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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Nicolás González-Pampillón |
| Abstract: | I estimate spillovers from new housing supply on house prices, crime rates, and household income. To estimate these effects, I use exogenous variation in supply induced by a housing subsidy implemented in middle-income neighborhoods in the city of Montevideo. The program incentivized residential development through tax breaks that led to sizable investments in certain neighborhoods. I exploit the spatial structure of the scheme to identify the externalities and find clear evidence of spillovers from new supply on house prices, with prices increasing between 12 and 17%. Property crime rates only decreased in the short term, while there is evidence of an increase in household income, suggesting that the neighborhood income mix responded to the supply expansion. Increasing supply appears to revitalize neighborhoods, but these effects also reduce housing affordability. |
| Keywords: | housing supply, House prices, neighborhood change, crime, difference-in-differences, Housing policies |
| JEL: | R23 R30 R58 |
| Date: | 2019–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1660&r=all |
| By: | Morgan Ubeda (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of transportation networks on spatial inequality within metropolitan areas. It uses a spatial equilibrium model featuring nonhomotheticities and worker heterogeneity, allowing to capture rich patterns of workers sorting on commuting costs and amenities. The model is calibrated for the Paris urban area. Counterfactual simulations study the effects of a) the Regional Express Rail and b) restricting car use in the city center. Despite a strong contribution to suburbanization and reducing welfare inequality, the public transport network plays no role in reducing income segregation. The effects of banning cars depends critically on the response of residential amenities in the city. If it is low enough, it reduces income disparities between Paris and its suburbs at the cost of a substantial welfare loss. If it is high enough, the policy creates welfare gains but steepens the income gradient. |
| Keywords: | commuting,amenities,income sorting,stratification commuting,stratification |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03082448&r=all |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M.; Bald, Fabian; Roth, Duncan; Seidel, Tobias |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic spatial model in which heterogeneous workers are imperfectly mobile and forward-looking and yet all structural fundamentals can be inverted without assuming that the economy is in a stationary spatial equilibrium. Exploiting this novel feature of the model, we show that the canonical spatial equilibrium framework understates spatial quality of-life differentials, the urban quality-of-life premium and the value of local non-marketed goods. Unlike the canonical spatial equilibrium framework, the model quantitatively accounts for local welfare effects that motivate many place-based policies seeking to improve quality of life. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19; dynamic; housing; migration; rents; pollution; productivity; quality of life; wages; welfare; economic geography; well-being |
| JEL: | J20 J30 R20 R30 R50 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108498&r=all |
| By: | Felipe Carozzi; Christian Hilber; Xiaolun Yu |
| Abstract: | Mortgage credit expansion policies - such as UK's Help to Buy (HtB) - aim to increase access to and affordability of owner-occupied housing and are widespread around the world. We take advantage of spatial discontinuities in the HtB equity loan scheme, introduced in 2013, to explore the causal economic impacts and the effectiveness of this type of policies. Employing a Difference-in-Discontinuities design, we find that HtB increased house prices by more than the expected present value of the implied interest rate subsidy and had no discernible effect on construction volumes in the Greater London Authority (GLA), where housing supply is subject to severe long-run constraints and housing is already extremely unaffordable. HtB did increase construction numbers without affecting prices near the English/Welsh border, an area with less binding supply constraints and comparably affordable housing. HtB also led to bunching of newly built units below the price threshold, building of smaller new units and an improvement in the financial performance of developers. We conclude that credit expansion policies such as HtB may be ineffective in tightly supply constrained and already unaffordable areas. |
| Keywords: | help to buy, house prices, construction, housing supply, land use regulation |
| JEL: | G28 H24 H81 R21 R28 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1681&r=all |
| By: | Carozzi, Felipe; Hilber, Christian A. L.; Yu, Xiaolun |
| Abstract: | Mortgage credit expansion policies – such as UK’s Help to Buy (HtB) – aim to increase access to and affordability of owner-occupied housing and are widespread around the world. We take advantage of spatial discontinuities in the HtB equity loan scheme, introduced in 2013, to explore the causal economic impacts and the effectiveness of this type of policies. Employing a Difference-in-Discontinuities design, we find that HtB increased house prices by more than the expected present value of the implied interest rate subsidy and had no discernible effect on construction volumes in the Greater London Authority (GLA), where housing supply is subject to severe long-run constraints and housing is already extremely unaffordable. HtB did increase construction numbers without affecting prices near the English/Welsh border, an area with less binding supply constraints and comparably affordable housing. HtB also led to bunching of newly built units below the price threshold, building of smaller new units and an improvement in the financial performance of developers. We conclude that credit expansion policies such as HtB may be ineffective in tightly supply constrained and already unaffordable areas. |
| Keywords: | help to buy; house prices; construction; housing supply; land use regulation |
| JEL: | G28 H24 H81 R21 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108422&r=all |
| By: | Richard Disney; John Gathergood; Stephen Machin; Matteo Sandi |
| Abstract: | "Right to Buy" (RTB), a large-scale natural experiment by which incumbent tenants in public housing could buy properties at heavily-subsidised prices, increased the homeownership rate in Britain by over 10 percentage points between 1980 and the late 1990s. This paper studies its impact on crime, showing that RTB generated significant reductions in property and violent crime that persist up to today. The gentrification of incumbent tenants and their behavioural changes were the main drivers of the crime reduction. This is evidence of a novel means by which gentrification, and housing provision, may have contributed to the sizable crime drops observed in several Western economies in the 1990s and early 2000s. |
| Keywords: | crime, homeownership, public housing |
| JEL: | H44 K14 R31 |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1685&r=all |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M.; Albers, Thilo; Behrens, Kristian |
| Abstract: | We harness big data to detect prime locations - large clusters of knowledge-based tradable services - in 125 global cities and track changes in the within-city geography of prime service jobs over a century. Historically smaller cities that did not develop early public transit networks are less concentrated today and have prime locations farther from their historic cores. We rationalize these findings in an agentbased model that features extreme agglomeration, multiple equilibria, and path dependence. Both city size and public transit networks anchor city structure. Exploiting major disasters and using a novel instrument - subway potential - we provide causal evidence for these mechanisms and disentangle sizefrom transport network effects. |
| Keywords: | prime services; internal city structure; agent-based model; multiple equilibria and path dependence; transport networks |
| JEL: | R38 R52 R58 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108470&r=all |
| By: | Diemer, Andreas; Regan, Tanner |
| Abstract: | Do informal social ties connecting inventors across distant places promote knowledge flows between them? To measure informal ties, we use a new and direct index of social connectedness of regions based on aggregate Facebook friendships. We use a well-established identification strategy that relies on matching inventor citations with citations from examiners. Moreover, we isolate the specific effect of informal connections, above and beyond formal professional ties (co-inventor networks) and geographic proximity. We identify a significant and robust effect of informal ties on patent citation. Further, we find that the effect of geographic proximity on knowledge flows is entirely explained by informal social ties and professional networks. We also show that the effect of informal social ties on knowledge flows: has become increasingly important over the last two decades, is higher for older or `forgotten' patents, is more important for |
| Keywords: | knowledge flows; diffusion; social connectedness; informal networks |
| JEL: | O33 R12 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108500&r=all |
| By: | Sönke Hendrik Matthewes |
| Abstract: | I study the effects of early between-school ability tracking on student achievement, exploiting institutional differences between German federal states. In all states, about 40% of students transition to separate academic-track schools after comprehensive primary school. Depending on the state, the remaining student body is either directly tracked between two additional school types or taught comprehensively for another two years. Comparing these students before and after tracking in a triple-differences framework, I find evidence for positive effects of prolonged comprehensive schooling on mathematics and reading scores. These are almost entirely driven by low-achievers. Early and rigid forms of tracking can thus impair both equity and efficiency of school systems. |
| Keywords: | Tracking, student achievement, school systems, inequality, difference-in-differences, triple-differences, value-added |
| JEL: | I24 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1706.pdf&r=all |
| By: | Rosa Sanchis-Guarner; José Montalbán; Felix Weinhardt |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the effect of home high-speed internet on national test scores of students at age 14. We combine comprehensive information on the telecom network, administrative student records, house prices and local amenities in England in a fuzzy spatial regression discontinuity design across invisible telephone exchange catchment areas. Using this strategy, we find that increasing broadband speed by 1 Mbit/s increases test scores by 1.37 percentile ranks in the years 2005-2008. This effect is sizeable, equivalent to 5% of a standard deviation in the national score distribution, and not driven by other technological mediating factors or school characteristics. |
| Keywords: | broadband, education, student performance, spatial regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | J24 I21 I28 D83 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8846&r=all |
| By: | Overman, Henry G.; Ehrlich, Maximilian V. |
| Abstract: | Spatial disparities in income levels and worklessness in the European Union are profound, persistent and may be widening. We describe disparities across metropolitan regions and discuss theories and empirical evidence that help us understand what causes these disparities. Increases in the productivity benefits of cities, the clustering of highly educated workers and increases in their wage premium all play a role. Europe has a long-standing tradition of using capital subsidies, enterprise zones, transport investments and other place-based policies to address these disparities. The evidence suggests these policies may have partially offset increasing disparities but are not sufficient to fully offset the economic forces at work |
| Keywords: | place based policy; cities; European Union |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R13 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108471&r=all |
| By: | Montebruno Bondi, Piero |
| Abstract: | Disrupted schooling can heavily impact the amount of education pupils receive. Starting in early June of 2011 a huge social outburst of pupil protests, walk-outs, riots and school occupations called the Chilean Winter caused more than 8 million of lost school days. Within a matter of days, riots reached the national level with hundreds of thousands of pupils occupying schools, marching on the streets and demanding better education. Exploiting a police report on occupied schools in Santiago, I assess the effect of reduced school attendance in the context of schools occupations on pupils’ cognitive achievement. This paper investigates whether or not there is a causal relationship between the protests and school occupations and the standardised test performance of those pupils whose schools were occupied. |
| Keywords: | Chilean Winter; instructional time; protests; educational outcomes; school occupations; missing school days; riots; human capital investment |
| JEL: | I21 J24 J52 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108459&r=all |
| By: | Antoine Gervais; James R. Markusen; Anthony J. Venables |
| Abstract: | The comparative advantage of many cities is based on their efficiency in the production of ‘functions’, e.g., business services such as finance, law, engineering, or similar functions that are used by firms in a wide range of sectors. Firms that use these functions may choose to source them locally, or to purchase them from other cities. The former case gives rise to cities developing a pattern of sectoral specialization, and the latter a pattern of functional specialization. This paper develops a model to investigate circumstances under which either of these outcomes is more likely, and finds that predictions of the model are consistent with changes in the pattern of specialization in the US over recent decades. The model combines elements of the literatures on economic geography, multinational firms, urban economics, and trade theory. A two-city country trades with the larger world, and workers within the country are mobile between the two cities. Productivity in a given function varies across cities, giving rise to urban comparative advantage. This may be due to exogenous technological differences (Ricardian) or to city- and function-specific scale economies. Sectors differ in the intensity with which they use different functions, giving rise to a pattern of sectoral and functional specialisation. We generate a number of economic insights, including that, as costs of remote sourcing fall, cities’ functional specialization tends to increase and their sectoral specialization falls. We examine the model’s predictions empirically over a 20-30-year period for US states. In line with the predictions of the model, we find that functional concentration rises and sectoral concentration falls over this time span. Similarly, we find that regional specialization in functions rises and regional specialization in sectors falls over the period. |
| Keywords: | fragmentation, firm organization, geographic concentration, regional specialization, agglomeration economies, multiple equilibria |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R13 F23 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8837&r=all |
| By: | Michael Amior |
| Abstract: | Using decadal census data since 1960, I cannot reject the hypothesis that new immigrants crowd out existing residents from US commuting zones and states one-for-one. My estimate is precise and robust to numerous specifications, as well as accounting for local dynamics; and I show how it can be reconciled with apparently conflicting results in the literature. Exploiting my model's structure, I attribute 30% of the observed effect to mismeasurement, specifically undercoverage of immigrants. Though labor demand does respond, population mobility accounts for 90% of local adjustment. These results have important implications for both structural and reduced form estimation of immigration effects. |
| Keywords: | immigration, geographical mobility, local labor markets, employment |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1669&r=all |
| By: | Luis Aguiar (UZH - University of Zürich [Zürich]); Philippe Gagnepain (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | We attempt to identify and measure potential knowledge spillovers in the French urban transport sector, which is strongly regulated and where a few large corporations are in charge of operating several urban networks simultaneously. We build and estimate a structural cost model where the service is regulated by a local government and is provided by a single operator. Knowledge spillovers are directly linked to the know-how of a specific corporation, but they also depend on the incentive power of the regulatory contract which shapes the effort of the local managers. Exerting an effort in a specific network allows a cost reduction in this network, but it also benefit other networks that are members of the same corporation. Our model provides us with estimates of the operators' absorptive capacity, which is their in-house knowledge power in order to optimally benefit from spillovers. We find that diversity of knowledge across operators of a same corporation improves absorptive capacity and increases the flow of spillovers. Simulation exercises provide evidence of significant reductions in total operating cost following the enlargement of industrial groups. |
| Keywords: | Knowledge spillovers,Absorptive capacity,Cost incentives,Effort,Diversity of knowledge,Public transport |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03110851&r=all |
| By: | Beatton, Tony; Kidd, Michael P.; Sandi, Matteo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of compulsory schooling on violent behaviour and victimization in school using individual-level administrative data matching education and criminal records from Queensland (Australia). Exploiting a legislative increase in the minimum dropout age in 2006, this study defines a series of regression-discontinuity specifications to show that compulsory schooling reduces crime but increases violent behaviour in school. While police records show that property and drugs offences decrease, education records indicate that violence and victimization in school increase. Thus, prior studies that fail to consider in-school behaviour may over-estimate the short-run crime-reducing impact of compulsory education. |
| Keywords: | youth crime; minimum dropout age; school attendance |
| JEL: | I20 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108475&r=all |
| By: | Amior, Michael |
| Abstract: | Revised May 2020. Revised January 2021. Using decadal census data since 1960, I cannot reject the hypothesis that new immigrants crowd out existing residents from US commuting zones and states one-for-one. My estimate is precise and robust to numerous specifications, as well as accounting for local dynamics; and I show how it can be reconciled with apparently conflicting results in the literature. Exploiting my model's structure, I attribute 30% of the observed effect to mismeasurement, specifically undercoverage of immigrants. Based on a remarkably simple decomposition, I show that population mobility accounts for 90% of local adjustment, and labor demand the remainder. These results have important methodological implications for the estimation of immigration effects. |
| Keywords: | immigration; geographic mobility; local labor markets; employment |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108490&r=all |
| By: | Mathias Dolls; Clemens Fuest; Carla Krolage; Florian Neumeier |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of real estate transfer taxes (RETT) on property prices using a rich micro dataset of roughly 17 million German properties for the period from 2005 to 2019. We exploit a 2006 constitutional reform that allows states to set their own RETT rates, leading to frequent increases in states’ tax rates in the subsequent years. Our monthly event study estimates indicate a price response that strongly exceeds the change in the tax burden for single transactions. Twelve months after a reform, a one percentage point increase in the tax rate reduces property prices by on average 3%. Effects are stronger for apartments and apartment buildings than for single-family houses. Moreover, negative price effects are predominantly found in growing housing market regions. Our results can be rationalized by a theoretical model that predicts larger price responses in sellers’ markets and for properties with a high transaction frequency. |
| Keywords: | real estate transfer taxes, property taxes, housing market |
| JEL: | H22 H71 R32 R38 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8839&r=all |
| By: | Butar, Nelly Yulianti Butar; Bross, Noverdi; Kanto, Dwi Sunu; Institute of Research, Asian |
| Abstract: | This study aims to analyze the factors that affect teacher performance with organizational commitment as a mediation between professional commitment and job satisfaction to teacher performance. In the realization of the achievement of target student scores based on the results of the National Examination for the 2016/2017 academic year to 2018/2019 academic year for the Djakarta Christian Schools Association in South Jakarta. The problem has been identified that the lack of attention from the school is an impact on teacher performance. The unilateral policies given to the teacher have become tiring pressure on the teacher and have an impact on the lack of desire for creativity in improving student learning outcomes as seen in the results of students' final exam scores. This study uses Professional Commitment and Job Satisfaction as independent variables, Teacher Performance as the dependent variable, and Organizational Commitment as a moderating variable. This study used 29 teachers as respondents and used SPSS software in processing and analyzing data. This research results that Job Satisfaction affects Organizational Commitment, Job Satisfaction affects Teacher Performance, Organizational Commitment affects Teacher Performance, Professional Commitment affects Organizational Commitment and Professional Commitment affects Teacher Performance. Job Satisfaction indirectly affects Teacher Performance through Organizational Commitment, and Professional Commitment indirectly affects Teacher Performance through Organizational Commitment. |
| Date: | 2020–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:ymhvc&r=all |
| By: | Anthony J. Venables |
| Abstract: | External trade affects the internal spatial structure of an economy, promoting growth in some cities or regions and decline in others. Internal adjustment to these changes has often proved to be extremely slow and painful. This paper combines elements of urban and international economics to draw out the implications of trade shocks for city performance. Localisation economies in production of internationally tradable goods mean that cities divide into two types, those producing tradables and those specialising in sectors producing just for the national market (non-tradables). Negative trade shocks (and possibly also some positive ones) reduce the number of cities engaged in tradable production, increasing the number producing just non-tradables. This has a negative effect across all non-tradable cities, which lose population and land value. Remaining tradable cities boom, gaining population and land value. Depending on the initial position, city size dispersion may increase, this raising the share of urban land-rents in national income and reducing the share of labour. |
| Keywords: | Globalisation, urban, de-industrialisation, rustbelt, polarisation |
| JEL: | F12 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1707&r=all |
| By: | Adam Altmejd; Andrés Barrios Fernandez; Marin Drlje; Joshua Goodman; Michael Hurwitz; Dejan Kovac; Christine Mulhern; Christopher Neilson; Jonathan Smith |
| Abstract: | Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions but identifying their causal effects is notoriously difficult. Using admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings' college options, we present evidence from the United States, Chile, Sweden and Croatia that older siblings' college and major choices can significantly influence their younger siblings' college and major choices. On the extensive margin, an older sibling's enrollment in a better college increases a younger sibling's probability of enrolling in college at all, especially for families with low predicted probabilities of enrollment. On the intensive margin, an older sibling's choice of college or major increases the probability that a younger sibling applies to and enrolls in that same college or major. Spillovers in major choice are stronger when older siblings enroll and succeed in more selective and higher-earning majors. The observed spillovers are not well-explained by price, income, proximity or legacy effects, but are most consistent with older siblings transmitting otherwise unavailable information about the college experience and its potential returns. The importance of such personally salient information may partly explain persistent differences in college-going rates by geography, income, and other determinants of social networks. |
| Keywords: | sibling effects, college and major choice, peer and social network effects |
| JEL: | I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1691&r=all |
| By: | Federico Boffa (Free University of Bolzano and Collegio Carlo Alberto); Alessandro Fedele (Free University of Bolzano); Alberto Iozzi (CEIS & DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and SOAS University of London) |
| Abstract: | Following the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and GPS systems, fleets will gain prominence over private vehicles. We analyze the welfare effects of the transition from a fully decentralized regime, in which all travelers are atomistic and do not internalize the congestion externality, to a centralized regime, where all travelers are supplied by a fleet of AVs controlled by a monopolist. In our model, heterogeneous individuals differing in the disutility from congestion may travel on one of two lanes, which may endogenously differ in the level of congestion, or they may not travel. We show that the monopolist sorts travelers across the two lanes differently than the decentralized regime. Moreover, depending on the severity of congestion costs, it may also exclude some travelers. We find that centralization is always welfare detrimental when the monopolist does not ration travel. If instead rationing occurs, centralization may be welfare beneficial, provided that congestion costs are sufficiently high. We then analyze how to restore first best with road taxes. While congestion charges are optimal under decentralization, taxes differ markedly in a centralized regime, where restoring first best may require subsidizing the monopolist. |
| Keywords: | autonomous vehicles, congestion externality, fleets, sorting, rationing. |
| JEL: | R41 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–05–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:484&r=all |
| By: | Huillery, Elise; Bouguen, Adrien; Charpentier, Axelle; Algan, Yann; Chevallier, Coralie |
| Abstract: | This article provides experimental evidence of the impact of a four-year inter-vention aimed at developing students’ growth mindset and internal locus ofcontrol in disadvantaged middle schools. We find a 0.07 standard deviationincrease in GPA, associated with a change in students’ mindset, improved be-havior as reported by teachers and school registers, and higher educational andprofessional aspirations. International empirical benchmarks reveal that theintervention is at least ten times more cost-effective than the typical educa-tional intervention. However, while reducing between-school inequality whentargeted to disadvantaged schools, the program benefits less to more fragilestudents, therefore increasing within-school inequality. |
| Date: | 2021–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:zs9aq&r=all |
| By: | David R. Agrawal. (University of Kentucky); Dirk Foremny (UB - Universitat de Barcelona); Clara Martinez-Toledano (WIL - World Inequality Lab , Columbia Business School - Columbia University [New York]) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the effect of wealth taxation on mobility and the consequences for tax revenue and wealth inequality. We exploit the unique decentralization of the Spanish wealth tax system in 2011—after which all regions levied positive tax rates except for Madrid—using linked administrative wealth and income tax records. We find that five years after the reform, the stock of wealthy individuals in the region of Madrid increases by 10% relative to other regions, while smaller tax differentials between other regions do not matter for mobility. We rationalize our findings with a theoretical model of evasion and migration, which suggests that evasion is the mechanism most consistent with all of the mobility response being driven by the paraíso fiscal. Combining new subnational wealth inequality series with our estimated elasticities, we show that Madrid's status as a tax haven reduces the effectiveness of raising tax revenue and exacerbates regional wealth inequalities. |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03093674&r=all |
| By: | Amior, Michael |
| Abstract: | The US suffers from persistent regional disparities in employment rates. In principle, these disparities should be eliminated by population mobility. Can immigration fulfill this role? Remarkably, since 1960, I show that new migrants from abroad account for 40% of the average population response to these disparities - which vastly exceeds their historic share of gross migratory flows. But despite this, immigration does not significantly accelerate local population adjustment (or reduce local employment rate disparities), as it crowds out the contribution from internal mobility. Indeed, this crowd-out can help account for the concurrent decline in internal mobility. Finally, I attribute the “excess” foreign contribution to a local snowballing effect, driven by persistent local shocks and the dynamics of migrant enclaves. This mechanism raises challenges to the (pervasive) application of migrant enclaves as an instrument for foreign inflows. But rather than abandoning the instrument, I offer an empirical strategy (motivated by my model) to overcome these challenges; and I demonstrate its efficacy. |
| Keywords: | immigration; geographical mobility; local labor markets; employment |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108419&r=all |
| By: | Faxi Yuan; Amir Esmalian; Bora Oztekin; Ali Mostafavi |
| Abstract: | The objective of this study is to examine spatial patterns of impacts and recovery of communities based on variances in credit card transactions. Such variances could capture the collective effects of household impacts, disrupted accesses, and business closures, and thus provide an integrative measure for examining disaster impacts and community recovery in disasters. Existing studies depend mainly on survey and sociodemographic data for disaster impacts and recovery effort evaluations, although such data has limitations, including large data collection efforts and delayed timeliness results. In addition, there are very few studies have concentrated on spatial patterns and disparities of disaster impacts and short-term recovery of communities, although such investigation can enhance situational awareness during disasters and support the identification of disparate spatial patterns of disaster impacts and recovery in the impacted regions. This study examines credit card transaction data Harris County (Texas, USA) during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to explore spatial patterns of disaster impacts and recovery during from the perspective of community residents and businesses at ZIP code and county scales, respectively, and to further investigate their spatial disparities across ZIP codes. The results indicate that individuals in ZIP codes with populations of higher income experienced more severe disaster impact and recovered more quickly than those located in lower-income ZIP codes for most business sectors. Our findings not only enhance the understanding of spatial patterns and disparities in disaster impacts and recovery for better community resilience assessment, but also could benefit emergency managers, city planners, and public officials in harnessing population activity data, using credit card transactions as a proxy for activity, to improve situational awareness and resource allocation. |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2101.10090&r=all |
| By: | Angrist, Noam (University of Oxford); Bergman, Peter (Columbia University); Matsheng, Moitshepi (Young 1ove) |
| Abstract: | Schools closed extensively during the COVID-19 pandemic and occur in other settings, such as teacher strikes and natural disasters. This paper provides some of the first experimental evidence on strategies to minimize learning loss when schools close. We run a randomized trial of low-technology interventions – SMS messages and phone calls – with parents to support their child. The combined treatment cost-effectively improves learning by 0.12 standard deviations. We develop remote assessment innovations, which show robust learning outcomes. Our findings have immediate policy relevance and long-run implications for the role of technology and parents as partial educational substitutes when schooling is disrupted. |
| Keywords: | education, covid, experiment, remote learning, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | I2 I24 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14009&r=all |
| By: | Orsatti, Gianluca; Quatraro, Francesco (University of Turin) |
| Abstract: | Based on the established literature about substitution and compensation effects, this paper provides one of the first analyses of the relationship between digital technologies and employment at the regional level in Europe. We posit that idiosyncratic factors of local labor markets are likely to generate place- specific responses to the introduction of new technologies. Spatial spillovers are also likely to emerge. The geographical level of analysis is therefore the most appropriate. Our analysis confirms that there is a significant relationship between the local specialization in advanced manufacturing technologies and employment. Mainly driven by automation-related technologies, we indeed estimate negative effects of advanced manufacturing technologies on local employment creation. Conversely, digital technologies play a positive role in enhancing local labor productivity. Finally, technological performances of neighbour regions play a significant role in shaping local labor productivity, while not significantly affecting local employment creation. |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uto:dipeco:202026&r=all |
| By: | Francesco Campo; Mariapia Mendola; Andrea Morrison; Gianmarco Ottaviano |
| Abstract: | A possible unintended but damaging consequence of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the policies it inspires, is that they may put high-skilled immigrants off more than low-skilled ones at times when countries and businesses intensify their competition for global talent. We investigate this argument following the location choices of thousands of immigrant inventors across US counties during the Age of Mass Migration. To do so we combine a unique USPTO historical patent dataset with Census data and exploit exogenous variation in both immigration flows and diversity induced by former settlements, WWI and the 1920s Immigration Acts. We find that co-ethnic networks play an important role in attracting immigrant inventors. However, we also find that immigrant diversity acts as an additional significant pull factor. This is mainly due to externalities that foster immigrant inventors' innovativeness. These findings are relevant for todays advanced economies that have become major receivers of migrant flows and, in a long-term perspective, have started thinking about immigration in terms of not only level but also composition. |
| Keywords: | International Migration, Cultural Diversity, Innovation |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O31 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1700&r=all |
| By: | Judd B. Kessler; Sarah Tahamont; Alexander M. Gelber; Adam Isen |
| Abstract: | Recent policy discussions have proposed government-guaranteed jobs, including for youth. One key potential benefit of youth employment is a reduction in criminal justice contact. Prior work on summer youth employment programs has documented little-to-no effect of the program on crime during the program but has found decreases in violent and other serious crimes among “at-risk” youth in the year or two after the program. We add to this picture by studying randomized lotteries for access to the New York City Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), the largest such program in the United States. We link SYEP data to New York State criminal records data to investigate outcomes of 163,447 youth who participated in a SYEP lottery between 2005 and 2008. We find evidence that SYEP participation decreases arrests and convictions during the program summer, effects that are driven by the small fraction (3 percent) of SYEP youth who are at-risk, as defined by having been arrested before the start of the program. We conclude that an important benefit of SYEPs is the contemporaneous effect during the program summer and that the effect is concentrated among individuals with prior contact with the criminal justice system. |
| JEL: | J13 J21 J38 J45 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28373&r=all |
| By: | Campo, Francesco; Mendola, Mariapia; Morrison, Andrea; Ottaviano, Gianmarco I. P. |
| Abstract: | A possible unintended but damaging consequence of anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the policies it inspires, is that they may put high-skilled immigrants off more than low-skilled ones at times when countries and businesses intensify their competition for global talent. We investigate this argument following the location choices of thousands of immigrant inventors across US counties during the Age of Mass Migration. To do so we combine a unique USPTO historical patent dataset with Census data and exploit exogenous variation in both immigration flows and diversity induced by former settlements, WWI and the 1920s Immigration Acts. We find that co-ethnic networks play an important role in attracting immigrant inventors. However, we also find that immigrant diversity acts as an additional significant pull factor. This is mainly due to externalities that foster immigrant inventors’ innovativeness. These findings are relevant for todays advanced economies that have become major receivers of migrant flows and, in a long-term perspective, have started thinking about immigration in terms of not only level but also composition. |
| Keywords: | international migration; cultural diversity; innovation |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O31 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108464&r=all |
| By: | Cheshire, Paul; Kaimakamis, Katerina |
| Abstract: | The British system of land use planning is one of the most restrictive in the world. It substantially increases the costs of office space (Cheshire & Hilber, 2008; Cheshire & Dericks, 2020) and, especially in London, increases house prices (Hilber & Vermeulen, 2016; Carozzi et al. 2019). Partly in response to the crisis in housing supply, with effect from 30 May 2013, government introduced an automatic right to change the use of offices to residential except in some areas in central London and Manchester deemed to be important office locations. This paper exploits the resulting boundary discontinuities these exceptions produced to estimate the impact on office prices of the new right to convert to residential use. Using a panel data set of some 2,000 office transactions between 2009 and 2016, we find a significant increase in the price of offices eligible for this automatic conversion: a premium of some 50 percent (depending on specification). This demonstrates that while from other sources there was a known shortage of office space from supply restrictions, the restrictions on the supply of housing were substantially more severe |
| Keywords: | housing supply; restrictive regulation; office markets |
| JEL: | R31 R33 R38 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108465&r=all |
| By: | Dasgupta, Kabir; Diegmann, André; Kirchmaier, Thomas; Plum, Alexander |
| Abstract: | This paper documents behavioral differences in parental criminality between majority and minority ethnic groups after child birth. The particular effect we exploit is that of the gender of the first-born child on fathers’ convictions rates. Based on detailed judicial and demographic data from New Zealand, we first show that the previously documented inverse relationship between having a son and father’s criminal behaviour holds across the average of the population. However, when splitting the fathers’ sample by ethnicity, the effect appears to be entirely driven by the white part of the population and that there is no effect on the native Māori. The strong ethnic divide is observed along many dimensions and challenges the implicitly made assumption in the economics of crime literature that findings are universally applicable across cultures and race. |
| Keywords: | crime research; racial bias |
| JEL: | K42 K49 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108494&r=all |
| By: | Carlos Caceres |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the existence of “wealth effects” derived from net equity (in the form of housing, financial assets, and total net worth) on consumption. The study uses longitudinal household-level data?from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) ?covering about 7,000-9,000 households in the U.S., with the estimations carried over the period 1999-2017. Overall, wealth effects are found to be relatively large and significant for housing wealth, but less so for other types of wealth, including stocks. Furthermore, the analysis shows how these estimated marginal propensities to consume (MPC) from wealth are closely linked to household characteristics, including income and demographic factors. Finally, underlying structural changes in household characteristics point to potentially lower aggregate MPCs from wealth going forward. |
| Keywords: | Income;Consumption;Housing;Housing prices;Household consumption;WP,housing wealth,MPC,price |
| Date: | 2019–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2019/115&r=all |
| By: | Cecile Gaubert; Patrick M. Kline; Damián Vergara; Danny Yagan |
| Abstract: | We study trends in income inequality across U.S. states and counties 1960-2019 using a mix of administrative and survey data sources. Both states and counties have diverged in terms of per-capita pre-tax incomes since the late 1990s, with transfers serving to dampen this divergence. County incomes have been diverging since the late 1970s. These trends in mean income mask opposing patterns among top and bottom income quantiles. Top incomes have diverged markedly across states since the late 1970s. In contrast, bottom income quantiles and poverty rates have converged across areas in recent decades. |
| JEL: | E01 H2 R1 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28385&r=all |
| By: | Jacob, Nick; Mion, Giordano |
| Abstract: | Ever since Marshall (1890) agglomeration externalities have been viewed as the key factor explaining the existence of cities and their size. However, while the various micro foundations of agglomeration externalities stress the importance of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), the empirical evidence on agglomeration externalities rests on measures obtained using firm revenue or value-added as a measure of firm output: revenue-based TFP (TFP-R). This paper uses data on French manufacturing firms' revenue, quantity and prices to estimate TFP and TFP-R and decompose the latter into various elements. Our analysis suggests that the revenue productivity advantage of denser areas is mainly driven by higher prices charged rather than differences in TFP. At the same time, firms in denser areas are able to sell higher quantities, and generate higher revenues, despite higher prices. These and other results we document suggest that firms in denser areas are able to charge higher prices because they sell higher demand/quality products. Finally, while the correlation between firm revenue TFP and firm size is positive in each location, it is also systematically related to density: firms with higher (lower) TFP-R account for a larger (smaller) share of total revenue in denser areas. These patterns thus amplify in aggregate regional-level figures any firm-level differences in productivity across space. |
| Keywords: | total factor productivity (TFP); density; agglomeration externalities; revenue-based TFP; prices; demand; quality |
| JEL: | R12 R15 D24 L11 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108436&r=all |
| By: | Belmonte, Alessandro (IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca) |
| Abstract: | States typically leverage on schooling to transmit desired values to the population. However, indoctrination through schooling typically requires teachers, school buildings and other capabilities. This paper documents that a low school capacity hampered the effort of the Italian fascist regime in transmitting a fascist ideology. I use evidence from a natural experiment of history—the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes. I argue that the reclamation acted as a shock in the regime’s school capacity. The design and construction of new rural villages gave the regime the opportunity to build schools on a large scale, improving the regime’s capability in transmitting a fascist ideology. This was hardly the case in the contiguous, pre-existent area, in the same province of Latina, where enrollment rates were low. I use this variation in schooling before WWII in an instrumental variable analysis. It shows that better educated areas in the province were more supporting of a post-fascist party in the elections freely held in 1948. Further analyses indicate that school capacity is a critical extensive margin of pedagogical reforms in shaping people values. |
| Keywords: | state capacity, schooling, education, indoctrination, political values, voting, fascism. JEL Classification: H11, H75, I28, H13, P16, N44 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:528&r=all |
| By: | Bagues, Manuel (University of Warwick); Roth, Christopher (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run effects of contact with individuals from other regions on beliefs, preferences and national identity. We combine a natural experiment, the random assignment of male conscripts to different locations throughout Spain, with tailored survey data. Being randomly assigned to complete military service outside of one’s region of residence fosters contact with conscripts from other regions, and increases sympathy towards people from the region of service, measured several decades later. We also observe an increase in identification with Spain for individuals originating from regions with peripheral nationalism. Our evidence suggests that intergroup exposure in early adulthood can have long-lasting effects on individual preferences and national identity |
| Keywords: | Interregional Contact, Intergroup Exposure, Beliefs, Preference Formation, Identity. JEL Classification: R23, D91, Z1 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:526&r=all |
| By: | Nick Jacob; Giordano Mion |
| Abstract: | Ever since Marshall (1890) agglomeration externalities have been viewed as the key factor explaining the existence of cities and their size. However, while the various micro foundations of agglomeration externalities stress the importance of Total Factor Productivity (TFP), the empirical evidence on agglomeration externalities rests on measures obtained using firm revenue or value-added as a measure of firm output: revenue-based TFP (TFP-R). This paper uses data on French manufacturing firms' revenue, quantity and prices to estimate TFP and TFP-R and decompose the latter into various elements. Our analysis suggests that the revenue productivity advantage of denser areas is mainly driven by higher prices charged rather than differences in TFP. At the same time, firms in denser areas are able to sell higher quantities, and generate higher revenues, despite higher prices. These and other results we document suggest that firms in denser areas are able to charge higher prices because they sell higher demand/quality products. Finally, while the correlation between firm revenue TFP and firm size is positive in each location, it is also systematically related to density: firms with higher (lower) TFP-R account for a larger (smaller) share of total revenue in denser areas. These patterns thus amplify in aggregate regional-level figures any firm-level differences in productivity across space. |
| Keywords: | total factor productivity (TFP), density, agglomeration externalities, revenue-based TFP, prices, demand, quality |
| JEL: | R12 R15 D24 L11 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1687&r=all |
| By: | Peinhardt, Katherine |
| Abstract: | Urban public spaces are an opportunity for comprehensive climate adaptation and improved resilience. As a key part of a city's physical infrastructure, it has long been clear that public spaces can be physically reinforced to absorb or weather the shocks of the climate crisis. As a result, many public spaces are designed to materially resist local impacts of the climate crisis, but fewer have seen efforts to harness their potential for improving social resilience. It is increasingly clear that the unique role of public spaces in civic life positions them to enhance not only physical resilience, but also to support the types of interpersonal connections essential to addressing shared challenges like the climate crisis. Through a "placemaking" approach, both of these goals can be layered into a single space: meaning that public spaces not only protect people from climate hazards, but also provide socially vibrant places and contribute to social cohesion. As climate-adaptation plans become more widespread in cities across the globe, innovators such as the City of Rotterdam are leading the way by incorporating public spaces into their strategy. The most prominent example of this change is Waterplein Benthemplein, an early example of a "water square", which absorbs excess stormwater while providing public space. This paper, based on a paradigmatic case study, examines the policy context for Rotterdam with regard to public spaces, climate adaptation, and long-standing practices around water management. It continues with an observational analysis of Waterplein Benthemplein, which provides best practices of, and potential pitfalls for, public space projects aimed at adaptation and/or resilience building. [...] |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:diedps:12021&r=all |
| By: | Peter M. DeMarzo; Ron Kaniel |
| Abstract: | We consider multi-agent multi-firm contracting when agents benchmark their wages to a weighted average of their peers, where weights may vary within and across firms. Despite common shocks, compensation benchmarking can undo performance benchmarking, so that wages load positively rather than negatively on peer output. Although contracts appear inefficient, when a single principal commits to a public contract, the optimal contract hedges agents’ relative wage risk without sacrificing efficiency. Moreover, the principal can exploit any asymmetries in peer effects to enhance profits. With multiple principals, or a principal that is unable to commit, a “rat race” emerges in which agents are more productive, but wages increase even more, reducing profits and undermining efficiency. Effort levels are too high rather than too low, and can exceed first best. Wage transparency and disclosure requirements exacerbate these effects. |
| JEL: | D85 D86 G3 G4 J3 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28378&r=all |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M.; Barr, Jason |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a synthesis of the state of knowledge on the economics of skyscrapers. First, we document how vertical urban growth has gained pace over the course of the 20th century. Second, we lay out a simple theoretical model of optimal building heights in a competitive market to rationalize this trend. Third, we provide estimates of a range of parameters that shape the urban height profile along with a summary of the related theoretical and empirical literature. Fourth, we discuss factors outside the competitive market framework that explain the rich variation in building height over short distances, such as durability of the structures, height competition, and building regulations. Fifth, we suggest priority areas for future research into the vertical dimension of cities. |
| Keywords: | density; economics; history; skyscraper; urban |
| JEL: | R14 J01 N0 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108469&r=all |
| By: | Carozzi, Felipe; Provenzano, Sandro; Roth, Sefi |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the link between population density and COVID-19 spread and severity in the contiguous United States. To overcome confounding factors, we use two Instrumental Variable (IV) strategies that exploit geological features and historical populations to induce exogenous variation in population density without affecting COVID-19 cases and deaths directly. We find that density has affected the timing of the outbreak, with denser locations more likely to have an early outbreak. However, we find no evidence that population density is positively associated with time-adjusted COVID-19 cases and deaths. Using data from Google, Facebook, the US Census and The County Health Rankings and Roadmaps program, we also investigate several possible mechanisms for our findings. We show that population density can affect the timing of outbreaks through higher connectedness of denser locations. Furthermore, we find that population density is positively associated with proxies for social distancing measures, access to healthcare and income, highlighting the importance of these mediating factors in containing the outbreak. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19; density; congestion forces; coronavirus; ES/P000622/1 |
| JEL: | I12 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108484&r=all |
| By: | Wani, Shahrukh; Shaikh, Hina; Harman, Oliver |
| JEL: | E6 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108451&r=all |
| By: | Gade, Dipak S.; Aithal, Sreeramana |
| Abstract: | Smart Cities are well planned, designed, and established keeping in mind the growing need of citizens in search of better livelihood. Technology has played a big role in equipping Smart Cities to offer better facilities to its citizens in terms of better living comfort, better atmosphere, better surrounding, better medical facilities, and most importantly ease of doing business, office, and day to day activities. While doing so, IT Infrastructure and online transactions have influenced all the operational processes of Smart Cities and almost acting as its backbone. Obviously, any adverse impact on online transactions can create chaos in Smart City operations. To address this concern, a safe and reliable online transaction is a must. In this paper, we have discussed Blockchain Technology-based solutions for Smart Cities and their potential impact on Smart Cities Development. We specifically tried to address the concern of how Smart City online operational processes for various applications can be made reliable and safe by using Blockchain Technology and how this technology can benefit Smart Cities overall development. Based on the comprehensive research and detailed literature review, we proposed Blockchain Technology based secure framework for Smart Cities. We also identified various applications and process areas that can be highly benefited by using Blockchain Technology and can make these applications smarter and more reliable and fit for use for any Smart City. |
| Keywords: | Blockchain, Smart city, Smart contracts, Secure framework, Distributed ledger |
| JEL: | M1 M15 O2 O21 O22 O4 R0 R5 R58 |
| Date: | 2020–12–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:105351&r=all |
| By: | Moira McCullough; Lindsay Ochoa; Christina Clark Tuttle |
| Abstract: | This snapshot is a product of the first phase of a study assessing if students benefit from participating in magnet school programs. |
| Keywords: | School Choice, Magnet School Assistance Program, MSAP, Magnet Schools, Student Admission, Student Recruitment, Descriptive Statistics |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:db8cc0a9de9d4224ab855cf1a4f67668&r=all |
| By: | Yann Algan (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Clément Malgouyres (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, IPP - Institut des politiques publiques); Thierry Mayer (Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, CEPII - Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales - Centre d'analyse stratégique); Mathias Thoenig (UNIL - Université de Lausanne, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how economic incentives influence cultural transmission, using a crucial expression of cultural identity: Child naming decisions. Our focus is on Arabic versus Non-Arabic names given in France over the 2003-2007 period. Our model of cultural transmission features three determinants: (i) vertical (parental) cultural transmission culture; (ii) horizontal (neighborhood) influence; (iii) information on the economic penalty associated with Arabic names. We find that economic incentives largely influence naming choices: Would the parental expectation on the economic penalty be zero, the annual number of babies born with an Arabic name would be more than 50 percent larger. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Economics,Cultural Transmission,First Names,Social Interactions |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03105274&r=all |
| By: | Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt; Jason Barr |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a synthesis of the state of knowledge on the economics of skyscrapers. First, we document how vertical urban growth has gained pace over the course of the 20th century. Second, we lay out a simple theoretical model of optimal building heights in a competitive market to rationalize this trend. Third, we provide estimates of a range of parameters that shape the urban height profile along with a summary of the related theoretical and empirical literature. Fourth, we discuss factors outside the competitive market framework that explain the rich variation in building height over short distances, such as durability of the structures, height competition, and building regulations. Fifth, we suggest priority areas for future research into the vertical dimension of cities. |
| Keywords: | Density, economics, history, skyscraper, urban |
| JEL: | R3 N9 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1704&r=all |
| By: | Kay Jowers; Christopher Timmins; Nrupen Bhavsar; Qihui Hu; Julia Marshall |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the adoption of a number of policies that aim to reduce the spread of the disease by promoting housing stability. Housing precarity, which includes both the risk of eviction and utility disconnections or shut-offs, reduces a person’s ability to abide by social distancing orders and comply with hygiene recommendations. Our analysis quantifies the impact of these various economic policies on COVID-19 infection and death rates using panel regression techniques to control for a variety of potential confounders. We find that policies that limit evictions are found to reduce COVID-19 infections by 3.8% and reduce deaths by 11%. Moratoria on utility disconnections reduce COVID-19 infections by 4.4% and mortality rates by 7.4%. Had such policies been in place across all counties (i.e., adopted as federal policy) from early March 2020 through the end of November 2020, our estimated counterfactuals show that policies that limit evictions could have reduced COVID-19 infections by 14.2% and deaths by 40.7%. For moratoria on utility disconnections, COVID-19 infections rates could have been reduced by 8.7% and deaths by 14.8%. Housing precarity policies that prevent eviction and utility disconnections have been effective mechanisms for decreasing both COVID-19 infections and deaths. |
| JEL: | I14 R38 R5 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28394&r=all |
| By: | Cardona, Ángel Emilio Muñoz; Soto, Lorena Martínez; Miranda, Mauricio Manrique; Institute of Research, Asian |
| Abstract: | The entrepreneurship on mobility leading to an improved quality of life should be an initiative of young people living in the different neighborhoods of a city. They can even design exemplary models of territorial ordering for responsible mobility. Young people with some degree of university education are more sensitive to the value of designing more humane cities. Hence, all social transformation in citizen co-responsibility has its origin in feelings of empathy, that is, in the search for urban happiness for the achievement of a dignified human life. The research question is how to motivate youth social entrepreneurship in city neighborhoods for mobility and strengthening of citizen culture. The research methodology was based on 710 surveys on Quality of Life and Urban Mobility in the Aburra Valley applied to young university students in their last semester and eight interviews with youth organizations and municipal secretariats of citizenship, and mobility. The study conclusion is that if more than 90% of daily visitors to the city downtown live in the surrounding neighborhoods, then the strengthening of civic culture must begin in those neighborhoods. If the suburban area is organized, the downtown will be organized. |
| Date: | 2021–01–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:3d6kf&r=all |
| By: | Ducruet, César; Juhasz, Reka; Krisztián, Dávid; Steinwender, Claudia |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of port development on the economy. By using scarce local land intensively, ports put pressure on local land prices and crowd out other forms of economic activity. We use the introduction of containerized shipping -- a technology that substantially increased land requirements at the port -- to estimate the effects of port development. We find an important role for the crowding-out effect both at the local and at the aggregate level. First, we show that the causal effect of the shipping boom caused by containerization on local population is zero -- port development increases city population by making a location more attractive for firms and consumers, but this well-known market access effect is fully offset by the crowding-out mechanism. Second, to measure the aggregate implications, we add endogenous port development to a standard quantitative model of cross-city trade. Through the lens of this model, we estimate that containerization increased aggregate world welfare by 3.95%. However, relative to the positive welfare effects of a trade-cost reduction in standard models, our model implies a sizeable welfare cost associated with the increased land-usage of ports, partly offset by welfare gains from endogenous specialization based on comparative advantage across port- and non-port activities. In terms of the distributional effects, we find that initially poorer countries gained more from containerization as they had a comparative advantage in port development. |
| Keywords: | port development; containerization; quantitative economic geography |
| JEL: | R40 O33 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108496&r=all |
| By: | Wood, George; Tyler, Tom; Papachristos, Andrew V (Northwestern University); Roth, Jonathan; Sant'Anna, Pedro H. C. |
| Abstract: | Wood et al. (2020) studied the rollout of a procedural justice training program in the Chicago Police Department and found large and statistically significant impacts on complaints and sustained complaints against police officers and police use of force. This document describes a subtle statistical problem that led the magnitude of those estimates to be inflated. We then re-analyze the data using a methodology that corrects for this problem. The re-analysis provides less strong conclusions about the effectiveness of the training than the original study: although the point estimates for most outcomes and specifications are negative and of a meaningful magnitude, the confidence intervals typically include zero or very small effects. On the whole, we interpret the data as providing suggestive evidence that procedural justice training reduced the use of force, but no statistically significant evidence for a reduction in complaints or sustained complaints. |
| Date: | 2021–01–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:xf32m&r=all |
| By: | NoghaniBehambari, Hamid; Tavassoli, Nahid; noghani, farzaneh |
| Abstract: | This paper illustrates the intergenerational transmission of the gender gap in education among first and second-generation immigrants. Using the Current Population Survey (1994-2018), we find that the difference in female-male education persists from the home country to the new environment. A one standard deviation increase of the ancestral country’s female-male difference in schooling is associated with 17.2% and 2.5% of a standard deviation increase in the gender gap among first and second generations, respectively. Since gender perspective in education uncovers a new channel for cultural transmission among families, we interpret the findings as evidence of cultural persistence among first generations and partial cultural assimilation of second generations. Moreover, Disaggregation into country-groups reveals different paths for this transmission: descendants of immigrants of lower-income countries show fewer attachments to the gender opinions of their home country. Average local education of natives can facilitate the acculturation process. Immigrants residing in states with higher education reveal a lower tendency to follow their home country attitudes regarding the gender gap. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gap, Immigration, Human Capital, Education, Assimilation |
| JEL: | I2 J15 J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:105265&r=all |
| By: | Benjamin Schoefer; Oren Ziv |
| Abstract: | Why do cities differ so much in productivity? We document that most of the measured dispersion in productivity across US cities is spurious and reflects granularity bias: idiosyncratic heterogeneity in plant-level productivity and size, combined with finite plant counts. As a result, economies with randomly reallocated plants exhibit nearly as high a variance as the empirical economy. Stripping out this bias using our nonparametric split-sample strategy reduces the raw variance of place effects by about two thirds to three quarters. For new plants, about four fifths of the dispersion reflects granularity bias, and new plants’ place effects are only imperfectly correlated with those of older plants. These US-based patterns broadly extend to the 15 European countries we study in internationally comparable firm-level data. |
| Keywords: | productivity, urban economics, firm heterogeneity |
| JEL: | R12 D24 L11 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8843&r=all |
| By: | Cao Chenrui |
| Abstract: | With the teacher, the whole society expects and thus we often hear several formulas to be followed by the teacher. In practice the only thing which a teacher need is the commitment. It is this commitment which bestows in him the leadership, self-confidence and readiness with the zeal of selfless actions. The role of a teacher expected from the society, state, Nation and the world is much more and only a committed teacher can satisfy it because a committed teacher is the combination of all the said roles, duties and responsibility. Key Words: teacher, technology, commitment, teaching, TLP Policy |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vor:issues:2020-36-01&r=all |
| By: | Amior, Michael; Manning, Alan |
| Abstract: | In a competitive labor market, immigration affects native wages only through its impact on marginal products. Under the sole assumption of constant returns, we show that a larger supply of migrants (keeping their skill mix constant) must increase the marginal products of native-owned factors on average (an extension of the familiar “immigration surplus” result); and in the long run (if capital is supplied elastically), this surplus passes entirely to native labor. However, in a monopsonistic labor market, wages will also depend on any mark-downs applied by firms; and immigration may affect native wages through these mark-downs. We present a model of monopsony which generates testable restrictions on the null hypothesis of perfect competition, which we reject using US census data commonly studied in the literature. Our estimates suggest that the (negative) mark-down effect dominates the (by construction, positive) effect on marginal products for the average native. These findings shed new light on the interpretation of previous empirical estimates and the so-called “structural approach” to predicting wage effects. |
| Keywords: | migration; wages; monopsony |
| JEL: | J31 J42 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:108454&r=all |