nep-ure New Economics Papers
on Urban and Real Estate Economics
Issue of 2020‒10‒26
forty-six papers chosen by
Steve Ross
University of Connecticut

  1. Resilient Urban Housing Markets: Shocks vs. Fundamentals By Amine Ouazad
  2. Moving Opportunities: The Impact of Public Housing Re-generations on Student Achievement By Lorenzo Neri
  3. Does investment in national highways help or hurt hinterland city growth? By Baum-Snow, Nathaniel; Henderson, J. Vernon; Turner, Matthew A.; Brandt, Loren
  4. The policy-driven boom and bust in the housing market: Evidence from Mongolia By Doojav, Gan-Ochir; Damdinjav, Davaasukh
  5. Imperfect Substitutability in Real Estate Markets and the Effect of Housing Demand on the Macroeconomy By J. Scott Davis; Kevin X. D. Huang; Ayse Sapci
  6. Neglected No More: Housing Markets, Mortgage Lending, and Sea Level Rise By Benjamin J. Keys; Philip Mulder
  7. "Regional borders, local unemployment and happiness" By Antonio Di Paolo; Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
  8. Forecast of Ontario’s housing stock 2020-2046 By Karimova, Amira
  9. Mortgage Prepayment, Race, and Monetary Policy By Kristopher S. Gerardi; Paul S. Willen; David Hao Zhang
  10. The Geography of COVID-19 in Sweden By Florida, Richard; Mellander , Charlotta
  11. Some People Feel the Rain, Others Just Get Wet: An Analysis of Regional Differences in the Effects of Weather on Cycling By Kathrin Goldmann; Jan Wessel
  12. Spatio-Temporal Modeling of second homes dynamics in Corsica By Yuheng Ling; Claudio Detotto; Dominique Prunetti
  13. The Role of Social Networks in Bank Lending By Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother
  14. Distance in Bank Lending: The Role of Social Networks By Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother
  15. A Natural Experiment on the Effect of Instruction Time and Quality: Lessons for the Covid-19 Outbreak By Ismael Sanz; J .D. Tenaa
  16. Dynamic financial landscapes and entrepreneurial cultures on new firm formation in different industries By Sin Tian Ho, Cynthia; Fili, Andreas
  17. Analysis of the features of the current configuration of the road network in Russia By Borzyh, Ksenia (Борзых, Ксения); Rostislav, Kirill (Ростислав, Кирилл); Ponomarev, Yuriy (Пономарев, Юрий)
  18. The Geography of Jobs and the Gender Wage Gap By Sitian Liu; Yichen Su
  19. Bidding strategies and winner’s curse in auctions of non-distressed residential real estate By Hungria Gunnelin, Rosane
  20. Cultural Identity and Social Capital in Italy By Daniel Sgroi,; Michela Redoano,; Federica Liberini,; Ben Lockwood,; Emanuele Bracco,; Francesco Porcell,
  21. Smart city platform adoption for C-V2X services By Basaure, Arturo; Benseny, Jaume
  22. Black-White Disparities During an Epidemic: Life Expectancy and Lifespan Disparity in the US, 1980-2000 By Aburto, Jose Manuel; Kristensen, Frederikke Frehr; Sharp, Paul
  23. City Limits: What do Local-Area Minimum Wages Do? By Arindrajit Dube; Attila S. Lindner
  24. An Uphill Battle: COVID-19’s Outsized Toll on Minority-Owned Firms By Lucas Misera
  25. In knowledge we trust: learning-by-interacting and the productivity of inventors By Matteo Tubiana; Ernest Miguelez; Rosina Moreno
  26. UC Berkeley Develops New User-Friendly Tool to Expedite the Evaluation of Connected Automated Vehicle Technologies By Fu, Zhe; Liu, Hao PhD; Lu, Xiao-Yun PhD
  27. Multinational enterprises, service outsourcing and regional structural change By Ascani, Andrea; Iammarino, Simona
  28. Projecting post-crisis house and equity prices since the 1870s:not all crises are alike By Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa
  29. Analysis of the state and development of Russian education on the basis of education monitoring data, the results of the FSN and sociological surveys By Agranovich, Mark (Агранович, Марк); Seliverstova, Irina (Селиверстова, Ирина); Livenets, Marina (Ливенец, Марина); Ermachkova, Yuliya Valerievna (Ермачкова, Юлия Валериевна)
  30. Individual preferences regarding pesticide-free management of green-spaces: a discret choice experiment with French citizens. By Pauline Laille; Marianne Lefebvre; Masha Maslianskaia-Pautrel
  31. The Decline in Access to Jobs and the Location of Employment Growth in US Metro Areas: Implications for Economic Opportunity and Mobility By Kyle Fee
  32. Economic Activities and Regional Correlation During Economic and Natural Disasters By Nagayasu, Jun
  33. Framing street vending in Guayaquil – Ecuador: from hegemonic discourses to a rights-based approach By Villacrés, Lisette; Geenen, Sara
  34. Estimating the cost of Irish housing for the CPI: A rental equivalence approach By Allen-Coughlan, Matthew; Coffey, Cathal; Martinez-Cillero, Maria; Kostarakos, Ilias; McQuinn, Kieran; O’Toole, Conor
  35. Industrial Topics in Urban Labor System By Jaehyuk Park; Morgan R. Frank; Lijun Sun; Hyejin Youn
  36. The early impact of COVID-19 on local commerce: changes in spend across neighborhoods and online By Relihan, Lindsay; Ward, Marvin; Wheat, Chris W.; Farrell, Diana
  37. Immigration, diversity and institutions By Roupakias, Stelios; Dimou, Spiridoula
  38. Who Watches the Watchmen? Local News and Police Behavior in the United States By Mastrorocco, Nicola; Ornaghi, Arianna
  39. The application of multivariate classification in evaluating the regional differentiation by population income in Russia By Natalia A. Sadovnikova; Olga A. Zolotareva
  40. Peer Effects on Firm Dividend Policies in Taiwan By Lee, King Fuei
  41. A researcher’s guide to the Swedish compulsory school reform By Holmlund, Helena
  42. The effects of parental involvement in homework. Two randomised controlled trials in financial education By Joana Elisa Maldonado; Kristof De Witte; Koen Declercq
  43. Competition Effects of Airport Slot-Swap: An Analysis of the Delta/US Airways Deal By Yongjoon Park
  44. On Measuring Segregation in a Multigroup Context: Standardized Versus Unstandardized Indices By Coral Del Río; Olga Alonso-Villar
  45. Regional Heterogeneity and U.S. Presidential Elections By Ahmed, R.; Pesaran, M. H.
  46. Give Me Your Tired and Your Poor: Impact of a Large-Scale Amnesty Program for Undocumented Refugees By Dany Bahar; Ana María Ibáñez; Sandra V. Rozo

  1. By: Amine Ouazad
    Abstract: In the face of a pandemic, urban protests, and an affordability crisis, is the desirability of dense urban settings at a turning point? Assessing cities’ long term trends remains challenging. The first part of this chapter describes the short-run dynamics of the housing market in 2020. Evidence from prices and price-to-rent ratios suggests expectations of resilience. Zip-level evidence suggests a short-run trend towards suburbanization, and some impacts of urban protests on house prices. The second part of the chapter analyzes the long-run dynamics of urban growth between 1970 and 2010. It analyzes what, in such urban growth, is explained by short-run shocks as opposed to fundamentals such as education, industrial specialization, industrial diversification, urban segregation, and housing supply elasticity. This chapter’s original results as well as a large established body of literature suggest that fundamentals are the key drivers of growth. The chapter illustrates this finding with two case studies: the New York City housing market after September 11, 2001; and the San Francisco Bay Area in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Both areas rebounded strongly after these shocks, suggesting the resilience of the urban metropolis.
    Keywords: Cities,Urban Economics,Resilience,Long Term Growth,Disasters,
    JEL: R00 Q54 D00
    Date: 2020–10–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2020s-53&r=all
  2. By: Lorenzo Neri (Queen Mary University of London)
    Abstract: Neighbourhoods can considerably affect children’s future outcomes, but the forces through which they operate are not well understood yet. I study how local schools affect the educational achievement of low-income students when their neighbourhood changes as a result of an inflow of more affluent households. I use public housing regenerations in London as a natural experiment which caused little displacement of local families and changed the composition of more deprived neighbourhoods. I built a novel database by geocoding all regenerations and linking them to administrative records on primary school-age students. I compare the achievement of students in schools of the same neighbourhood but located at different distances from the regeneration before and after its completion, and estimate the impact on students who were originally enrolled in local schools before completion. Such students have higher test scores at the end of primary school after the regeneration. Gains are stronger for more disadvantaged and low-ability students. The empirical evidence suggests that such gains are driven by changes in the demand for schools due to the inflow of more affluent parents with strong preferences for school quality.
    Keywords: Neighbourhood effects, Public housing programs, Student achievement
    JEL: I21 I38 R23
    Date: 2020–06–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:907&r=all
  3. By: Baum-Snow, Nathaniel; Henderson, J. Vernon; Turner, Matthew A.; Brandt, Loren
    Abstract: We investigate the effects of the recently constructed Chinese national highway system on local economic outcomes. On average, roads that improve access to local markets have small or negative effects on prefecture economic activity and population. However, these averages mask a distinct pattern of winners and losers. With better regional highways, economic output and population increase in regional primates at the expense of hinterland prefectures. Highways also affect patterns of specialization. With better regional highways, regional primates specialize more in manufacturing and services, while peripheral areas lose manufacturing but gain in agriculture. Better access to international ports promotes greater population, GDP, and private sector wages on average, effects that are probably larger in hinterland than primate prefectures. An important policy implication is that investing in local transport infrastructure to promote growth of hinterland prefectures has the opposite effect, causing them to specialize more in agriculture and lose economic activity.
    Keywords: transportation; urban growth; economic geography
    JEL: J1 Q15
    Date: 2020–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:88087&r=all
  4. By: Doojav, Gan-Ochir; Damdinjav, Davaasukh
    Abstract: This paper examines the effects of a mortgage interest rate subsidy on boom and bust in the housing market by exploiting the Housing Mortgage (HM) program implemented in Mongolia. Main results are (i) the recent housing boom occurred from 2012Q2 to 2014Q1, while the housing bust lasted four years, (ii) both house-specific factors and macroeconomic variables have a significant influence on the housing price dynamics, (iii) mortgage interest rate semi-elasticity and real household income elasticity for Mongolia are estimated as -3.0 and 1.4, respectively, and (iv) dynamic analysis of the estimated VECMs suggests that the policy intervention in the mortgage market (i.e., introducing an interest rate subsidy on mortgage loans for buying residential properties with below 80 square meters) has driven the recent housing boom in Mongolia.
    Keywords: House prices, Booms and busts, Mortgage interest-rate subsidy,Mongolia
    JEL: C53 D14 E32 E51 G21 R21 R31
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:102933&r=all
  5. By: J. Scott Davis; Kevin X. D. Huang; Ayse Sapci
    Abstract: Changes in housing demand can have a macroeconomic effect through the collateral channel, where the change in residential real estate prices is associated with a change in commercial real estate prices, affecting firm collateral and thus firm investment. We argue that this channel is weaker when residential and commercial real estate are poor substitutes. Using cross-state heterogeneity in the strength of zoning regulations as a proxy for heterogeneity in the substitutability of residential and commercial real estate, we first show with firm level data that the strength of local zoning regulations has a negative effect on the estimated increase in firm investment following an increase in local residential real estate prices. We then construct a DSGE model where land has both residential and commercial uses and estimate it using Bayesian techniques and U.S. macroeconomic data. We find the average elasticity of substitution between commercial and residential real estate in the U.S. to be around 0.35, but in states with strong zoning restrictions it can be as low as 0.16 and in states with weak zoning restrictions it can be as high as 0.66. Simulations of the model show how these differences in zoning restrictions can affect the transmission of a housing demand shock to the macroeconomy.
    Keywords: Commercial real estate; residential real estate; housing demand shock; zoning
    JEL: R10 R30 E30
    Date: 2020–09–28
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddgw:88828&r=all
  6. By: Benjamin J. Keys; Philip Mulder
    Abstract: In this paper, we explore dynamic changes in the capitalization of sea level rise (SLR) risk in housing and mortgage markets. Our results suggest a disconnect in coastal Florida real estate: From 2013-2018, home sales volumes in the most-SLR-exposed communities declined 16-20% relative to less-SLR-exposed areas, even as their sale prices grew in lockstep. Between 2018-2020, however, relative prices in these at-risk markets finally declined by roughly 5% from their peak. Lender behavior cannot reconcile these patterns, as we show that both all-cash and mortgage-financed purchases have similarly contracted, with little evidence of increases in loan denial or securitization. We propose a demand-side explanation for our findings where prospective buyers have become more pessimistic about climate change risk than prospective sellers. The lead-lag relationship between transaction volumes and prices in SLR-exposed markets is consistent with dynamics at the peak of prior real estate bubbles.
    JEL: G21 G22 Q54 R21 R31
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27930&r=all
  7. By: Antonio Di Paolo (AQR-IREA Research Group, University of Barcelona. Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics. Av. Diagonal 690, 08034 Barcelona, Spain.); Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell (Institute of Economic Analysis (IAE-CSIC), Barcelona GSE, IZA, and MOVE.)
    Abstract: In this paper we provide novel evidence on the effect of local unemployment rate on life satisfaction. We investigate how changes in unemployment rate in local administrative areas affect subjective well-being in Germany, allowing for the presence of spatial spillovers and considering the role played by regional borders. The results indicate that higher unemployment in the own local area of residence has a negative effect on satisfaction. Similarly, individuals’ happiness negatively correlates with the unemployment rate in contiguous local areas, but only if these areas are located in the same Federal State as the one where the individual lives. These results are robust to a variety of specifications, definitions, sample restrictions and estimation methods. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that these negative effects of local unemployment rate are larger for individuals with stronger ties to the job market and less secure jobs. This points to worries about own job situation as the main driver of individuals’ dislike for living in areas with high unemployment rate and tight labour markets. Consistently with this, the same asymmetric effect of local unemployment rate of surrounding areas is replicated when life satisfaction is replaced with a proxy for perceived job security as outcome variable.
    Keywords: Life satisfaction, Local unemployment, Spatial spillovers, Neighbouring areas, Regional borders JEL classification: I31, J64, J28, R23
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:202014&r=all
  8. By: Karimova, Amira
    Abstract: This study estimates Ontario’s housing stock by Ontario’s Central Metropolitan Areas and by residential dwelling types between 2020-2043. It also evaluates existing housing stock and makes future projections taking into account both the supply-side and demand-side perspectives, as well as the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic that can lead to various market scenarios.
    Keywords: Ontario, housing stock, infrastructure, real estate, residential
    JEL: R31 R38
    Date: 2020–08–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103298&r=all
  9. By: Kristopher S. Gerardi; Paul S. Willen; David Hao Zhang
    Abstract: This paper documents large differences in mortgage prepayment behavior across racial and ethnic groups in the United States, which have significant implications for monetary policy, inequality, and pricing. Using a novel data set that combines administrative data on mortgage performance with information on race and ethnicity, we show that Black and Hispanic white borrowers have significantly lower prepayment rates compared with Non-Hispanic white borrowers, holding income, credit score, and equity constant. This gap is on the order of 50 percent and largely reflects different sensitivities to movements in market interest rates, and was particularly pronounced during QE1. Differences in prepayment speeds result in large disparities between white and minority borrowers in the distribution of rates paid on outstanding mortgages, which widens during periods of low mortgage rates and high refinance volumes. From 2010 to 2014, Black borrowers were paying 30 to 45 basis points more on average than Non-Hispanic whites despite only a small gap of about 5 basis points between the groups at the time of mortgage origination. The large differences in prepayment behavior have important pricing implications, as they suggest that minority borrowers are overpaying for their prepayment option. Our results show that inequality in mortgage markets is larger than previously realized and is exacerbated by expansionary monetary policy.
    Keywords: race; quantitative easing; monetary policy; mortgage rate; refinance; prepayment; default
    JEL: E52 G21
    Date: 2020–09–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbwp:88882&r=all
  10. By: Florida, Richard (University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and School of Cities); Mellander , Charlotta (Jönköping International Business School & Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies (CESIS))
    Abstract: This paper examines the geographic factors that are associated with the spread of COVID-19 in Sweden. The country is a useful case study to examine because it did not impose mandatory lockdowns, and thus we would expect the virus to spread in a more unimpeded way across communities. A growing body of research has examined the role of factors like density, household size, air connectivity, income, race and ethnicity, age, political affiliation, temperature and climate, and policy measure like lockdowns and physical distancing among others. The research examines the effects of some of these factors on the geographic variation of COVID-19 cases and on deaths, across both municipalities and neighborhoods. Our findings show that the geographic variation in COVID-19 is significantly but modestly associated with variables like density, population size, and the socio-economic characteristics of places, and somewhat more associated with variables for household size. What matters more is the presence of high-risk nursing homes and the onset of infections with places that were hit earlier by COVID-19 cases experiencing more severe outbreaks. Still, all these variables explain little of the geographic variation in COVID-19 across Sweden. There appears to be a high degree of randomness in the geographic variation of COVID-19 across Sweden and the degree to which some places were hit harder than others.
    Keywords: COVID-19; Sweden; geography; density; connectivity
    JEL: I10 J19 R23
    Date: 2020–10–13
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0487&r=all
  11. By: Kathrin Goldmann (Institute of Transport Economics, Muenster); Jan Wessel (Institute of Transport Economics, Muenster)
    Abstract: Between cities and regions, not only cycling levels differ, but also the reactions of cyclists to adverse weather conditions. Using data from 122 automated bicycle counting stations in 30 German cities, and a composite index of adverse weather conditions that consists of air temperature, precipitation, wind speed, relative humidity, and cloud coverage, we calculate city-specific weather elasticities of the level of utilitarian cycling. The results show that these weather elasticities vary significantly between cities. Our next step is to analyze various determinants of weather elasticities, which reveals that the share of young inhabitants and the density of the cycle network have a positive impact on weather resilience. Based on the notion that resilience to adverse weather conditions reflects a revealed part of a city's bicycle culture, the weather elasticities can be used to create a ranking of bicycle cities. This ranking is positively correlated with a ranking based on the modal share of cycling, as well as with other rankings based on stated preference surveys or external conditions such as infrastructure or cycling safety.
    Keywords: Bicycle, weather elasticities, Germany, regional heterogeneity, bicycle city ranking, cycling culture
    JEL: R49
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mut:wpaper:33&r=all
  12. By: Yuheng Ling (Laboratoire Lieux, Identités, eSpaces et Activités (LISA)); Claudio Detotto (Laboratoire Lieux, Identités, eSpaces et Activités (LISA)); Dominique Prunetti (Laboratoire Lieux, Identités, eSpaces et Activités (LISA))
    Abstract: Second home development is an important issue to a housing market and local land use. Understanding second home dynamics at the small area scale will help policymakers to conduct effective interventions to meet the concern of local inhabitants. Conventional approaches do not consider second homes varied across space and over time. Hence, spatial models, such as the Besag, York and Mollie (BYM) model, are useful in terms of offering a feasible way to model both covariates and spatial, temporal dependence. This tool is then applied to analyse the second home ratio at a county level in Corsica, France, over the period 2007-2016. We intend to investigate the impact of spatially referenced covariates and the spatio-temporal dependencies of the second home ratio in each Corsican county. Binomial regression models with spatial and temporal random effects are implemented via Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations pertaining to a Bayesian paradigm. Results show that the model with spatial, temporal random components and a spatiotemporal interaction term produces the most realistic estimates and the best forecast. Then, physical landscape counts, coastal counties, and mountainous counties are positively associated with second home rates, while cultural landscape counts, number of households and interest rates are negatively associated with the second home rates. We also identify the "hot spot" and "cold spot" of the second homes. While the temporally structured component reveals that there was merely a gradual increase on the second home ratio over the past 10 years.
    Keywords: Bayesian hierarchical modelling, Besag-York-Mollie model, Corsican second home ratio, Integrated Nested Laplace Approximations, spatio-temporal dynamics
    JEL: C11 C23 R31
    Date: 2020–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lia:wpaper:014&r=all
  13. By: Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother
    Abstract: This paper analyzes social connectedness as an information channel in bank lending. We move beyond the inefficient lending between peers in exclusive networks by exploiting Facebook data that reflect social ties within the U.S. population. After accounting for physical and cultural distances, social connectedness increases cross-county lending, especially when lending requires more information and screening incentives are intact. On average, a standard-deviation increase in social connectedness increases cross-county lending by 24.5%, which offsets the lending barrier posed by 600 miles between borrower and lender. While the ex-ante risk of a loan is unrelated to social connectedness, borrowers from well-connected counties cause smaller losses if they default. Borrowers' counties tend to profit from their social proximity to bank lending, as GDP growth and employment increase with social proximity. Our results reveal the important role of social connectedness in bank lending, partly explain the large effects of physical distance, and suggest implications for antitrust policies.
    Keywords: bank lending, social networks, information frictions, culture, distance
    JEL: D82 D83 G21 O16 L14 Z13
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_162v2&r=all
  14. By: Oliver Rehbein; Simon Rother
    Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence that banks leverage social connections as an information channel. Using county-to-county friendship-link data from Facebook, we find that strong social ties increase loan volumes, especially if screening incentives are large. This effect is distinct from physical and cultural distances. Physical distance becomes significantly less relevant when accounting for social connections. Moreover, sufficiently strong social ties prevent cultural differences from constituting a lending barrier. The effect of social connectedness is more supply-side driven for small banks but demand-side driven for large banks. To bolster identification, we exploit highway connections, historical travel costs, and the quasi-random staggered introduction of Facebook as instruments. Our results reveal the important role of social connectedness as an information channel, speak to the nature of borrowing constraints, and point toward implications for bank-lending strategies and anti-trust policies.
    Keywords: bank lending, social networks, information frictions, culture, distance
    JEL: D82 D83 G21 O16 L14 Z13
    Date: 2020–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_162v1&r=all
  15. By: Ismael Sanz; J .D. Tenaa
    Abstract: Exploring the impact of reducing instruction time has become a fundamental topic in education, particularly following the covid-19 outbreak. In this paper we consider an unexpected regulation change affecting the academic calendar of non-fee paying schools in the Madrid region (Spain) during the 2017-2018 school year. The availability of standard cognitive tests allows us to estimate the impact of this measure on academic performance by means of a difference in difference regression. Although this regulation change affected just two weeks of the school calendar, we found that it contributed to a significant deterioration of academic performance which was particularly evident in Spanish and English. We further explore nonlinear (quantile) effects across the distribution of scores in the standardized exam finding that the disruption of the new normative affected more to students in the upper quartile of the distribution. Overall, we found a reduction of the gap across students in non-fee schools together with an increase of the gap between non-fee and fee paying schools. We discuss the implications of these results for a better understanding of the impact of school closures due to covid-19.
    Keywords: Instruction time, difference in difference, quantile regression, academic performance
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:202032&r=all
  16. By: Sin Tian Ho, Cynthia (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology); Fili, Andreas (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology)
    Abstract: In this paper, the effect of local entrepreneurial attitudes and proximity to bank branches on new firm formation in different industries is analysed using spatial Durbin models for a panel dataset of two years — 2007 and 2013 on the municipal level. Previous studies have shown that a high level of regional social legitimacy increases the demand for entrepreneurship due to perceivably better access to resources and the entrepreneur has also higher confidence in his ability to run a business in the area (Kibler, Kautonen, and Fink 2014). Furthermore, previous studies has also shown that the proximity of banks is important for local entrepreneurial activity (Agarwal and Hauswald 2010; Backman 2015; Backman and Wallin 2018; Ho and Berggren 2020). It is also noted that every entrepreneurial ecosystem in each municipality is unique and can be industry specific. The results from our spatial models show that an increase in the local public attitudes has positive significant effects on new firm formation in these following industries: manufacturing, construction and ‘financial and business services’ industries. Our results also show that when weighted mean distance to the nearest bank branch doubled, there is a 4.5% decrease in the total number of new firms formed. Weighted mean distance to the nearest bank branch has also been shown to lower new firm formation especially in two industries — ‘financial and business services’ and ‘education, health and others’.
    Keywords: Attitudes; Banks; New Firm Formation; Industries; Spatial Analysis
    JEL: C23 G21 L26
    Date: 2020–10–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:kthrec:2020_012&r=all
  17. By: Borzyh, Ksenia (Борзых, Ксения) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Rostislav, Kirill (Ростислав, Кирилл) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Ponomarev, Yuriy (Пономарев, Юрий) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration)
    Abstract: Existing restrictions on the unevenness of spatial development and the condition of the transport network, in particular the road network, constrain further development of the industry and outpacing economic growth. Optimality of spending on the construction of new and development of existing transport infrastructure depends on the identification of features (growth and development zones) and existing limitations of the transport network. This study provides a detailed analysis of the current configuration of the road network in Russia, as well as proposals for the development of the road network between the subjects of the Russian Federation using economic and mathematical modeling methods
    Keywords: development, tranport network
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:102002&r=all
  18. By: Sitian Liu; Yichen Su
    Abstract: Prior studies have shown that women are more willing to trade off wages for short commutes than men. Given the gender difference in commuting preferences, we show that the wage return to commuting (i.e., the wage penalty for reducing commute time) that stems from the spatial distribution of jobs contributes to the gender wage gap. We propose a simple job choice model, which predicts that differential commuting preferences would lead to a larger gender wage gap for workers who face greater wage returns to commuting based on their locations of residence and occupations. We then show empirical evidence that validates the model's prediction. Moreover, we estimate the model components: (i) the indifference curves between wages and commutes by gender, and (ii) the wage return to commuting faced by each worker. Our model shows that differential commuting choices account for about 16-21% of the gender wage gap on average, but the contribution varies widely across residential locations. The model also shows that policies that increase commute speed or density in the central city neighborhoods could moderately lower the gender wage gap.
    Keywords: Gender wage gap; commuting; spatial distribution of jobs
    JEL: J16 J22 J31 R12 R41
    Date: 2020–10–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:88841&r=all
  19. By: Hungria Gunnelin, Rosane (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology)
    Abstract: This paper analyzes how listing price and bidding strategies impact sales prices in non-distressed residential real estate auctions. Furthermore, the paper is the first that tries to explicitly quantify how these strategies affect the probability of a winner’s curse in such auctions. The findings support the results in the general auction literature that the winning bid and the probability of a winner’s curse is increasing in the number of bidders. The results further supports the notion of “auction fever” since high paced auctions (where unexperienced bidders may resort to emotional bidding) increases selling price and the probability of a winner’s curse. The results with respect to jump bidding and list price setting are mixed. Jump bidding has the intended effect of scaring off bidders, but not sufficiently to reduce the winning bid and the probability of a winner’s curse. Lowering the list price to market value ratio (the degree of underpricing) increases the number of bidders, but not sufficiently to counteract the anchoring effect of the list price leading to a reduction of the winning bid and the probability of a winner’s curse. In summary, the findings in this paper show that the unfolding of auctions of non-distressed residential real estate has a significant impact on selling price and the probability of a winner’s curse.
    Keywords: Housing; Auctions; List price; Bidding strategies; Winners curse
    JEL: D44 R31
    Date: 2020–10–14
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:kthrec:2020_013&r=all
  20. By: Daniel Sgroi, (University of Warwick, IZA, ESRC CAGE Centre); Michela Redoano, (University of Warwick); Federica Liberini, (University of Bath); Ben Lockwood, (University of Warwick); Emanuele Bracco, (Universita di Verona); Francesco Porcell, (Universita di Bari)
    Abstract: Italy became one nation only relatively recently and as such there remains significant regional variation in trust in government and society (so-called “social capital”) as well as in language and diet. In an experiment conducted across three Italian cities we exploit variation in family background generated through internal migration and make use of novel measures of social capital, language and diet to develop a new index of cultural heritage. Our new index predicts social capital, while self-reported identity does not. The missing link between the past and current identity seems to come through grandparents (especially maternal grandmothers) who have a strong role in developing the cultural identity of their grandchildren.
    Keywords: JEL Classification:
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:498&r=all
  21. By: Basaure, Arturo; Benseny, Jaume
    Abstract: Successful adoption of urban cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X) services by consumers requires high-density network coverage and a diverse and vibrant community of service providers. This work analyses the economic and technological requirements for a successful smart city platform adoption for such services by modelling the interaction of different sides of the platform and related network effects by means of system dynamics. This work suggests that the adoption of such a platform is a long-term process. Its success depends on the ability of stakeholders (i.e., operators, service providers, the city, etc.) to collaborate in achieving data compatibility, allowing its sharing and efficient usage, which in turn increases the quality of the offered services and accelerates consumer adoption. In addition, this study suggests some pricing and investment strategies which may be helpful for a successful deployment of such a platform. Overall, a smart city platform for C-V2X services involves high uncertainty; however, it may potentially create new sources of large societal benefits.
    Keywords: smart city,connectivity and data platform,connected vehicles,adoption,critical mass,network effect,low latency and ultra-reliable requirements,system dynamics
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itso20:224845&r=all
  22. By: Aburto, Jose Manuel (University of Oxford, University of Southern Denmark); Kristensen, Frederikke Frehr (University of Southern Denmark); Sharp, Paul (University of Southern Denmark, CAGE, CEPR)
    Abstract: Covid-19 has demonstrated again that epidemics can affect minorities more than the population in general. We consider one of the last major epidemics in the United States: HIV/AIDS from ca. 1980-2000. We calculate life expectancy and lifespan disparity (a measure of variance in age at death) for thirty US states, finding noticeable differences both between states and between the black and white communities. Lifespan disparity allows us to examine distributional effects, and, using decomposition methods, we find that for six states lifespan disparity for blacks increased between 1980 and 1990, while life expectancy increased less than for whites. We find that we can attribute most of this to the impact of HIV/AIDS.
    Keywords: AIDS, HIV, life expectancy, lifespan disparity JEL Classification: I14, J15, N32
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:512&r=all
  23. By: Arindrajit Dube; Attila S. Lindner
    Abstract: Cities are increasingly setting their own minimum wages, and this trend has accelerated sharply in recent years. While in 2010 there were only three cities with their own minimum wages exceeding the state or federal standard, by 2020 there were 42. This new phenomenon begs the question: is it desirable to have city-level variation in minimum wage polices? We discuss the main trade-offs emerging from local variation in minimum wage polices and evaluate their empirical relevance. First, we document what type of cities raise minimum wages and we discuss how these characteristics can potentially impact the effectiveness of city-level minimum wage policies. Second, we summarize the evolving evidence on city-level minimum wage changes and provide some new evidence of our own. Early evidence suggests that the impact of the policy on wages and employment to date has been broadly similar to the evidence on state and federal-level minimum wage changes. Overall, city-level minimum wages seem to be able to tailor the policy to local economic environment without imposing substantial distortions in allocation of labor and businesses across locations.
    JEL: J01 J18 J2 J23 J3 J31 J38 J8 J88
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27928&r=all
  24. By: Lucas Misera
    Abstract: Since COVID-19 sparked state-mandated lockdowns nationwide in March, data suggest that minority-owned small businesses have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, facing higher rates of closures and sharper declines in cash balances as compared to nonminority-owned small businesses. Research shows that Black-owned businesses closed at more than twice the rate of white-owned firms and experienced declines in cash balances nine times as steep as nonminority firms in some cases. Black-owned businesses faced the greatest impact of any racial group, though Latinx- and Asian-owned businesses also experienced outsized closures and declines in cash balances. This report collects insight from various sources into the pandemic’s effect on minority-owned firms thus far and examines possible explanations for race-level differences in COVID-19’s impact on businesses.
    Date: 2020–10–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:c00034:88855&r=all
  25. By: Matteo Tubiana; Ernest Miguelez; Rosina Moreno
    Abstract: Innovation rarely happens through the actions of a single person. Innovators source their ideas while interacting with their peers, at different levels and with different intensities. In this paper, we exploit a dataset of disambiguated inventors in European cities to assess the influence of their interactions with co-workers, organizations’ colleagues, and geographically co-located peers, to understand if the different levels of interaction influence their productivity. Following inventors’ productivity over time and adding a large number of fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity, we uncover critical facts, such as the importance of city knowledge stocks for inventors’ productivity, with firm knowledge stocks and network knowledge stocks being of smaller importance. However, when the complexity and quality of knowledge is accounted for, the picture changes upside down, and closer interactions (individuals’ coworkers and firms’ colleagues) become way more important.
    Keywords: inventors; productivity; stock of knowledge; interactions
    JEL: O18 O31 O33 O52 R12
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:bdxewp:2020-15&r=all
  26. By: Fu, Zhe; Liu, Hao PhD; Lu, Xiao-Yun PhD
    Abstract: Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are similar to other automated vehicles with the distinguishing difference being that CAVs obtain information about road conditionsdirectly from other vehicles and infrastructure (e.g., traffic signals, road sensors) rather than relying solely on onboard sensors. Different CAV technologies are currently being tested and evaluated to assess the prospects for future implementation. These tests involve moving CAV-equipped vehicles on a physical test track and recording how the vehicles operate under different traffic conditions (Figure 1). Since it is difficult and expensive to recreate multiple real-world driving conditions on a single test track, virtual environments are typically used to simulate different traffic conditions, such as traffic signal operation, actions by other vehicles on the road, and other scenarios. These virtual hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests can expedite CAV performance evaluation and inform future system implementation; however, existing HIL test systems often lack the ability to manage large amounts of test data, which limits the value and use of these tests.
    Keywords: Engineering
    Date: 2020–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt1d63h6pd&r=all
  27. By: Ascani, Andrea; Iammarino, Simona
    Abstract: This article offers a joint analysis of two phenomena characterising most advanced economies in recent decades: the rise of foreign ownership in manufacturing activities and the pervasiveness of the service economy. The analysis focuses on a specific intersectoral demand-side channel for structural change: the forward linkage established by foreign manufacturing multinational enterprises (MNEs) with service providers through outsourcing in the UK local labour markets. Descriptive evidence shows that service outsourcing by foreign manufacturing plants is notably larger than that of their domestic counterparts. On this basic premise, we estimate the local multiplier effect that foreign manufacturing activity has on service employment. To test our hypotheses, the methodology adopts an instrumental variable approach. Our findings suggest that foreign MNEs in manufacturing can act as a catalyst for regional structural change by stimulating employment in intermediate services via demand linkages. While the composition of this effect seems to be homogeneous in terms of the knowledge content of services, differences are found once the degree of their spatial concentration is accounted for.
    Keywords: multinational enterprises; service outsourcing; regional structural change; local markets; multiplier; ES/M008436/1
    JEL: O3 R1
    Date: 2018–11–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:90206&r=all
  28. By: Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa
    Abstract: This paper projects house and equity prices following different types of macroeconomic shocks since the 1870s in 17 western economies. In doing so, we classify macroeconomic downturns into three distinct groups: normal recessions, financial recessions, and disasters. By combining three newly available historical data sets spanning 143 years and by employing local projection technique, this study finds that financial recessions have the most detrimental effect and cause substantial decreases in house prices, stock prices and construction costs. Post-crisis stock price declines are observed through the whole sample period, but both house prices and construction costs were the most vulnerable to crises after WWII. The study also finds that stock prices drop substantially immediately after financial crises and rebound within four to six years, while shocks to house prices are more persistent. This asymmetry of persistence and magnitude of shocks among housing and equity prices might have had a substantial impact on post-recession wealth re-distribution since WWII as lower and middle class families are more likely to have their wealth invested in a home rather than in other financial investments like stocks.
    Keywords: Financial crisis, Normal recessions, House prices, Stock prices, Local projection.
    JEL: E5 E52 E58 G12 R31
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103164&r=all
  29. By: Agranovich, Mark (Агранович, Марк) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Seliverstova, Irina (Селиверстова, Ирина) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Livenets, Marina (Ливенец, Марина) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration); Ermachkova, Yuliya Valerievna (Ермачкова, Юлия Валериевна) (The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration)
    Abstract: Analysis of the state and development of Russian education on the basis of education monitoring data, FSN results and sociological surveys is aimed at identifying the dependence of the indicators of regional educational systems on external socio-economic factors. The analysis examines the characteristics of the educational system that affect the success of young people in post-school life. The connections and dependencies identified as a result of the analysis can be used in the development of regional educational policy aimed at involving school graduates in vocational education and training, reducing youth unemployment, and increasing the economic activity of young people.
    Date: 2020–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rnp:wpaper:052038&r=all
  30. By: Pauline Laille (Plante et Cité - Association Plante et Cité); Marianne Lefebvre (GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - AGROCAMPUS OUEST - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - Institut National de l'Horticulture et du Paysage); Masha Maslianskaia-Pautrel (GRANEM - Groupe de Recherche Angevin en Economie et Management - UA - Université d'Angers - AGROCAMPUS OUEST - Institut Agro - Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement - Institut National de l'Horticulture et du Paysage)
    Keywords: Discrete choice experiment,Pesticides,Urban green spaces,Individual preferences,France
    Date: 2020–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-02867639&r=all
  31. By: Kyle Fee
    Abstract: Job access, defined as the number or share of jobs found within a fixed distance or travel time from a worker’s residence, is an important indicator of economic opportunity and mobility. Access to jobs has been associated with positive individual economic outcomes for low-income minority workers.1 By contrast, low rates of job access have been linked to longer unemployment spells and lower rates of generational economic mobility.2 Increasing job accessibility has been found to significantly decrease the duration of joblessness among lower-income displaced workers, especially for African Americans, females, and older workers,3 and policies that increase job accessibility could possibly influence the pace of the labor market recovery from the COVID-19-induced recession. By studying trends in job access from 2007 to 2017, we discern developments that might inform our policy choices.
    Keywords: employment; economic mobility; diversity
    Date: 2020–10–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:c00034:88823&r=all
  32. By: Nagayasu, Jun
    Abstract: Life is characterized by risks of different features and origins. Examining the economic and natural disasters that have occurred in Japan in the past decades, we show that regional relationships strengthen during chaotic moments, such as the Lehman Brothers collapse, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Moreover, we find that business prospects are a good predictor of labor market conditions, and employment opportunities deteriorate more severely when regions are highly correlated. Our study indicates the side effect of market integration and the relevance of regional economic centers in cushioning nationwide economic and natural shocks.
    Keywords: Lehman Brothers collapse; Great East Japan Earthquake; COVID-19; regional heterogeneity; regional correlation
    JEL: R1
    Date: 2020–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103084&r=all
  33. By: Villacrés, Lisette; Geenen, Sara
    Abstract: Urban renewal policies that aim to “beautify” public space have had unequal impacts, particularly in terms of restricting access to public space for some groups considered to be “undesirable” in the new urban landscape. This paper concentrates on one such group, informal street vendors, who rely on access to the streets for generating an income, and who have been banned or in any case restricted from doing so. In several Latin American cities, street vending is a very important part of the informal economy. We present the case of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s second most populated city, which has undergone a radical urban renewal and gentrification process during the four tenures of former mayor Jaime Nebot (2000 to 2019). This has pushed street vendors further into peripheral areas of the city, and into informality, and has sparked ongoing conflict between street vendors and municipal authorities. Based on a discourse analysis and an analysis of national and local policies and regulations regarding street vending, we argue that street vending has been framed, consecutively, as a symbol of a chaotic past, as an expression of the right to work, and as entrepreneurship. These discourses translated into an array of policies that overall do not allow street vendors to successfully claim their access to public space. For that reason, this paper considers that the right to the city approach could open more transformational political avenues to enhance vendors’ claims over public space by acknowledging two rights: the right to appropriate public space and the right to participate in public decisions in the city.
    Keywords: Ecuador; street vending; informal economy; Guayaquil;
    Date: 2020–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iob:dpaper:202002&r=all
  34. By: Allen-Coughlan, Matthew; Coffey, Cathal; Martinez-Cillero, Maria; Kostarakos, Ilias; McQuinn, Kieran; O’Toole, Conor
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp676&r=all
  35. By: Jaehyuk Park; Morgan R. Frank; Lijun Sun; Hyejin Youn
    Abstract: Categorization is an essential component for us to understand the world for ourselves and to communicate it collectively. It is therefore important to recognize that classification system are not necessarily static, especially for economic systems, and even more so in urban areas where most innovation takes place and is implemented. Out-of-date classification systems would potentially limit further understanding of the current economy because things constantly change. Here, we develop an occupation-based classification system for the US labor economy, called industrial topics, that satisfy adaptability and representability. By leveraging the distributions of occupations across the US urban areas, we identify industrial topics - clusters of occupations based on their co-existence pattern. Industrial topics indicate the mechanisms under the systematic allocation of different occupations. Considering the densely connected occupations as an industrial topic, our approach characterizes regional economies by their topical composition. Unlike the existing survey-based top-down approach, our method provides timely information about the underlying structure of the regional economy, which is critical for policymakers and business leaders, especially in our fast-changing economy.
    Date: 2020–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2009.09799&r=all
  36. By: Relihan, Lindsay; Ward, Marvin; Wheat, Chris W.; Farrell, Diana
    Abstract: We document a number of striking features about the initial impact of the pandemic on local commerce across 16 US cities. There are two novel contributions from this analysis: exploration of neighborhood-level effects and shifts between offline and online purchasing channels. In our analysis we use approximately 450 million credit card transactions per month from a rolling sample of 11 million anonymized customers between October 2019 and March 2020. Across the 16 cities we profile, consumers decreased spend on the set of goods and services we define as “local commerce” by 12.8% between March 2019 and March 2020. Growth in all 16 cities was negative. Consumers shifted a substantial share of local commerce spend online, such that year-over-year growth in online spend was small, but positive, at 1.5%. With respect to grocery and pharmacy purchases, online spend grew at least three times as fast as offline spend. Overall spend declines were uniform across neighborhoods of differing median household income, though lower-income neighborhoods experienced the highest proportion of extreme negative declines. We also find evidence that many low-income neighborhoods are increasing spend on online grocery slower than others, but increasing their use of online restaurants the fastest. Consumers in low-income neighborhoods also tend to live farther from the grocery stores at which they shop. Compared to their counterparts in higher-income neighborhoods, consumers in low-income neighborhoods have not been more likely to shop at grocery stores closer to where they live since the onset of the pandemic.
    Keywords: coronavirus; Covid-19
    JEL: L81
    Date: 2020–06–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105060&r=all
  37. By: Roupakias, Stelios; Dimou, Spiridoula
    Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between immigration and host countries’ institutional quality, using international migration data, and two composite metrics, encompassing multiple dimensions of governance. Moreover, we construct indicators of cultural diversity, such as fractionalization and polarization, to capture potential effects from multiculturalism. To reduce endogeneity concerns, we employ pseudo gravity-based instruments in a 2SLS setting. Overall, our findings suggest that counties with higher immigrant concentrations and cultural polarization display lower levels of institutional quality. Notably, however, the impact on countries with healthy institutions appear to be negligible.
    Keywords: Immigration · Diversity · Institutions
    JEL: J15 O15 O43
    Date: 2020–10–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103268&r=all
  38. By: Mastrorocco, Nicola (Trinity College Dublin); Ornaghi, Arianna (University of Warwick)
    Abstract: Does media content influence local institutions? We study this question by looking at how a negative shock to local crime-related news, induced by the acquisition of local TV stations by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, affects U.S. municipal police departments. In particular, we implement a triple differences-in-differences design that exploits the staggered timing of acquisitions 2010-2017, together with cross-sectional variation in whether municipalities are covered by local news at baseline, a proxy for exposure to the shock. First, using a newly collected dataset of 300,000 transcripts of local newscasts, we document that once acquired by Sinclair, TV stations decrease news coverage of local crime. Second, we find that after Sinclair enters a media market, municipalities that were likely to be in the news at baseline experience 8% lower violent crime clearance rates with respect to municipalities that were very rarely in the news in the first place. The main mechanism we propose is that the change in content induces police officers to decrease the effort allocated to clearing violent crimes, due to a decline in the salience of crime as an issue in the public opinion.
    Keywords: JEL Classification:
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:500&r=all
  39. By: Natalia A. Sadovnikova; Olga A. Zolotareva
    Abstract: The article presents the results of multivariate classification of Russian regions by the indicators characterizing the population income and their concentration. The clusterization was performed upon an author approach to selecting the characteristics which determines the academic novelty in the evaluation of regional differentiation by population income and the interconnected characteristics. The performed analysis was aimed at the evaluation of the real scale of disproportions in spatial development of the country territories by the considered characteristics. The clusterization results allowed to formulate the condition of a relatively "strong" position of a group of high-income regions (the changes in the array of regions constituting it is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future). Additionally there has been revealed a group of Russian regions that the population is struggling to live on quite low income. These so-called "poor" regions, within the crisis conditions caused by Covid-19 are in need of additional public support, without which their population will impoverish.
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2010.07403&r=all
  40. By: Lee, King Fuei
    Abstract: With the dividend-paying culture increasingly taking hold in corporate Taiwan, this paper investigates the effects of industry peers on the corporate dividend policies in the country. By employing the instrument variable technique, we find strong evidence that the payout policies of Taiwanese firms are positively influenced by the policies of their industry peers. This peer influence tends to be stronger for companies operating in industries with lower product competition and higher information uncertainty, indicating that firms imitate the dividend policies of their peers for information-based reasons. Younger, smaller and harder-to-value companies are also more likely to mimic their larger, older and easier-to-value peers. Our findings are robust to alternative definitions of control variables, instrument variable and industry classifications.
    Keywords: Dividend policy, Peers effect, Taiwan
    JEL: G3 G35
    Date: 2018–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103102&r=all
  41. By: Holmlund, Helena (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy)
    Abstract: This paper demonstrates how a natural experiment in education can be used to estimate causal effects. The Swedish compulsory school reform extended basic education gradually across cohorts and municipalities, allowing for a difference-in-differences analysis. The paper summarizes the literature using this reform and shows that it provided individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds with better opportunities in life. Not only did they attain higher levels of education – they also earned higher earnings, were less likely to participate in crime, and more likely to run for office.
    Keywords: education reform; natural experiment
    JEL: I24 I26 I28
    Date: 2020–10–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2020_015&r=all
  42. By: Joana Elisa Maldonado; Kristof De Witte; Koen Declercq
    Abstract: Based on two randomised controlled trials with a total of 2,779 students from grade 8 and 9 in Flanders, we provide causal evidence on the effects of parental involvement on students’ learning in a financial education course. Using an experimental design with three treatment groups, the impact of parental involvement in homework is distinguished from the standalone impact of the classroom intervention and homework itself. Intention-to-treat analysis reveals that the intervention effectively improves students’ knowledge and behaviour. The classroom intervention used in conjugation with a homework assignment that the students complete with the help of their parents increases financial literacy scores by 0.37 standard deviations. On average, the added value of involving parents in homework is not significant, but involving parents has significant positive effects on behaviour for disadvantaged students. As a potential underlying mechanism it is observed that the parental involvement intervention significantly increases family communication between students and parents about the course topics.
    Keywords: Financial Literacy; Parental Involvement; Randomised Controlled Trial; Education
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:ceswps:645427&r=all
  43. By: Yongjoon Park (University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Resource Economics, Stockbridge Hall, 80 Campus Center Way, Amherst, MA, 01003)
    Abstract: Carriers often exchange airport slots (a so-called slot swap) in order to expand their hub networks, but the exchange is often faced with competition-related concerns. In this study, I estimate an airline entry model that can analyze the effects of a slot swap on market competition, focusing on the deal between Delta and US Airways in 2011 at Ronald Reagan Washington Airport (DCA) and LaGuardia New York Airport (LGA). Counterfactual analysis suggests that a slot swap deal incentivizes carriers to change their network by actively adding/removing routes and hence has distributional effect on passengers in different routes. Also, remedies that force the exchanging party to give up some of their slots to rivals may increase consumer surplus, but excessive remedies may harm consumers.
    Keywords: Airport Slot Swap; Endogenous Entry; Static Games; Airlines; Network Effects
    JEL: C54 L44 L13 L93
    Date: 2020–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:net:wpaper:2011&r=all
  44. By: Coral Del Río (Universidade de Vigo); Olga Alonso-Villar (Universidade de Vigo)
    Abstract: There has been little discussion about the consequences of using standardized, rather than unstandardized, segregation measures when comparing societies with different demographic compositions. This paper explores standardization in a multigroup setting through an analytical framework that offers a clear distinction between the measurement of overall and local segregation, embeds existing indices within this framework, and addresses gaps in previous research. The local approach developed here allows us to focus on the principle of transfers used in the measurement of overall segregation from a new angle and brings analytical support to the interpretation of the components of standardized overall measures as the segregation levels of the groups involved. This approach also helps clarify the debate around the measurement of school segregation since the distinction between local and overall measures, together with standardization, is key to understanding the relationship between the different proposals. This research also gives formal support to empirical strategies that compare the distribution of a minority group with that of the remaining population since they can be viewed as standardized local segregation measures satisfying basic properties.
    Keywords: Multigroup segregation, standardized segregation indices, local segregation curves, local segregation indices
    JEL: D63 J15 J16 J71
    Date: 2020–10
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2020-561&r=all
  45. By: Ahmed, R.; Pesaran, M. H.
    Abstract: This paper develops a recursive model of voter turnout and voting outcomes at the U.S. county level to investigate the socioeconomic determinants of recent U.S. presidential elections. It exploits cross-section variations across U.S. counties and investigates the key determinants of the 2016 Presidential Election by allowing for regional heterogeneity and using high-dimensional variable selection algorithms such as Lasso and OCMT. It is shown that the relationship between many socioeconomic variables and voting outcomes are not uniform across U.S. regions. Specifically, allowing for regional heterogeneity explains the unexpected 2016 Republican victory. Moreover, incorporating regional heterogeneity improves electoral predictability among key swing states. Important factors explaining voting outcomes include incumbency effects, voter turnout, local economic performance, unemployment, poverty, educational attainment, house price changes, urban-rural scores, and international competitiveness. Our results also corroborate evidence of `short-memory' among voters: economic fluctuations realized a few months prior to the election are indeed powerful predictors of voting outcomes as compared to their longer-term analogues. The paper also reports forecasts for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election based on data available at the end of July 2020. The regional models predict a close electoral college outcome. The predictions are split: the Lasso-regional model forecasts a narrow Democratic electoral victory, while the OCMT-regional model forecasts a narrow Republican victory. All models point towards the Democratic candidate winning the popular vote.
    Keywords: Voter Turnout, Popular and Electoral College Votes, Simultaneity and Recursive Identification, High Dimensional Forecasting Models, Lasso, OCMT
    JEL: C53 C55 D72
    Date: 2020–10–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2092&r=all
  46. By: Dany Bahar; Ana María Ibáñez; Sandra V. Rozo
    Abstract: Between 2014 and 2020 over 1.8 million refugees fled from Venezuela to Colombia as a result of a humanitarian crisis, many of them without a regular migratory status. We study the short- to medium-term labor market impacts in Colombia of the Permiso Temporal de Permanencia program, the largest migratory amnesty program offered to undocumented migrants in a developing country in modern history. The program granted regular migratory status and work permits to nearly half a million undocumented Venezuelan migrants in Colombia in August 2018. To identify the effects of the program, we match confidential administrative data on the location of undocumented migrants with department-monthly data from household surveys and compare labor outcomes in departments that were granted different average time windows to register for the amnesty online, before and after the program roll-out. We are only able to distinguish negative albeit negligible effects of the program on the formal employment of Colombian workers. These effects are predominantly concentrated in highly educated and in female workers.
    Keywords: migration, work permit, labor markets, amnesties
    JEL: F22 O15 R23
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8601&r=all

This nep-ure issue is ©2020 by Steve Ross. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.