|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Sofia F. Franco, Carlos Daniel Santos, Rafael Longo |
| Abstract: | Short-term rentals have facilitated the upraise trend in tourism growth in several cities around the world. However, concerns for the negative effects that such home-sharing platforms may have on the housing market and traditional markets have driven community groups and housing advocates to intensely react against them. Whether or not shortterm rentals increase housing prices and rents for local residents is an empirical question. We quantify the causal effects of Airbnb's short-term rentals on urban housing affordability in Portugal by estimating quarterly housing rents and prices as a function of Airbnb concentration. We take advantage of the 2014 regulatory reform and employ a difference-in-differences (DiD) empirical strategy. We estimate an overall increase in property values of 34% and 10.9% for rents due to the short-term lease regulatory reform. We also find that these effects are particularly localized to the historical centers and areas attractive to tourists in the cities of Lisbon and Porto. A better understanding of the effects of shortterm home rentals on housing markets and of the magnitude of its impact on residential property prices and rents are crucial information to determine whether it needs to be regulated and how proper regulation should be designed. JEL codes: R21, R31, Z32 |
| Keywords: | property values, Airbnb, short-term rentals, regulation |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp630&r=all |
| By: | Oguzhan Cepni (Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Haci Bayram Mah. Istiklal Cad. No: 10, 06050, Ankara, Turkey); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); Mark E. Wohar (College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 6708 Pine Street, Omaha, NE 68182, USA, and School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK.) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role of real estate-specific uncertainty in predicting the conditional distribution of US home sales growth over the monthly period of 1970:07 to 2017:12, based on Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to account for model uncertainty. After controlling for standard predictors of home sales (housing price, mortgage rate, personal disposable income, unemployment rate, building permits, and housing starts), and macroeconomic and financial uncertainties, our results from the quantile BMA (QBMA) model show that real estate uncertainty has predictive content for the lower and upper quantiles of the conditional distribution of home sales growth. |
| Keywords: | Home Sales, Real Estate Uncertainty, Quantile Regression, Bayesian Model Averaging |
| JEL: | C11 C22 C53 R31 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201936&r=all |
| By: | Todd E. Elder; David N. Figlio; Scott A. Imberman; Claudia I. Persico |
| Abstract: | We use linked birth and education records from Florida to investigate how the identification of childhood disabilities varies by race and school racial composition. Using a series of decompositions, we find that black and Hispanic students are identified with disabilities at lower rates than are observationally similar white students. Black students are over-identified in schools with relatively small shares of minorities and substantially under-identified in schools with large minority shares. We find similar gradients among Hispanic students but opposite patterns among white students. We provide suggestive evidence that these findings are unlikely to stem from differential resource allocations, economic characteristics of students, or achievement differences. Instead, we argue that the results are consistent with a heightened awareness among school officials of disabilities in students who are racially and ethnically distinct from the majority race in the school. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J70 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:25829&r=all |
| By: | Araujo P., Maria Daniela |
| Abstract: | In the last decade, several Latin American governments have implemented new teacher recruitment policies based on evaluations of candidates' competency and knowledge so as to raise the quality of their teachers and schools. Since 2007, the Ecuadorian government has required teacher candidates to pass national standardized tests before they can participate in merit-based selection competitions for tenure at public schools. Has this new recruitment system served as an effective screening device? Has it ultimately helped to raise student learning? To answer these questions, I analyze data from a unique Ecuadorian survey of schools in the academic year 2011-2012. I first estimate the value-added to student achievement using OLS and hierarchical linear regressions to evaluate the effect of Ecuador's new competitive recruitment policy. I then use propensity score matching to simulate a random assignment of students to teachers and estimate causal treatment effects. The evidence suggests that teachers who were granted tenure through the new competitive recruitment policy were no more effective, overall, in raising students' learning in reading or math than their peers at schools. Nonetheless, poorer children who were assigned to these teachers had significantly better scores in reading. Furthermore, test-screened teachers, regardless of their tenure status, seem to have had positive significant effects in reading, particularly for students living in poverty. This finding suggests that Ecuador's teacher recruitment policy had a positive impact on the nation's most vulnerable students. |
| Keywords: | teacher quality,education policy,education reform,Latin America |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 J45 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:bamber:150&r=all |
| By: | Aytul Ganioglu; Unal Seven |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the long-run convergence of regional house prices in Turkey. Using a non-linear time-varying factor model and quarterly house price data for the period between 2010 and 2018, we find that house prices do not converge across the 26 regions. The results reveal that the regions can be grouped into seven convergence clubs and one divergent club, confirming the heterogeneity and complexity of the Turkish housing market. These results also imply the existence of multiple steady states in the housing market. These outcomes will be beneficial to home buyers/sellers, investors, regulators and policymakers, who are interested in analyzing the dynamic interlinkages among house prices and the effects of shocks originating from the regional housing markets. |
| Keywords: | Housing market, House prices, Log-t test, Regional convergence |
| JEL: | R31 O18 C33 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tcb:wpaper:1914&r=all |
| By: | Muge Adalet McGowan; Juan Antona San Millán |
| Abstract: | Spain is a highly decentralised country, making the effective implementation of national reforms dependent on regional policies. Some regional disparities are high and need to be reduced. High regional dispersion in education and job outcomes, compounded by low inter-regional mobility, emerge as key drivers of regional inequalities in income and wellbeing. Lifelong learning programmes that take into account regional specific needs would help foster regional skills and attract firms to lagging regions. Ensuring full portability of social and housing benefits across regions, by providing temporary assistance either by the region of origin or the central government, would improve inter-regional mobility. At the same time, barriers to achieving a truly single market limit productivity growth of regions, including the most advanced. Reducing regulatory barriers and better innovation policies would boost productivity. Effective intergovernmental coordination bodies and a well designed interregional fiscal equalisation system will be key to ensuring that regions have the incentives to implement policies for inclusive growth. |
| JEL: | D24 E24 I24 J24 J61 J65 O31 |
| Date: | 2019–05–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1549-en&r=all |
| By: | Guillaume Monchambert (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2, Université de Lyon) |
| Abstract: | Long-distance carpooling is an emerging mode in France and Europe, but little is known about monetary values of this mode attributes in transport economics. We conducted a discrete choice experiment to identify and measure the values of attributes of long-distance transport modes for a trip as a driver and as a passenger, with a special focus on carpooling. Around 1.700 French individuals have been surveyed. We use discrete mixed logit models to estimate the probability of mode choice. We find that the value of travel time for a driver who carpools is on average 13% higher than the value of travel time when driving alone in his/her car. The average value of travel time for a carpool trip as passenger is around 26 euros per hour, 60% higher than for a train trip and 20% higher than for a bus trip. Moreover, our study confirms a strong preference for driving solo over taking carpoolers in one's car. We also show that individuals traveling as carpool passenger incur a "discomfort" cost of on average 4.5 euros per extra passenger in the same vehicle. Finally, we identify robust socioeconomic effects affecting the probability of carpooling, especially gender effects. When they drive a car, females are less likely to carpool than male, but they prefer to carpool two passengers over only one passenger. JEL Codes: R41; C35 |
| Keywords: | Value of time,Long-distance,Carpooling,Discrete choice experiment |
| Date: | 2019–05–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02121589&r=all |
| By: | Dimitra Kontana (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia); Fotios Siokis (University of Macedonia) |
| Abstract: | Based on the seminal paper of Case, Quigley and Shiller (2013), we investigate the effects of financial and housing wealth on consumption. Using quarterly data from 1975 to 2016, for all States of U.S. economy, and a different methodology in measuring wealth, we report relatively greater financial effects than housing effects on consumption. Specifically, in our basic utilized model, the calculated elasticity for financial wealth is 0.060, while for housing is 0.045. The results are not in agreement with the ones obtained by Case, Quigley and Shiller. In an attempt to investigate the disparity, we proceed by incorporating the introduction of the Tax Reform Act in 1986, which increased incentives for owner-occupied housing investments. Finally, due to distributional factors at work, and taking into account the pronounced uneven distribution of wealth we investigate the effects of wealth for 8 states that include the Metropolitan areas comprising of the well-known Case-Shiller 10-City Composite Index. Now the housing effect on consumption is much stronger and larger than the financial effect. Additionally, we forecast the consumption changes at the time of the high rise and large drops in house prices for these states. Forecasts showed a recession from the fall of Lehman Brothers until the fourth quarter of 2011. These forecasts were not verified. Probably, the new techniques used by politics played an important role. We also find that extreme behaviors cannot be predicted. |
| Keywords: | consumption; financial wealth; housing wealth; wealth effects. |
| JEL: | E21 G1 R31 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2019_03&r=all |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | In almost all school systems, students are assigned to public schools based, at least partly, on their home address. Through this policy, students are typically assigned to the school closest to their home. The main objective may be to avoid long and costly commutes to and from school. However, over the past few decades, many countries have implemented reforms that provide more school options to families by loosening the link between home address and school. How do these reforms affect the social composition of schools? |
| Date: | 2019–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduddd:96-en&r=all |
| By: | Braun, Sebastian Till; Franke, Richard |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of railways on the spatial economic development of a German economy, the Kingdom of Württemberg, during the Industrial Revolution. Our identification strategy compares the economic development of `winning' municipalities that were connected to the railway in 1845-54 to the development of `losing' municipalities that were the runners-up choice for a given railway line between two major towns. Estimates from both differences-in-differences and inverse-probability-weighted models suggest that railway access increased annual population growth by 0.4 percentage points over more than half a century. Railways also increased wages, income and housing values, in line with predictions of economic geography models of transport infrastructure improvements, reduced the gender wage gap, and accelerated the transition away from agriculture. We find little evidence that these effects are driven by localised displacement effects. |
| Keywords: | Railway access, growth, sectoral employment, Industrial Revolution, Württemberg |
| JEL: | N73 N93 O14 R12 R40 |
| Date: | 2019–05–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93644&r=all |
| By: | Sebastian Weinand; Ludwig von Auer |
| Abstract: | Over the last three decades the supply of economic statistics has vastly improved. Unfortunately, statistics on regional price levels (sub- national purchasing power parities) have been exempt from this positive trend, even though they are indispensable for meaningful spatial comparisons of regional output, income, wages, productivity, standards of living, and poverty. To improve the situation, our paper demonstrates that a highly disaggregated and reliable regional price index can be compiled from data that already exist. We use the micro price data that have been collected for Germany’s Consumer Price Index in May 2016. For the computation we introduce a multi-stage version of the Country-Product-Dummy method. The unique quality of our price data set allows us to depart from previous spatial price comparisons and to compare only exactly identical products. We find that the price levels of the 402 counties and cities of Germany are largely driven by the cost of housing and to a much lesser degree by the prices of goods and services. The overall price level in the most expensive region, Munich, is about 27 percent higher than in the cheapest region. Our results also reveal strong spatial autocorrelation. |
| Keywords: | spatial price comparison, regional price index, PPP, CPD-method, hedonic regression, consumer price data |
| JEL: | C21 C43 E31 O18 R10 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsw:rswwps:rswwps268&r=all |
| By: | List, John; Momeni, Fatemeh; Zenou, Yves |
| Abstract: | We estimate the direct and spillover effects of a large-scale early childhood intervention on the educational attainment of over 2,000 disadvantaged children in the United States. We show that failing to account for spillover effects results in a severe underestimation of the impact. The intervention induced positive direct effects on test scores of children assigned to the treatment groups. We document large spillover effects on both treatment and control children who live near treated children. On average, spillover effects increase a child's non-cognitive (cognitive) scores by about 1.2 (0.6 to 0.7) standard deviations. The spillover effects are localized, decreasing with the spatial distance to treated neighbors. Our evidence suggests the spillover effect on non-cognitive scores are likely to operate through the child's social network. Alternatively, parental investment is an important channel through which cognitive spillover effects operate. We view our results as speaking to several literatures, perhaps most importantly the role of public programs and neighborhoods on human capital formation at an early age. |
| Keywords: | early education; field experiment; neighborhood; non-cognitive skills; spillover effects |
| JEL: | C93 I21 R1 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13725&r=all |
| By: | Debopam Bhattacharya (University of Cambridge); Pascaline Dupas (Stanford University); Shin Kanaya (University of Aarhus and CREATES) |
| Abstract: | Many real-life settings of consumer-choice involve social interactions, causing targeted policies to have spillover-effects. This paper develops novel empirical tools for analyzing demand and welfare-effects of policy-interventions in binary choice settings with social interactions. Examples include subsidies for healthproduct adoption and vouchers for attending a high-achieving school. We establish the connection between econometrics of large games and Brock-Durlauf-type interaction models, under both I.I.D. and spatially correlated unobservables. We develop new convergence results for associated beliefs and estimates of preference-parameters under increasing-domain spatial asymptotics. Next, we show that even with fully parametric specifications and unique equilibrium, choice data, that are sufficient for counterfactual demand - prediction under interactions, are insufficient for welfare-calculations. This is because distinct underlying mechanisms producing the same interaction coefficient can imply different welfare-effects and deadweightloss from a policy-intervention. Standard index-restrictions imply distribution-free bounds on welfare. We illustrate our results using experimental data on mosquito-net adoption in rural Kenya. |
| Keywords: | Policy targeting, welfare analysis, social interaction, spillover, externality, convergence of Bayesian-Nash equilibria, spatial dependence, Kenya |
| JEL: | C01 H23 H4 H51 I38 O1 |
| Date: | 2019–04–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2019-09&r=all |
| By: | Steckenleiter, Carina; Lechner, Michael; Pawlowski, Tim; Schüttoff, Ute |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect of local public expenditures on sports facilities on sports participation in Germany. To this end, we construct a new database containing public expenditures at the municipality level and link this information with individual level data. We form locally weighted averages of expenditures based on geographic distances since people also benefit from expenditures of neighboring municipalities. We analyze how effects of sports facility expenditures change with different expenditures levels (“dose-response relationship”) and find no effect of local public expenditures on sports facilities on the probability to practice sports. These findings are robust across different age groups and municipality sizes. |
| Keywords: | Sports, local public sports expenditure, continuous treatment, treatment effects doseresponse surface, semiparametric estimation |
| JEL: | H72 H75 C21 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2019:05&r=all |
| By: | Rainald Borck (University of Potsdam, CESifo, DIW Berlin); Philipp Schrauth (University of Potsdam) |
| Abstract: | We use panel data from Germany to analyze the effect of population density on urban air pollution (nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone). To address unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variables, we present long difference/fixed effects estimates and instrumental variables estimates, using historical population and soil quality as instruments. Our preferred estimates imply that a one-standard deviation increase in population density increases air pollution by 3-12%. |
| Keywords: | population density, air pollution |
| JEL: | Q53 R12 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:08&r=all |
| By: | Kimbrough, Gray |
| Abstract: | Research into the relationships between commuting and other activities has been hampered by the lack of suitably comprehensive datasets. This paper identifies a possible source of detailed information for such studies, the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). This paper surveys approaches used by researchers to analyze commuting in the ATUS and outlines a method of measuring commuting in a clear and consistent way. This analysis details the advantages of this method over other approaches. Commuting measured in the ATUS using this methodology is shown to be consistent with commuting measures in other large, nationally representative studies. The proposed methodology makes possible a range of analyses exploiting the unique information in the ATUS. |
| Keywords: | commuting, time use data, travel classification, American Time Use Survey |
| JEL: | J22 R41 |
| Date: | 2019–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:93239&r=all |
| By: | Baltagi, Badi H.; Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso; Karatas, Haci M. |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the relationship between education and health outcomes using a natural experiment in Turkey. The compulsory schooling increased from 5 to 8 years in 1997. This increase was accompanied by a massive construction of classrooms and recruitment of teachers in a differential rate across regions. As in previous studies, we confirm that the 1997 reform substantially increased education in Turkey. Using the number of new middle school class openings per 1000 children as an intensity measure for the 1997 reform, we find that, on average, one additional middle school class increases the probability of completion of 8 years or more of schooling by about 7.1 percentage points. We use this exogenous increase in the educational attainment to investigate the impact of education on body mass index, obesity, smoking behavior, and self-rated health, as well as the effect of maternal education on the infant’s well-being. Using ordinary least squares, we find that there is a statistically significant favorable effect of education on health outcomes and behavior. However, this relationship becomes insignificant when we account for the endogeneity of education and health by instrumenting education with exogenous variations generated by the 1997 reform and the accompanying middle school class openings. The insignificance of the health effect may be due to lack of statistical power in our data, or to the fact that this policy affects only relatively low levels of schooling and the health effects of education need to be examined at higher levels of schooling. |
| Keywords: | health,education,compulsory schooling,body mass index,obesity,smoking,selfrated health,maternal education,infant’s well-being,Turkey |
| JEL: | C26 I12 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:346&r=all |
| By: | Ross Hickey (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne); Steeve Mongrain (Simon Fraser University); Joanne Roberts (Yale-NUS); Tanguy van Ypersele (Aix-Marseille University – AMSE) |
| Abstract: | This paper looks carefully at situations in which public and private protection are complementary, that is, when private protection must be coordinated with public protection to be effective. For example, home alarms deter theft by being connected to a local police station: if the police do not respond to a home alarm, the home alarm on its own is virtually useless in halting a crime in action. We make a distinction between gross and net complementarity and substitution, where the latter takes into account the effect on the crime rate. We show that when public and private protection are complements the optimal provision of public protection trades offs the manipulation effect of encouraging private protection with the compensatory effect of providing protection to households that do not privately invest. We discuss the implications of our results for policy and empirical research in this area. |
| Keywords: | crime, private protection, policing, externalities |
| JEL: | H41 H42 K42 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2019n04&r=all |
| By: | Jeffrey Terziev |
| Abstract: | Research shows that a diverse teaching force may help states and districts close large, persistent racial and ethnic achievement gaps and improve the educational outcomes of minority students. In particular, the research finds benefits for black students. |
| Keywords: | rel ma, mid-atlantic, infographic, april 2019, diverse, teaching force, education, outcomes, improve, minority, students |
| JEL: | I |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:d4ca1016ce0e41c99c2758e98378f6e7&r=all |
| By: | Renaud Bourlès (Aix-Marseille School of Economics (CNRS / AMU / EHESS) (AMSE)); Yann Bramoullé (Aix-Marseille School of Economics (CNRS / AMU / EHESS)); Eduardo Perez (Département d'économie) |
| Abstract: | We provide the first analysis of the risk-sharing implications of altruism networks. Agents are embedded in a fixed network and care about each other. We study whether altruistic transfers help smooth consumption and how this depends on the shape of the network. We identify two benchmarks where altruism networks generate efficient insurance: for any shock when the network of perfect altruism is strongly connected and for any small shock when the network of transfers is weakly connected. We show that the extent of informal insurance depends on the average path length of the altruism network and that small shocks are partially insured by endogenous risk-sharing communities. We uncover complex structural effects. Under iid incomes, central agents tend to be better insured, the consumption correlation between two agents is positive and tends to decrease with network distance, and a new link can decrease or increase the consumption variance of indirect neighbors. Overall, we show that altruism in networks has a first-order impact on risk and generates specific patterns of consumption smoothing. |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/cpem82ltk8fgprl50i20pgomf&r=all |
| By: | Doggett, Sarah; Ragland, David R.; Felschundneff, Grace |
| Abstract: | Traffic safety decisions are based predominantly on information from police collision reports. However, a number of studies suggest that such reports tend to underrepresent bicycle and pedestrian collisions. Underreporting could lead to inaccurate evaluation of crash rates and may under- or overestimate the effects of road safety countermeasures. This review examined ten studies that used data linkage to explore potential underreporting of pedestrian and/or bicyclist injury in police collision reports. Due to variations in definitions of reporting level, periods of study, and study locations, it was difficult to directly compare the studies. Even among the six studies using the hospital link definition, estimates of reporting levels ranged from 44 to 75 percent for pedestrian crashes, and from 7 to 46 percent for bicycle crashes, suggesting a severe underreporting problem. However, few of the studies provided estimates of the error around their reporting level estimates, and as a result, it is difficult to determine the true level of underreporting. It may be that bicycle and pedestrian crashes appear in both police and hospital datasets but are less likely to be linked. Due to linkage error, link rate can only be used to estimate reporting level. Without the variance of that estimate, the effect of underreporting on traffic safety analyses cannot be accurately determined. Future studies should include estimates of the error present in their data linkage process for greater accuracy of the underreporting in police data. Datasets should be designed for easier linkage with hospital data and other datasets. |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Data, Linkage, Pedestrian, Bicycle, Crash, Underreporting |
| Date: | 2018–11–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt0jq5h6f5&r=all |
| By: | Johan Klaesson; Özge Öner; Dieter Pennerstorfer |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the relationship between the size and the quality of ethnic enclaves on immigrants’ labor market integration. Using exogenously defined grid cells to delineate neighborhoods, we find robust empirical evidence that the employment rate of the respective immigrant group in the vicinity (as a measure of enclave quality) facilitates labor market integration of new immigrants. The influence of the overall employment rate and the share of co-nationals in the neighborhood tend to be positive, but less robust. We thus conclude that the quality is more important than the size of ethnic enclave in helping new immigrants finding jobs. |
| Keywords: | Refugee immigrants, Ethnic enclave quality, Labor market outcomes |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J60 R23 |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2019_07&r=all |
| By: | Chen, Lipeng (School of Economics, Fudan University); Jiang, Liang (Fanhai International School of Finance and School of Economics, Fudan University); Phang, Sock Yong (School of Economics, Singapore Management University); Yu, Jun (School of Economics and Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University) |
| Abstract: | We utilize data from the Singapore Life Panel© survey to empirically investigate the impact of housing equity on consumption of elderly households. Based on panel analysis, we find housing equity value has no significant impact on non-durable consumption for elderly people. The conclusion holds for a battery of robustness check. Moreover, heterogeneity analyses based on subsamples by age of household head, house type, and number of property possessed also show no significant impact of housing equity on consumption in general. Finally, we use scenario analysis to study the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS), a novel housing equity monetization scheme which allows elderly households to unlock housing equity for retirement financing. We find LBS increases non-durable consumption by about only 0.69%, which may explain the low take-up rate for the LBS. |
| Keywords: | Housing wealth; elderly households; monetization; Singapore |
| Date: | 2019–05–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:smuesw:2019_010&r=all |
| By: | ALIEVA Aigul; HILDEBRAND Vincent |
| Abstract: | Educational tracking is one of the institutional barriers to more equitable societies. Students with a modest social origin and/or an immigration background are underrepresented in the academic programs of secondary schools that would make them eligible later to access tertiary education. Literature on whether track placement reflects a student's aptitude remains largely scarce. We aim to contribute to this research strand and analyze the role of achievement prior to tracking on the odds of placement in an academic program among immigrant students and native peers with a similar level of academic ability. While the overall results suggest no disadvantage among immigrant students, the results by ethnicity and geographic region of origin reveal a large ethnic penalty for those of African, Turkish, Middle Eastern, or South European background. Our paper highlights the pertinence of students' origin on educational trajectories and the persisting bias in tracking policy in European school systems. |
| Keywords: | academic track; vocational track; immigrant students; Europe; ethnicity and origin |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2019-09&r=all |
| By: | Dalton, Patricio (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Rüschenpöhler, Julius (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Uras, Burak (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Zia, Bilal |
| Abstract: | Can best practices of successful business peers influence the efficiency and growth of small-scale enterprises? Does it matter how this information is disseminated? This paper conducts a field experiment among urban retail shop owners in Indonesia to address these research questions. Through extensive baseline quantitative and qualitative assessments, we develop a handbook of local best practices that associates specific business practices with performance and provides detailed implementation guidance informed by exemplary local shop owners. The handbook is distributed to a randomly selected sample of shop owners and is complemented with three experiential learning modules: one group is invited to watch a documentary video on experiences of highly successful peers, another is offered light in-shop assistance on the implementation of the handbook, and a third group is offered both. Eighteen months after the intervention, we find no effect of offering the handbook alone, but significant impact on practice adoption when the handbook is coupled with experiential learning. On business performance we find sizable and significant improvements as well, up to a 35% increase in profits and 16.7% in revenues. The types of practices adopted map these performance improvements to efficiency gains rather than other channels. The analysis suggests these interventions are simple, scalable, and highly cost-effective. |
| Keywords: | business practices; small-scale enterprises; peer knowledge; efficiency gains; sicoal learning |
| JEL: | O12 L26 M20 O31 O33 O17 M50 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:fc650e2f-88cf-4d75-8257-f221751d3db0&r=all |
| By: | Isaure Delaporte |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to determine the immigrants' ethnic identity, i.e. the degree of identification to the culture and society of the country of origin and the host country and second, to investigate the impact of ethnic identity on the immigrants' employment outcomes. Using rich survey data from France and relying on a polychoric principal component analysis, this paper proposes two richer measures of ethnic identity than the ones used in the literature, namely: i) the degree of commitment to the origin country culture and ii) the extent to which the individual holds multiple identities. The paper investigates the impact of the ethnic identity measures on the employment outcomes of immigrants in France. The results show that having multiple identities improves the employment outcomes of the migrants and contribute to help design effective post-immigration policies. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic Identity; Immigration; Employment; Polychoric Principal Component Analysis |
| JEL: | J15 J21 J71 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1904&r=all |
| By: | Maliranta, Mika; Nurmi, Satu |
| Abstract: | Abstract We examine the growth of real value added, labour input and labour productivity of immigrant-owned firms in Finland in 2007–2016. In our analysis we use the so-called FLOWN (Finnish Longitudinal OWNer-Employer-Employee) data by Statistics Finland that allows linking register information on firms, their owners and employees. As immigrant-owned firms account for a few percent of all firms and about one percent of all labour in the business sector, their contribution to the growth of output and employment must be limited. However, the growth rate of their real value added is markedly stronger than in other firm groups. Their job creation rates are exceptionally high but their job destruction rates are, however, about the same magnitude as in the indigenous-owned firms. The immigrant-owned firms have created a relatively large amount of low productivity and low wage jobs. On an average, their wage growth has been somewhat higher than in other firms, but pro-cyclical variation of wages has been stronger. |
| Keywords: | Immigrants, Output growth, Employment growth, Productivity growth, Creative destruction |
| JEL: | J15 J21 J24 E24 |
| Date: | 2019–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:report:91&r=all |
| By: | Rongen Gerton |
| Abstract: | This paper applies a novel inequality estimation method to household consumption expenditure in Mumbai, India.Since the richest households may be missing in survey data, this re-estimated inequality figure takes them into account by combining survey data with house price data. However, application of this method does not indicate that the survey-based Gini coefficient of 0.447 underestimates consumption inequality in Mumbai; none of the ten investigated scenarios yields a higher estimate.Further analyses are necessary to assess the robustness of estimates and the usefulness of applying this method to the whole of urban India. |
| Keywords: | Economic inequality,House prices,Household consumption,Household income,Household survey |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-181&r=all |
| By: | Raphael Gouvea (Institute for Applied Economic Research and Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst); Daniele Girardi (Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of political parties in shaping local fiscal policy in the context of Brazilian cities in the 2004-2016 period. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we find no effect of left-wing mayors on the size of the city government nor on the allocation of spending across main budget categories (current spending, investment and personnel). We do find a modest, significant and robust positive effect on the share of social expenditures. The (close) election of a left-wing mayor tends to raise the share of social expenditures by around 0.6 percentage points in our preferred RD specification. We then explore possible mechanisms which could bring about substantial fiscal policy convergence between political parties in Brazilian cities. We exploit oil-related revenue windfalls to explore the role of institutional constraints, and build an index of Tiebout competition to measure the role of the latter. We find support for the institutional constraints hypothesis in explaining the limited extent of spending allocation effects, and little support for the Tiebout-competition hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | Partisanship, Local Fiscal Policy, Brazil, Regression-Discontinuity, Elections, Oil Windfalls, Tiebout Competition |
| JEL: | H7 L38 D72 P16 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ums:papers:2019-06&r=all |
| By: | Joseph P. Hughes (Rutgers University); Julapa Jagtiani (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Loretta J. Mester (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Choon-Geol Moon (Hanyang University) |
| Abstract: | We consider how size matters for banks in three size groups: small community banks with assets less than $1 billion, large community banks with assets between $1 billion and $10 billion, and midsize banks with assets between $10 billion and $50 billion. To illustrate the differences between these banks and larger banks whose business models are distinctly different, we examine large banks with assets between $50 billion and $250 billion and the largest banks with assets exceeding $250 billion. Community banks have potential advantages in relationship lending compared with large banks. However, increases in regulatory compliance and technological burdens may have disproportionately increased community banks’ costs, raising concerns about small businesses’ access to credit. Our evidence suggests several patterns: (1) while small community banks exhibit relatively more valuable investment opportunities, larger community banks, midsize banks, and larger banks exploit theirs more efficiently and achieve better financial performance; (2) average operating costs that include costs related to regulatory compliance and technology decrease with size; (3) unlike small community banks, large community banks have financial incentives to increase lending to small businesses; and (4) for business lending and commercial real estate lending, compared with small community banks, large community banks, midsize banks, and larger banks assume higher inherent credit risk and exhibit more efficient lending. Thus, concern that small business lending would be adversely affected if small community banks find it beneficial to increase their scale is not supported by our results. |
| Keywords: | community banking, scale, financial performance, small business lending |
| JEL: | G21 L25 |
| Date: | 2019–05–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rut:rutres:201901&r=all |
| By: | Börnhorst, Claudia; Heger, Dörte; Mensen, Anne |
| Abstract: | Many studies have shown that childhood circumstances can have long term consequences that persist until old age. To better understand the transmission of early life circumstances, this paper analyses the effects of health and financial situation during childhood on quality of life after retirement as well as the mediating role of later life health, educational level, and income in this association. Moreover, this study is the first to compare these pathways across European regions. The analyses are based on data of 13,092 retirees aged > 60 and |
| Keywords: | early life circumstances,life course epidemiology,retirement phase,quality of life,path analysis |
| JEL: | H75 I31 J14 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:795&r=all |
| By: | Pawlowski, Tim; Steckenleiter, Carina; Wallrafen, Tim; Lechner, Michael |
| Abstract: | By merging administrative data on public finances of all municipalities in Germany with individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we explore whether local public expenditures on sports facilities influences individual labor market outcomes. Our identification strategy follows a selection-on-observables approach and exploits the panel structure of the data covering 12 years between 2001 and 2012. The results of our matching estimations suggest that both women and men living in municipalities with high expenditure levels benefit, exhibiting approximately 7 percent of additional household net income on average. However, this income effect is fully captured by earning gains for men rather than women living in the household. Additional analysis suggests, that these gender differences, which can also be observed in terms of working time, hourly wage and employment status, appear plausible since women in the age cohort under consideration are less likely than men to engage in sports in general and in any of the publicly funded sports facilities in particular. Moreover, improved well-being and health are possible mechanisms that determine how the positive labor market effects for men may unfold. |
| Keywords: | Labor market effects, public expenditures, sports, health, well-being |
| JEL: | H72 H75 J31 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2019:06&r=all |
| By: | Wade Robert |
| Abstract: | Few non-western countries have reached the general prosperity of Western Europe and North America in the past two centuries. The core–periphery structure of the world economy created in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution has proved robust, even after seven decades of self-conscious ‘development’ following the Second World War.Just about all the countries which were in the periphery in 1960 remain in the periphery today. The clearest exceptions are in capitalist Northeast Asia, namely, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea; to which the island states of Singapore and Hong Kong might be added. How did they escape? |
| Keywords: | Growth,state capacity |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-101&r=all |
| By: | Guilherme Bandeira (Bank of Spain); Jordi Caballe (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Barcelona GSE); Eugenia Vella (University of Sheffield and MOVE, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we propose a new channel through which fiscal austerity affects the macroeconomy. To this end, we introduce endogenous migration both for the unem- ployed and the employed members of the household in a small open economy New Keynesian model with labour market frictions. Our model-based simulations for the austerity mix implemented in Greece over the period 2010-2015 show that the model is able to match the total size of half a million emigrants and output drop of 25%, while the model without migration generates an output drop of 20%. Having established that the model delivers empirically plausible results, we then use it to investigate (i) the two-way relation between migration and austerity, and (ii) the role of migration as shock absorber. We find that tax hikes induce prolonged migration outflows, while the effect of spending cuts is hump-shaped. In turn, emigration implies an increase in both the tax hike and time required to achieve a given size of debt reduction. As a result of the labour-reducing effect of these higher tax hikes, the unemployment gains from migration are only temporary in the presence of austerity and are substantially reversed over time. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal consolidation, migration, matching frictions, on-the-job search |
| JEL: | E32 F41 |
| Date: | 2019–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2019009&r=all |
| By: | Debopam Bhattacharya; Pascaline Dupas; Shin Kanaya |
| Abstract: | Many real-life settings of consumer-choice involve social interactions, causing targeted policies to have spillover-effects. This paper develops novel empirical tools for analyzing demand and welfare-effects of policy-interventions in binary choice settings with social interactions. Examples include subsidies for health-product adoption and vouchers for attending a high-achieving school. We establish the connection between econometrics of large games and Brock-Durlauf-type interaction models, under both I.I.D. and spatially correlated unobservables. We develop new convergence results for associated beliefs and estimates of preference-parameters under increasing-domain spatial asymptotics. Next, we show that even with fully parametric specifications and unique equilibrium, choice data, that are sufficient for counterfactual demand-prediction under interactions, are insufficient for welfare-calculations. This is because distinct underlying mechanisms producing the same interaction coefficient can imply different welfare-effects and deadweight-loss from a policy-intervention. Standard index-restrictions imply distribution-free bounds on welfare. We illustrate our results using experimental data on mosquito-net adoption in rural Kenya. |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1905.04028&r=all |
| By: | Fuchs, Michaela (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Rossen, Anja (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Weyh, Antje (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Wydra-Somaggio, Gabriele (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "This paper provides first-time evidence on the magnitude and determinants of regional differences in the gender pay gap (GPG) in Germany. Using a comprehensive data set of all full-time employees, we conduct Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions for Germany and its regions to explain the regional variation of the GPG with theory-based individual, job-related and regional characteristics. Our results provide several novel insights into the regional dimension of the GPG. First, men's wages are more strongly correlated with the regional GPG than those of women, indicating that their wages drive the regional variation in the GPG much more than the wages of women. Second, the decomposition results reveal pronounced differences in the impact of the individual and job-related characteristics between the regions. Whereas job-related characteristics are important in regions with a high GPG, individual characteristics rather come into play in regions with a low or negative GPG. The results underscore the role played by the establishment composition in a region and the kind of jobs provided for the regional GPG. Women earn more than men in regions with a weak local economic structure and the absence of large firms providing well-paid manufacturing jobs. In regions with a high GPG, in contrast, men usually benefit from such jobs. The third result relates to the validity of the theoretical determinants of the GPG in regional respect. In contrast to the clear-cut decomposition results at the national level, at the regional level their validity mainly applies to specific subsets of regions. We conclude that analyses at the national level come too short in precisely explaining the regional variation of the GPG." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Lohnunterschied, erwerbstätige Frauen, erwerbstätige Männer, Vollzeitarbeit, sozialversicherungspflichtige Arbeitnehmer, regionale Disparität, regionaler Vergleich, Landkreis, Wirtschaftsstruktur, geschlechtsspezifische Faktoren |
| JEL: | J31 R23 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201911&r=all |
| By: | Ayala-cantu Luciano; Morando Bruno |
| Abstract: | The way property rights affect land rental market behaviour is one of the key issues in development economics. In this paper we show the relationship between land use certificates and the compensation landlords receive when they lease out land to their relatives.We find that female-headed households who rent out land to their relatives are less likely to receive a payment (monetary or in-kind), unless they possess a title for the land leased. A regional decomposition of our results shows that this effect is more predominant in the North of Viet Nam.This suggests that female-headed households may have weaker de facto rights over land, particularly in the Northern provinces, and that formal legal documents are potentially a useful tool to improve their bargaining power in negotiating land rental terms. |
| Keywords: | Gender,Land titling,Land use |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2018-96&r=all |
| By: | Nguyen, Trung Thanh; Tran, Viet Tuan; Nguyen, Thanh-Tung; Grote, Ulrike |
| Abstract: | Using panel data of more than 1,000 rural households from three rural provinces in Vietnam, we find that farming efficiency is a driver of cropland rental market development that enhances land use efficiency and results in an overall income gain for market participants. Our findings highlight the importance of cropland rental markets in facilitating economic transformation in rural areas of rapidly growing economies, but also indicate the need to take care of the poor to ensure that they are not left behind. |
| Keywords: | Land Economics/Use |
| Date: | 2019–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:eaa165:288441&r=all |
| By: | Breidenbach, Philipp; Eilers, Lea; Fries, Jan Ludwig |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the rent control policy implemented in Germany in 2015. Like many countries around the world, German cities and metropolitan areas have experienced a strong increase in rental prices during the last decade. In response, the politicians aimed to dampen the rise in rental prices by limiting the landlords' freedom to increase rents for new contracts. To that end, the rent control was introduced. To evaluate the effectiveness of the rent control with respect to rental prices, we take advantage of its restricted scope of application. First, it is applied only in a selected number of municipalities, thereby generating regional variation. Second, the condition of rental objects generates an additional dimension of variation since new and modernised objects are exempt from rent control. Based on data for rental offers in Germany, we apply a triple-differences framework with region-specific time trends as well as flat type-specific ones. Despite the high political expectations, our estimates indicate that the German rent control dampens rental price growth by only 2.5 %. This effect varies across object characteristics and seems to be larger for lower-quality, smaller-sized dwellings and in the lower price segment. Nevertheless, the application of an event-study indicates that these effects are not persistent over time. |
| Keywords: | rental prices,rent control,regional variation,regulation,diff-in-diff-in-diff,event study |
| JEL: | C23 R31 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:svrwwp:072018&r=all |
| By: | Angela Cools (Cornell University); Raquel Fernandez (New York University); Eleonora Patacchini (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of exposure to female and male “high-achievers” in high school on the long-run educational outcomes of their peers. Using data from a recent cohort of students in the United States, we identify a causal effect by exploiting quasi-random variation in the exposure of students to peers with highly- educated parents across cohorts within a school. We find that greater exposure to “high-achieving” boys, as proxied by their parents’ education, decreases the likelihood that girls go on to complete a bachelor’s degree, substituting the latter with junior college degrees. It also affects negatively their math and science grades and, in the long term, decreases labor force participation and increases fertility. We explore possible mechanisms and find that greater exposure leads to lower self-confidence and aspirations and to more risky behavior (including having a child before age 18). The girls most strongly affected are those in the bottom half of the ability distribution (as measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test), those with at least one college-educated parent, and those attending a school in the upper half of the socio- economic distribution. The effects are quantitatively important: an increase of one standard deviation in the percent of “high-achieving” boys decreases the probability of obtaining a bachelor’s degree from 2.2-4.5 percentage points, depending on the group. Greater exposure to “high-achieving” girls, on the other hand, increases bachelor’s degree attainment for girls in the lower half of the ability distribution, those without a college-educated parent, and those attending a school in the upper half of the socio-economic distribution. The effect of “high-achievers” on male out- comes is markedly different: boys are unaffected by “high-achievers” of either gender. |
| Keywords: | gender, education, cohort study, high achievers, peers |
| JEL: | I21 J16 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2019-032&r=all |