | Air transport, airport slots, airport capacity, grandfather rights, competitive advantage, secondary slot trading. |
| Date: | 2018–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:7209668&r=ure |
| By: | Lyuba Spasova (Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Part of a larger research focused on deviance in the context of intensified migration, the study explores changes in the perceptions of Bulgarians towards migrants and refugees coming to the country or passing by in large numbers in their way to West Europe. Although Bulgaria continues to be predominantly a country of origin of migration, we are currently observing a change of attitudes and reduced solidarity towards migrants and refugees in the country. Drawing on data from a set of representative surveys, we are able to reconstruct a detailed picture of the perceptions and social distance towards migrants. What is more, the design of the survey and samples, enables us to make a comparison and distinction between attitudes of respondents living near centers for temporary accommodation of refugees and the general population, i.e. to study the role and importance of proximity and involvement for social distance, solidarity and perception of migrants and refuges as threat. |
| Keywords: | migration, attitudes, social distance |
| JEL: | A14 D74 |
| Date: | 2018–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sek:iacpro:7709574&r=ure |
| By: | Volpe, Richard; Okrent, Abigail; Kuhns, Annemarie |
| Keywords: | Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization |
| Date: | 2017–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:usao17:260553&r=ure |
| By: | Christian Braun |
| Abstract: | This is the first paper to examine the behavioral value impact of residential real estate aesthetics on investments. The unique feature of this study is the combination of cognitive science, aesthetics and behavior in the field of real estate. The results have a potential impact on the way professionals should evaluate investment options as well as on the way investments should be presented in order to get the highest possible price.Real Estate, in contrast to most other investments, has a clear physical component. On the one hand the physical appearance of a building transports lots of information that can be directly evaluated on a financial basis, for example structural integrity or maintenance backlog. On the other hand every building has certain aesthetic properties that cannot be directly linked to the buildings value or price. In general the design of a product can induce psychological reactions with cognitive and emotional content (see Bloch 1995) and can also influence the consumer’s quality of life (see Crilly et al. 2004). Therefore product evaluation from a consumer’s point of view should also be affected. In theory an investor who was able to include aesthetic aspects into his financial considerations should be unaffected in his decision if shown pictures of the product in question. That means under the assumption of certainty two buildings with identical cashflows and location (only possible in theory) should have the exact same value no matter their aesthetics. If investors are willing to pay more for one building than the other in the presence of pictures it would be proof that building aesthetics not only affect consumers but also investors. In addition it would either suggest irrational behavior in the presence of building pictures or the transportation of implicit information through building pictures that goes beyond basic financial data. In order to get reliable results this paper distinguishes between different categories of real estate professionals and professional and private investors. Each individual’s inclination towards aesthetics will be taken into account as well. Since every person necessarily has at least some connection with residential real estate and therefore a certain form of experience, this asset class seems to be the ideal research object. |
| Keywords: | Aesthetic Value; Behavioral Real Estate; Building Aesthetics |
| JEL: | R3 |
| Date: | 2018–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arz:wpaper:eres2018_245&r=ure |
| By: | Joshua Goodman; Oded Gurantz; Jonathan Smith |
| Abstract: | Data on millions of SAT-takers show only half retake the exam, with even lower retake rates among low income and underrepresented minority students. Scoring below multiples of 100 increases retaking, implying some students have round number target scores. Regression discontinuity evidence finds retaking once improves admissions-relevant SAT scores by 0.3 standard deviations on average. Likely by strengthening college applications, retaking substantially increases four-year college enrollment, particularly for low income and underrepresented minority students. Eliminating disparities in retake rates could close up to 20 percent of the income gap and 10 percent of the racial gap in four-year college enrollment. |
| JEL: | I2 I20 I23 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2018–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:24945&r=ure |
| By: | Lorenzo Caliendo (Yale University); Fernando Parro (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose a model that endogenizes the mechanism by which an economy changes its productive structure. The channel that fosters growth is the increase in productivity in the urban sector that encourages agents from the rural sector to migrate. They do so in order to have access to better opportunities, however they need to accumulate human capital before migrating, which is costly, and this generates a selection of agents that migrate. We are able to characterize the equilibrium of the economy and test its quantitative implications concluding that opening the economy to new technologies together with a relative increase in the marginal return on urban specific human capital are sufficient to make countries start changing their productive structure. |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed018:489&r=ure |