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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Gabriel S. Lee; Stefanie Braun |
| Abstract: | We estimate spatial German land price e ects using the county-level residential land prices from 2014 to 2018. We show that county-level spatial agglomeration effects play a large and significant role in explaining the cross-county variations in land prices. For example, a 1 % increase in the median income has an increase of 3.45 % in land prices, whereas a 1 % increase in the population density accounts for an increase of 5.47 % increase in land prices. We find that similar empirical patterns also hold for house prices but less so for the seven major German cities. Moreover, housing supply factors such as the available land to build and housing stocks are crucial factors in explaining land and house prices. Furthermore, we show that the land price spillover effects are among the dominating factors in the formation of regional house prices. These results suggest that changes in agglomeration variables such as median income (productivity) and population density cannot completely explain disparate local land and house prices. Lastly, estimating two different land price measurements for Germany shows that direct and indirect agglomeration spillover effects can explain more variation in residential land prices than vacant land prices. |
| Keywords: | German Land prices; Land values; German Housing prices; Housing values; Spatial Effects. |
| JEL: | R0 R11 R14 R21 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bav:wpaper:207_braunlee&r= |
| By: | Tracey, Belinda (Bank of England); Van Horen, Neeltje (Bank of England) |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that relaxing borrowing constraints positively affects household consumption in addition to stimulating housing market activity. We focus on the UK Help-to-Buy (HTB) program, which provided a sudden relaxation of the down payment constraint by facilitating home purchases with only a 5% down payment. Our research design exploits geographic variation in exposure to HTB and uses administrative data on mortgages and car sales in combination with household survey data. We estimate that the program increased total home purchases by 11%, and the increase was driven almost entirely by first-time and young buyers. Regions that were more exposed to the program experienced a rise in non-durable consumption unrelated to the home and in loan-financed car purchases, in addition to an increase in home-related expenditures. These results are independent of changes in regional house prices. Our findings point to a further link between the housing market and household consumption that does not operate through the home purchase and housing wealth channels. |
| Keywords: | Borrowing constraints; consumption; housing market; mortgage market |
| JEL: | E21 G21 R21 R28 |
| Date: | 2021–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:0919&r= |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser |
| Abstract: | The downsides of density, including traffic congestion, contagious disease and crime, were common in Victorian London and classical Rome, just as they are today in Sao Paulo and Lagos. Our urban past provides lessons for developing world cities today. The first lesson, that I highlight, is that political power, not commerce, has long driven the growth of the world’s largest cities, and that fact remains true for many developing world mega-cities today. The second lesson is that while market access fundamentally shaped the cities of the past, the power of transport to determine urban fortunes has declined. Transportation infrastructure no longer transforms cities unless it is accompanied by complementary investments, such as education. The third lesson is that infrastructure, such as sewers and roads, functions best when combined with incentives, which can ensure the adoption of sewers and discourage the abuse of highways. The fourth lesson is that the development of many western cities relied on a nexus of property rights for landowners, including the right to build, buy, alienate, mortgage and rent, that are far more limited in many developing world cities. The fifth lesson is that there is a menu of institutions for managing infrastructure, including direct public control, independent public authorities and public private partnerships. Local conditions, especially the level of public capacity, will determine the best choice among those institutions. |
| JEL: | N90 O18 R00 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28814&r= |
| By: | Egger, Peter; Loumeau, Gabriel; Loumeau, Nicole |
| Abstract: | We document an unprecedented change in the size and the quality of China's transport-infrastructure network between 2000 and 2013. This documentation is based on hand-collected and digitized data on roads and railways. The changes are summarized and portrayed as shortest-possible transport times of people and goods between 330 prefectures of mainland China. A quantitative model of China's prefectures and a Rest of the World, featuring both goods trade and migration, suggests that the long-run consequences of the transport-infrastructure changes induce regional convergence of lagging-behind prefectures in terms of population density and, to a lesser extent, in terms of real per-capita income. Not only changes in highway and high-speed-railway networks but also ones in lower-level road and railway networks are quantitatively important. Key drivers behind the effects are the facilitation of goods transport as well as technology diffusion, while the reduction of mobility costs and the diffusion of amenities appear less important. |
| Keywords: | General-equilibrium models; migration; regional economics; structural estimation; Transport Infrastructure; Transportation problem |
| JEL: | F14 R13 R41 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15372&r= |
| By: | Piero Montebruno; Olmo Silva; Nikodem Szumilo |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of borrower protection on mortgage and housing demand. We focus on variation in the likelihood that a house is repossessed - conditional on the mortgage being in arrears and taken to court - coming from heterogeneity in preferences of judges that adjudicate on repossession cases in England and Wales. We develop a simple theoretical framework that shows that too much borrower protection restricts credit supply, while not enough restricts credit demand. Market outcomes depend on which side dominates. To test the predictions of our model, we exploit exogenous spatial variation in repossession risk created by the boundaries of courts' catchment areas. In our setting, housing market characteristics, borrower attributes and mortgage rates do not change discontinuously across these boundaries - allowing us to isolate the causal effects of borrower protection. We find that less borrower protection decreases both mortgage sizes and house prices. This pattern suggests that judges in our sample are too strict and that demand determines market outcomes. Furthermore, we find that our measure of borrower protection does not react to market conditions - causing frictions in credit and housing markets. |
| Keywords: | house repossessions, mortgages, house prices, housing demand, mortgage default |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1766&r= |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel; Albers, Thilo; Behrens, Kristian |
| Abstract: | We harness big data to detect prime locations---large clusters of know-ledge-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 away from their historic cores. We rationalize these findings in an agent-based 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 size- from transport network effects. |
| Keywords: | agent-based model; internal city structure; multiple equilibria and path dependence; Prime services; transport networks |
| JEL: | R38 R52 R58 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15470&r= |
| By: | Jaimovich, Nir; Terry, Stephen; Vincent, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | Exploiting data on tens of millions of housing transactions, we show that (1) house prices grew by less in manufacturing-heavy US regions and (2) that this pattern is especially present for the lowest-value homes. Counterfactual accounting exercises reveal that regional differences in the growth of these lowest-value homes more than fully account for an observed increase in overall house price inequality. We conclude that the relative economic decline of manufacturing- heavy areas extends far beyond income and employment flows to include shifts in important local asset prices, a pattern which matters for total house price inequality. |
| Keywords: | House Prices; housing inequality; Manufacturing decline |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15409&r= |
| By: | Kenneth R. Ahern |
| Abstract: | Compared to the federal government, the average citizen in the U.S. has far greater interaction with city governments, including policing, health services, zoning laws, utilities, schooling, and transportation. At the regional level, it is city governments that provide the infrastructure and services that facilitate agglomeration economies in urban areas. However, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the operations of city governments as economic entities. To overcome deficiencies in traditional datasets, this paper amasses a novel, hand-collected dataset on city government finances to describe the functions, expenses, and revenues of the largest 39 cities in the United States from 2003 to 2018. First, city governments are large, with average revenues equivalent to the 78th percentile of U.S. publicly traded firms. Second, cities collect an increasingly large fraction of revenues through direct user fees, rather than taxes. By 2018, total charges for services equal tax revenue in the median city. Third, controlling for city fixed effects, population, and personal income, large city governments shrunk by 15% between 2009 and 2018. Finally, the growth rate of city expenses is more sensitive to population growth, while the growth rate of city revenues is more sensitive to income. These sensitivities lead smaller, poorer cities' expenses to grow faster than their revenues. |
| JEL: | H4 H7 R1 R5 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28805&r= |
| By: | Laura Jaitman (Inter-American Development Bank); Nicolás Ajzenman (Sao Paulo School of Economics - FGV) |
| Abstract: | Latin America and the Caribbean is the most violent region in the world, with an annual homicide rate of more than 20 per 100,000 population and with an increasing trend. Yet most evidence of crime concentration, geo-temporal patterns, and event dependencecomes from cities in high-income countries. Understanding crime patterns in the region and how they compare to those in high-income countries is of first-order importance to formulate crime reduction policies. This paper is the first to analyze crime patterns ofcities in five Latin American countries. Using micro-geographic units of analysis, the paper finds, first, that crime in Latin America is highly concentrated in a small proportion of blocks: 50 percent of crimes are concentrated in 3 to 7.5 percent of street segments,and 25 percent of crimes are concentrated in 0.5 to 2.9 percent of street segments. This validates Weisburd’s “law of crime concentration at place” (Weisburd, 2105). These figures are fairly constant over time but sensitive to major police reforms. The secondfinding is that hot spots of crime are not always persistent. Crime is constantly prevalent in certain areas, but in other areas hot spots either appear or disappear, suggesting a possible rational adaptation from criminals to police actions that cause crime displacement in the medium run to other areas. Finally, the paper finds a significant pattern of repeated crime victimization in location and time for property crimes. There are striking similarities with the developed world in crime concentration, although crime levels are much higher and usually increasing. There are also some differences in terms of the persistence of hot spots that pose interesting policy implications and avenues for future research. |
| Keywords: | crime concentration, crime and place, developing countries, displacement,hot spots, Latin America |
| JEL: | K00 K42 R12 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:71&r= |
| By: | Chen, Liming (Asian Development Bank); Hasan, Rana (Asian Development Bank); Jiang, Yi (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence on the spatial distribution and effects of urban agglomeration on firm innovation. It uses a unique dataset that consistently defines city boundaries and identifies firms’ innovation-related activities across 25 developing countries in Asia. We find firm innovation to be highly concentrated at the city level. We also find substantial gains from increases in city population in terms of firms’ propensity to introduce process and product innovations and undertake research and development (R&D) activities. These gains remain even after addressing concerns regarding endogeneity through the use of historical population data as instruments. In addition, we present evidence that knowledge spillovers are an important channel through which agglomeration effects occur, specifically through the presence of top-tier universities in a given city and by raising the effectiveness of firms’ R&D efforts. These findings confirm the existence and significance of urban economies of scale in augmenting the knowledge flows that generate innovation. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies; innovation; knowledge spillovers |
| JEL: | O10 O30 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0616&r= |
| By: | Scott W. Hegerty |
| Abstract: | According to "Social Disorganization" theory, criminal activity increases if the societal institutions that might be responsible for maintaining order are weakened. Do large apartment buildings, which often have fairly transient populations and low levels of community involvement, have disproportionately high rates of crime? Do these rates differ during the daytime or nighttime, depending when residents are present, or away from their property? This study examines four types of "acquisitive" crime in Milwaukee during 2014. Overall, nighttime crimes are shown to be more dispersed than daytime crimes. A spatial regression estimation finds that the density of multiunit housing is positively related to all types of crime except burglaries, but not for all times of day. Daytime robberies, in particular, increase as the density of multiunit housing increases. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2105.07822&r= |
| By: | Dai, Ruochen; Mookherjee, Dilip; Quan, Yingyue; Zhang, Xiaobo |
| Abstract: | We examine how exposure of Chinese firms to the Covid-19 shock varied with a cluster index (measuring spatial agglomeration of firms in related industries) at the county level. Two data sources are used: entry flows of newly registered firms in the entire country, and an entrepreneur survey regarding operation of existing firms. Both show greater resilience in counties with a higher cluster index, after controlling for industry dummies and local infection rates, besides county and time dummies in the entry data. Reliance of clusters on informal entrepreneur hometown networks and closer proximity to suppliers and customers help explain these findings. |
| Keywords: | China; Clusters; COVID-19; firms; Social Networks |
| JEL: | D31 I3 J12 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15396&r= |
| By: | Jiang, Yi (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces a new city-level panel dataset constructed using satellite nighttime light imagery and grid population data. The dataset contains over 1,500 cities covering 43 economies of Asia and the Pacific from 1992 to 2016. With the dataset, we perform a variety of analyses for Asia and the Pacific as a whole as well as five individual countries in the region. The exercise produces some novel evidence on several interrelated topics including urbanization status and patterns, relations between urbanization and economic growth, evolution of urban systems, primate cities, testing Zipf’s law and Gibrat’s law, the drivers of city growth, and emergence of city clusters. |
| Keywords: | city cluster; city growth; Gibrat’s law; nighttime lights; primate city; Zipf’s law |
| JEL: | O18 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–08–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0618&r= |
| By: | Ariell Zimran |
| Abstract: | Immigrant distribution--the geographic dispersion of immigrants in the destination country--was a major issue in the United States in the late Age of Mass Migration. Policy debates were influenced by the widely held view that the new immigrants were generally less geographically mobile within the United States and specifically less likely to leave urban areas than were natives and earlier immigrants. I build new linked census datasets to investigate these claims by studying the rates of, selection into, and sorting of internal migration by US immigrants. I find that contemporary claims regarding immigrant distribution were either false, oversimplified, or the product of broader national trends that applied also to natives. Nonetheless, geographic assimilation--convergence in immigrants' and natives' county-of-residence distributions over time in the United States--was almost nonexistent. |
| JEL: | F22 J11 J15 J61 N31 N32 R23 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28812&r= |
| By: | Xiuming Dong (Department of Economics, University of Auckland); Justin Tyndall (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Department of Economics, University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization) |
| Abstract: | Many North American jurisdictions have legalized the operation of recreational marijuana dispensaries. A common concern is that dispensaries may contribute to local crime. Identifying the effect of dispensaries on crime is confounded by the spatial endogeneity of dispensary locations. Washington state allocated dispensary licenses through a lottery, providing a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of dispensaries on crime. Combining lottery data with detailed geocoded crime data, we estimate that the presence of a dispensary has no impact on average local crime rates. However, within low-income neighborhoods, we find an increase in property crime adjacent to new dispensaries. |
| Keywords: | recreational marijuana dispensaries; crime; dispensary opening |
| JEL: | R38 R50 K23 K42 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hae:wpaper:2021-1&r= |
| By: | Anthanasius Fomum Tita; Pieter Opperman |
| Abstract: | Homeownership by the lower and middle-income households is crucial to create wealth, particularly for South Africa with high levels of economic and wealth inequality. However, scholarship has paid little attention to how income affects the affordable housing market segment despite its systemic importance to the South African economy. This study employs the asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag model to study the effect of household income per capita on the affordable house prices in South Africa using quarterly data from 1985 to 2016. The results revealed the presence of an asymmetric long-run relationship between affordable house prices and household income per capita. The estimated asymmetric long-run coefficients of logIncome[+] and longIncome[-] are 1.080 and -4.354 respectively implying that a 1% increase/decrease in household income per capita induces a 1.08% rise/4.35% decline in affordable house prices everything being equal. We argue that given the 71.4% market share of affordable housing in all residential properties in South Africa, a persistent fall in household income can trigger a systemic crisis, particularly with mortgage securitization. Thus, policymakers should closely monitor the practice of mortgage securitization, particularly in the affordable market segment to avoid systemic risk to the economy. |
| Keywords: | house prices, household income per capita, symmetric and asymmetric autoregressive distributed lag models |
| JEL: | R3 C1 E2 E13 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:856&r= |
| By: | Shiqin Liu; Carl Higgs; Jonathan Arundel; Geoff Boeing; Nicholas Cerdera; David Moctezuma; Ester Cerin; Deepti Adlakha; Melanie Lowe; Billie Giles-Corti |
| Abstract: | Pedestrian accessibility is an important factor in urban transport and land use policy and critical for creating healthy, sustainable cities. Developing and evaluating indicators measuring inequalities in pedestrian accessibility can help planners and policymakers benchmark and monitor the progress of city planning interventions. However, measuring and assessing indicators of urban design and transport features at high resolution worldwide to enable city comparisons is challenging due to limited availability of official, high quality, and comparable spatial data, as well as spatial analysis tools offering customizable frameworks for indicator construction and analysis. To address these challenges, this study develops an open source software framework to construct pedestrian accessibility indicators for cities using open and consistent data. It presents a generalized method to consistently measure pedestrian accessibility at high resolution and spatially aggregated scale, to allow for both within- and between-city analyses. The open source and open data methods developed in this study can be extended to other cities worldwide to support local planning and policymaking. The software is made publicly available for reuse in an open repository. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2105.08814&r= |
| By: | Hanlon, William Walker; Heblich, Stephan |
| Abstract: | This article reviews recent literature using insights from history to answer central questions in urban economics. This area of research has seen rapid growth in the past decade, thanks to new technologies that have made available increasingly rich data stretching far back in time. The focus is to review innovative methods to exploit historical information and discuss applications of these data that provide new insights into (i) the long run growth of cities or regional economies and (ii) the spatial organization of economic activities within cities. The review also surveys the growing literature outside urban economics that uses the historical urbanization as a proxy for economic growth, discusses differences between how economic historians and urban economists think about the relationship between urbanization and growth, and considers how these views might be reconciled. |
| Keywords: | economic history; growth; Review; Urban Economics; Urbanization |
| JEL: | N7 N9 R00 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15303&r= |
| By: | Asma Benhenda (UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, University College London); Lindsey Macmillan (UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, University College London) |
| Abstract: | Teacher retention is a major issue in many developed countries. According to the 2018 edition of the OECD TALIS survey (OECD, 2018), on average, almost 15% of teachers aged 50 or less want to leave teaching within the next five years. In England, this figure is above the OECD average, at 22%. This survey also shows that England's teachers are the second most stressed among OECD countries (Carr, 2020). Sorensen and Ladd (2020) show that high rates of teacher turnover create a vicious cycle leading to lower quality teaching and lower student achievement. Teacher attrition and turnover are especially problematic in disadvantaged schools as they have a harder time both recruiting and retaining teachers. Allen et al. (2018) show that there is a positive raw association between the level of school disadvantage and the turnover rate of its teachers in England. Evidence shows that high staff attrition rates are disruptive for schools and have negative impacts on pupils' achievement. The unequal exposure to this issue further contributes to persistent educational inequalities (Gershenson, 2021). |
| Keywords: | teacher recruitment; teacher retention |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucl:cepeob:13&r= |
| By: | Figlio, David N. (Northwestern University); Hart, Cassandra M. D. (University of California, Davis); Karbownik, Krzysztof (Emory University) |
| Abstract: | Using a rich dataset that merges student-level school records with birth records, and leveraging a student fixed effects design, we explore how the massive scale-up of a Florida private school choice program affected public school students' outcomes. Program expansion modestly benefited students (through higher standardized test scores and lower absenteeism and suspension rates) attending public schools closer to more pre-program private school options. Effects are particularly pronounced for lower-income students, but results are positive for more affluent students as well. Local and district-wide private school competition are both independently related to student outcomes. |
| Keywords: | school choice, school competition, student achievement, behavioral outcomes |
| JEL: | H75 I21 I22 I28 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14342&r= |
| By: | Stephen L. Ross; Tingyu Zhou |
| Abstract: | Estimates of loss aversion in housing sales prices may be biased because expected losses correlate with housing and borrower unobservables. We provide new evidence of loss aversion in sales price by differencing loss aversion estimates between sellers who exhibit focal point bias in their initial mortgage amount and those who do not. Although focal point bias and loss aversion are associated with different families of behaviors, recent evidence suggests links between these biases. Revisiting experimental data, subjects with high levels of loss aversion were more likely to use round numbers. Using housing data, estimates of loss aversion are 10 percentage points higher for sellers with round number mortgage amounts as a share of expected loss. Differences in expected loss are balanced over both housing and mortgage attributes, are stable as additional of controls are added, and are robust to using a discontinuity style regression centered on mortgage amounts of round numbers. On the other hand, traditional estimates of loss aversion fall by as much as 73 percent as additional controls are added. This study provides unique evidence that loss aversion and focal point bias are found together, and presents new, more robust evidence that loss aversion influences housing sales prices. |
| JEL: | D91 G21 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28796&r= |
| By: | Jesse Kalinowski; Matthew B. Ross; Stephen L. Ross |
| Abstract: | African-American motorists may adjust their driving in response to increased scrutiny by police. In daylight, when their race is more easily observable, minority motorists are the only group less likely to have fatal motor vehicle accidents. In Massachusetts and Tennessee, we find that African-Americans are the only group of stopped motorists with slower speeds in daylight. Consistent with an illustrative model, these speed shifts are concentrated at higher percentiles of the distribution. Calibration of this model indicates this behavior creates substantial bias in conventional tests of discrimination that rely on changes in the odds a stopped motorist is a minority. |
| JEL: | H11 I38 J71 J78 K14 K42 R41 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28789&r= |
| By: | Machin, Stephen; McNally, Sandra; Terrier, Camille; Ventura, Guglielmo |
| Abstract: | England introduced University Technical Colleges (UTCs) in 2010, hybrid schools which combine general and vocational education. We use an instrumental variable approach to evaluate the causal effect of attending a UTC on student academic and vocational achievement and on their labour market outcomes. For pupils who enter at age 14, UTCs dramatically reduce their academic achievement on national exams at age 16. For students who enter at age of 16, UTCs boost vocational achievement without harming academic achievement. They also improve achievement in STEM qualifications, enrolment in apprenticeships, employment prospects (by age 19) and probability of studying STEM at university. |
| Keywords: | school value-added; Technical education; tracking |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15456&r= |
| By: | Rice, Patricia; Venables, Anthony |
| Abstract: | The economic shocks experienced by the UK economy in the 1970s brought major changes in the spatial distribution of employment rates in the UK. This paper traces out the long run implications of these changes, suggesting that they were highly persistent and to a large extent shape current UK regional disparities. Most of the Local Authority Districts that experienced large negative shocks in the 1970s have high deprivation rates in 2015, and they constitute two-thirds of all districts with the highest deprivation rates. We conclude that neither economic adjustment processes nor policy measures have acted to reverse the effect of negative shocks incurred nearly half a century ago. |
| Keywords: | de-industrialisation; employment; Regional Inequality |
| JEL: | O47 O50 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15261&r= |
| By: | Löw, Franziska (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg); Lüth, Hendrik (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This study aims at identifying guests’ willingness to pay for characteristics of listings on Airbnb, putting a particular emphasis on trust-building information provided by the platform. In order to do so, a hedonic regression model is applied to an extensive dataset that was gathered in 2017 from Airbnb’s website and encompasses listings from seven major German cities, namely Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden, Stuttgart and Frankfurt am Main. Our results regarding tangible characteristics are mostly in line with expectations: Additional space and certain amenities increase the value of a listing. The same holds true for an accommodation’s distance to the city center, although we find proof for a non-linear relationship. Results for trust-building factors on the other hand are mixed. While favorable review scores and membership duration have a positive effect on prices, we cannot establish such a relationship for “superhost” and “verified ID” badges. In contrast to other studies, which are, however, focused on the US, we cannot find price differences linked to hosts’ gender or ethnicity. Using an extended data set that encompasses listings from 2007 to 2008, we furthermore construct hedonic price indices for all seven cities, which suggest supply shifts due to regulatory pressure. |
| Keywords: | airbnb; sharing economy; hedonic models; GLM; rental markets; price indices; real estate |
| JEL: | L11 L14 L86 |
| Date: | 2021–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:vhsuwp:2021_189&r= |
| By: | Cai, Shu; Zimmermann, Klaus F |
| Abstract: | Previous research has found identity to be relevant for international migration, but has neglected internal mobility as in the case of the Great Chinese Migration. However, the context of the identities of migrants and their adaption in the migration process is likely to be quite different. The gap is closed by examining social assimilation and the effect on the labor market outcomes of migrants in China, the country with the largest record of internal mobility. Using instrumental variable estimation, the study finds that identifying as local residents significantly increase migrants' hourly wages and reduce hours worked, although their monthly earnings remained barely changed. Further findings suggest that migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked per day. |
| Keywords: | identity; Labor market; migration; Social assimilation |
| JEL: | J22 J31 J61 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15496&r= |
| By: | Scott W. Hegerty |
| Abstract: | Decades of economic decline have led to areas of increased deprivation in a number of U.S. inner cities, which can be linked to adverse health and other outcomes. Yet the calculation of a single "deprivation" index, which has received wide application in Britain and elsewhere in the world, involves a choice of variables and methods that have not been directly compared in the American context. This study creates four related measures--using two sets of variables and two weighting schemes--to create such indices for block groups in Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee. After examining the indices' similarities, we then map concentrations of high deprivation in each city and analyze their relationships to income, racial makeup, and transportation usage. Overall, we find certain measures to have higher correlations than others, but that all show deprivation to be linked with lower incomes and a higher nonwhite population. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2105.07821&r= |
| By: | Ilan Noy; Toshihiro Okubo; Eric Strobl; Thomas Tveit |
| Abstract: | We investigate the fiscal impacts of earthquakes in Japan. In contrast with earlier papers from elsewhere which examine national level aggregate spending, we are able to provide a detailed examination of separate budget categories within the local governments’ fiscal accounts. We do this using detailed line-budget expenditure data, and by comparing regions and towns affected and unaffected by the damage from earthquakes. Besides the obvious - that government spending increases in the short-term (one year) after a disaster event - the results we present suggest that the share of public spending on disaster relief, at the prefecture level, increases significantly, but with no corresponding change in the other budget lines. In contrast, at the lower administrative units we observe a decrease in the share of spending going to finance other priorities. For the bigger cities, we observe a decrease in the share of spending targeting education, while for the smaller towns, we find that spending on construction and servicing public debt goes down. This evidence suggests that while at the prefecture level fiscal policy-making is robust enough to prevent presumably unwanted declines in public services, the same cannot be said for the city/town level. |
| Keywords: | fiscal costs, earthquakes, Japan |
| JEL: | H84 Q54 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9070&r= |
| By: | Tomaso Duso; Claus Michelsen; Maximilian Schäfer; Kevin Ducbao Tran |
| Abstract: | We exploit two policy interventions in Berlin, Germany, to causally identify the impact of Airbnb on rental markets. While the first intervention significantly reduced the number of high-availability Airbnb listings bookable for most of the year, the second intervention led to the exit of mostly occasional, low-availability listings. We find that the reduction in Airbnb supply has a much larger impact on rents and long-term rental supply for the first reform. This is consistent with more professional Airbnb hosts substituting back to the long-term rental market. Accordingly, we estimate that one additional nearby high-availability Airbnb listing crowds out 0.6 long-term rentals and, consequently, increases the asked square-meter rent by 1.8 percent on average. This marginal effect tends to be smaller in districts with a higher Airbnb density. However, these district experienced a larger slowdown in rent increases following the reform due to larger reductions in Airbnb supply. |
| Keywords: | rents, housing market, short-term rental regulation, sharing economy, Airbnb |
| JEL: | R21 R31 R52 Z30 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9089&r= |
| By: | Stephen J. Redding |
| Abstract: | The second half of the twentieth century saw large-scale suburbanization in the United States, with the median share of residents who work in the same county where they live falling from 87 to 71 percent between 1970 and 2000. We introduce a new methodology for discriminating between the three leading explanations for this suburbanization (workplace attractiveness, residence attractiveness and bilateral commuting frictions). This methodology holds in the class of spatial models that are characterized by a structural gravity equation for commuting. We show that the increased openness of counties to commuting is mainly explained by reductions in bilateral commuting frictions, consistent with the expansion of the interstate highway network and the falling real cost of car ownership. We find that changes in workplace attractiveness and residence attractiveness are more important in explaining the observed shift in employment by workplace and employment by residence towards lower densities over time. |
| Keywords: | economic geography, suburbanization, transportation |
| JEL: | R12 R30 R40 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1768&r= |
| By: | Ozgen, Ceren (University of Birmingham) |
| Abstract: | The empirical evidence on the economic impacts of diversity is mixed. Many studies in the literature present context dependent and data driven results which are challenging to reconcile with each other. This paper offers a systematic synthesis of the empirical findings on the economic impacts of diversity on innovation, productivity, and the labour market. It presents a structured framework which takes the spatial scale of the analysis in the papers as a reference to understand the inconsistency of some previous predictions and the varying magnitudes of the diversity impact. The empirical findings reconcile more meaningfully when diversity effects are documented discretely at the regional, firm and individual levels. The paper further sets out an agenda for future research and links the findings for policy relevance. |
| Keywords: | innovation, cultural diversity, migration, knowledge production function |
| JEL: | J24 J15 F22 O15 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14344&r= |
| By: | Scott W. Hegerty |
| Abstract: | Decades of deindustrialization have led to economic decline and population loss throughout the U.S. Midwest, with the highest national poverty rates found in Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. This poverty is often confined to core cities themselves, however, as many of their surrounding suburbs continue to prosper. Poverty can therefore be highly concentrated at the MSA level, but more evenly distributed within the borders of the city proper. One result of this disparity is that if suburbanites consider poverty to be confined to the central city, they might be less willing to devote resources to alleviate it. But due to recent increases in suburban poverty, particularly since the 2008 recession, such urban-suburban gaps might be shrinking. Using Census tract-level data, this study quantifies poverty concentrations for four "Rust Belt" MSAs, comparing core-city and suburban concentrations in 2000, 2010, and 2015. There is evidence of a large gap between core cities and outlying areas, which is closing in the three highest-poverty cities, but not in Milwaukee. A set of four comparison cities show a smaller, more stable city-suburban divide in the U.S. "Sunbelt," while Chicago resembles a "Rust Belt" metro. |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2105.07824&r= |
| By: | Redding, Stephen J. |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews recent research on geography and trade. One of the key empirical findings over the last decade has been the role of geography in shaping the distributional consequences of trade. One of the major theoretical advances has been the development of quantitative spatial models that incorporate both exogenous first-nature geography (natural endowments) and endogenous second-nature geography (the location choices of economic agents relative to one another) as determinants of the distribution of economic activity across space. These models are sufficiently rich to capture first-order features of the data, such as gravity equations for flows of goods and people. Yet they remain sufficiently tractable as to permit an analytical characterization of the properties of the general equilibrium and facilitate counterfactuals for realistic policy interventions. We distinguish between models of regions or systems of cities (where goods trade and migration take center stage) and models of the internal structure of cities (where commuting becomes relevant). We review some of key empirical predictions of both sets of theories and show that they have been remarkably successful in rationalizing the empirical findings from reduced-form research. Looking ahead, the combination of recent theoretical advances and novel geo-coded data on economic interactions at a fine spatial scale promises many interesting avenues for further research, including discriminating between alternative mechanisms for agglomeration, understanding the implications of new technologies for the organization of work, and assessing the causes, consequences and potential policy implications of spatial sorting. |
| Keywords: | Geography; Local Labor Markets; Trade |
| JEL: | F1 J4 R1 R4 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15268&r= |
| By: | Ugochi Emenogu; Cars Hommes; Mikael Khan |
| Abstract: | We introduce a model to detect periods of extrapolative house price expectations across Canadian cities. The House Price Exuberance Indicator can be updated on a quarterly basis to support the Bank of Canada’s broader assessment of housing market imbalances. |
| Keywords: | Econometric and statistical methods; Financial stability; Housing |
| JEL: | C53 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocsan:21-9&r= |
| By: | Nick Lombard (University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | Today, Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport is the busiest in the country and anchors the second-largest employment zone in Canada. However, the growth of the airport and the surrounding region were not always in synch. Rather, from its approval in 1937 the airport and the surrounding region found themselves frequently at odds over land use planning and airport expansions. Overlapping federal, provincial, and municipal control over various aspects of airport and land use planning made the airport project seem rife with conflict. However, this paper finds that this jurisdictional and territorial overlap led to innovative governance around the airport. Despite the absence of legislated relationships between the various bodies responsible for governing airport expansion and surrounding land use, local officials in present-day Mississauga, Toronto, and Brampton, along with their on-the-ground counterparts from Ottawa and the province of Ontario, would construct a durable framework for informal cooperation that would enable the complementary planning of airport and surrounding land uses. This paper examines three key moments of airport expansion and adaptation with local planners: the 1953 Malton Airport Zoning ordinance, the 1958 jetport plan, and the 1968 expansion plan. It argues that at each of these points, governmental and non-governmental actors worked to construct a flexible framework through which information sharing and complementary planning could be carried out without formal or legislative approval. The result, this paper argues, was a robust infrastructure and land use planning coalition that continues today. |
| Keywords: | airports, land use planning, infrastructure, intergovernmental relations |
| JEL: | H10 H77 R58 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mfg:wpaper:53&r= |
| By: | Asik, Günes; Karakoç, Ulas; Pamuk, Sevket |
| Abstract: | This study examines the evolution of regional income inequalities and its causes within present day borders of Turkey since 1880. We construct indices for value added per capita for agriculture, industry and services as well as GDP per capita for each of the 58 administrative units for about one dozen benchmark years. For the recent period since 1987, we make use of the official series for the same 58 units. We find that the overall trend from the 1910's to the present has been convergence for the country as a whole. We also find an inverse U shaped pattern for the regional disparities in Turkey since 1880. While all other regions began to move towards country averages, the differences between the East and the rest of the country persisted and even increased. Our comparisons also suggest that regional disparities in Turkey have been and are still larger than those in European countries of similar size such as Italy, France and Spain. Problems of endogeneity make it difficult to establish causality at this stage of the research. Nonetheless, we are able to offer an interpretation consistent with our empirical findings. We argue that not a single cause but a combination of causes led by geography, structural change, industrialization and agglomeration economies, and ethnic conflict and demographic movements are behind this pattern for the country as a whole and for the fact that the East has continued to lag behind. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic Conflict; Industrialization; Ottoman Empire; Regional Development; Regional inequalities; Turkey |
| JEL: | N14 N15 N94 N95 O18 O53 O54 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15304&r= |
| By: | Justin Tyndall (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Department of Economics, University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization) |
| Abstract: | Global sea level rise is a known consequence of climate change. As predictions of sea level rise have grown in magnitude and certainty, coastal real estate assets face an increasing climate risk. I use a complete data set of repeated home sales from Long Island in New York State to estimate the appreciation discount caused by the threat of sea level rise. The repeat sale methodology allows for unobserved property characteristics to be controlled for. Between 2000 and 2017, I find that residential properties that were exposed to future sea level rise experienced annual price appreciation that was 0.8 percentage points below unexposed properties. I provide numerous robustness checks to confirm this result. I also find evidence of demand spillovers by estimating an appreciation premium for properties that are near the coast but are relatively safe from sea level rise. |
| Keywords: | Transportation; Safety; Health; Traffic Fatalities; Externalities |
| JEL: | G10 R30 Q54 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hae:wpaper:2021-2&r= |
| By: | Razin, Assaf |
| Abstract: | The paper compares migration policy and welfare state generosity between America and Europe. There is more selective skill-based migration policy in the US compared to the European Union. Policy coordination among states within the federal system on migration, taxes, and social benefits among states within the US federal system is stronger than among countries within the European Union. Fiscal externality, triggered by migration and tax competition among members of the federal system may explain in part these US-Europe differences in policies. |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15455&r= |
| By: | Ines Helm; Jan Stuhler |
| Abstract: | We study the fiscal and tax response to intergovernmental grants, exploiting quasi-experimental variation within Germany’s fiscal equalization scheme triggered by Census revisions of official population counts. Municipal budgets do not adjust instantly. Instead, spending and investments adapt within five years to revenue gains, while adjustment to revenue losses is more rapid. Yet, the long-run response is symmetric. The tax response is particularly slow, stretching over more than a decade. Well-known empirical “anomalies” in public finance such as the flypaper effect are thus primarily a short-run phenomenon, while long-run fiscal behavior appears more consistent with standard theories of fiscal federalism. |
| Keywords: | intergovernmental grants, fiscal transfers, government spending, local taxation, census shock, flypaper effect |
| JEL: | H71 H72 H77 E62 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9083&r= |
| By: | Adda, Jérôme (Bocconi University); Dustmann, Christian (University College London); Goerlach, Joseph-Simon (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model where individuals differ in ability and location preference to evaluate the mechanisms that affect the evolution of immigrants' careers in conjunction with their re-migration plans. Our analysis highlights a novel form of selective return migration where those who plan to stay longer invest more into skill acquisition, with important implications for the assessment of immigrants' career paths and the estimation of their earnings profiles. Our study also explains the willingness of immigrants to accept jobs at wages that seem unacceptable to natives. Finally, our model provides important insight for the design of migration policies, showing that policies which initially restrict residence or condition residence on achievement shape not only immigrants' career profiles through their impact on human capital investment but also determine the selection of arrivals and leavers. |
| Keywords: | international migration, human capital, expectations |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14333&r= |
| By: | Jürgen Neumann (University of Paderborn); Dominik Gutt (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Dennis Kundisch (University of Paderborn) |
| Abstract: | How does reviewing consumption experiences from a psychological distance affect one's online ratings? Prior literature has found a positivity bias in the reviewing behaviors of consumers when they evaluate an experience from a spatial or a temporal distance. However, these results do not fully account for the unique context of online reviews, which involves publicly associating oneself with a potentially negative experience in front of others. Analyzing a data set from a large review platform, which enables identification of reviewers' spatial and temporal distance, we found that the positivity bias is not present for consumption experiences that are characterized by a negative sentiment. Instead, ratings for negative experiences reviewed from a spatial distance - that is, reviews by travelers - are systematically lower than ratings given in spatial proximity - that is, reviews by locals. These findings can be attributed to spatial distance, enabling travelers to distance themselves from these experiences and thus publicly associate themselves with lower ratings. For temporal distance, we found patterns consistent with prior literature that highlighted a disparity between spatial and temporal distance. These results improve our theoretical understanding of reviewing behavior and help platforms in their efforts to de-bias ratings. |
| Keywords: | Online Word-of-Mouth, Traveling, Psychological Distance, Construal Level, Self-Enhancement, Self-Distancing |
| JEL: | M15 M31 O32 D12 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pdn:dispap:78&r= |
| By: | Waetjen, David; Shilling, Fraser |
| Abstract: | Accurate data on crashes and other traffic incidents are critical for analyzing the rates, costs, and causes of crashes, and for evaluating the effects of safety policies and engineering solutions. There are two official sources of data on traffic incidents in California: 1) the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS),1 managed by the California Highway Patrol (CHP), which includes post-processed data on traffic incidents leading to human injury or death; and 2) Caltrans’ Performance Measurement System (PeMS),2 which includes data on traffic incidents as well as traffic counts, lane closures, and other information. Both databases draw from CHP incident reports that describe the location, conditions, and other important details and observations surrounding each incident. Traffic safety researchers rely heavily on both databases, but each has limitations. PeMS data are limited to state highways. Incident data can take months to appear in SWITRS and may omit crucial information. |
| Keywords: | Engineering |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt6027909j&r= |
| By: | Chen, Shu; Gambacorta, Leonardo; Huang, Yiping; Li, Zhenhua; Qiu, Han |
| Abstract: | The use of massive amounts of data by large technology firms (big techs) to assess firms' creditworthiness could reduce the need for collateral in solving asymmetric information problems in credit markets. Using a unique dataset of more than 2 million Chinese firms that received credit from both an important big tech firm (Ant Group) and traditional commercial banks, this paper investigates how different forms of credit correlate with local economic activity, house prices and firm characteristics. We find that big tech credit does not correlate with local business conditions and house prices when controlling for demand factors, but reacts strongly to changes in firm characteristics, such as transaction volumes and network scores used to calculate firm credit ratings. By contrast, both secured and unsecured bank credit react significantly to local house prices, which incorporate useful information on the environment in which clients operate and on their creditworthiness. This evidence implies that a greater use of big tech credit â?? granted on the basis of machine learning and big data â?? could reduce the importance of collateral in credit markets and potentially weaken the financial accelerator mechanism. |
| Keywords: | asymmetric information; banks; Big Data; big tech; Collateral; credit markets |
| JEL: | D22 G31 R30 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15262&r= |
| By: | Tetsuji Okazaki; Toshihiro Okubo; Eric Strobl |
| Abstract: | Natural disasters can seriously damage firms as well as the banks that they use independent of their size. However, it is small- and medium-sized firms in particular that will be affected by this because they tend to be financially constrained and thus greatly depend on these potentially damaged local banks for financing. In this paper, we focus on the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, which resulted in serious damage to small- and medium-sized firms and banks in Yokohama City, to investigate how effective the provision of loans by local banks, as well as the Earthquake Bills policy implemented by the Bank of Japan, was in helping firms recover. Using linked firm- and bank-level datasets, we find that larger local banks allowed damaged firms to survive and grow. The Earthquake Bills policy mitigated the negative impact of bank damage on firms and prevented credit crunch, although this deteriorated the balance sheet of local banks and resulted in financial instability and a banking crisis as a side effect. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnn:wpaper:21-001e&r= |
| By: | Bracke, Philippe; Croxson, Karen; Fakhri, Daoud; Surico, Paolo; Valletti, Tommaso |
| Abstract: | Using the universe of residential mortgage contracts offered and originated in the United Kingdom, we document the major trends associated with the pandemic of 2020 and compare them to the financial crisis of 2007-09. Looking at initial impact, the mortgage market disruptions of 2020 were larger and more abrupt than in 2007-09; as of June 2020, the recovery had been much faster, although uncertainty remains over whether the momentum will persist. Products with loan-to-value above 90% or loan-to-income above 4 took the largest hit but their market shares had begun to rebound since May 2020. In contrast, the Great Recession was characterised by a more gradual but far more persistent decline in originations, especially among riskier borrowers, as the recovery did not start until 18 months after the onset of the financial crisis. The share of remortgagors that extract housing equity has declined significantly in the first months of the 2020 pandemic and the amount withdrawn has been typically smaller than in most of the previous years. By the end of 2020 Q2, roughly one in five mortgages were benefitting from payment deferrals while repossession orders had virtually disappeared following the temporary ban introduced by the Financial Conduct Authority in March 2020. |
| Keywords: | Covid pandemic; credit supply; financial crisis; mortgage originations |
| JEL: | G21 G51 H12 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15381&r= |
| By: | Burlina, Chiara; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the uneven geography of COVID-19-related excess mortality during the first wave of the pandemic in Europe, before assessing the factors behind the geographical differences in impact. The analysis of 206 regions across 23 European countries reveals a distinct COVID-19 geography. Excess deaths were concentrated in a limited number of regions -expected deaths exceeded 20% in just 16 regions- with more than 40% of the regions considered experiencing no excess mortality during the first six months of 2020. Highly connected regions, in colder and dryer climates, with high air pollution levels, and relatively poorly endowed health systems witnessed the highest incidence of excess mortality. Institutional factors also played an important role. The first wave hit regions with a combination of weak and declining formal institutional quality and fragile informal institutions hardest. Low and declining national government effectiveness, together with a limited capacity to reach out across societal divides, and a frequent tendency to meet with friends and family were powerful drivers of regional excess mortality. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; Europe; institutions; Pandemic; regions |
| JEL: | H75 O43 R58 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15443&r= |
| By: | Boehm, Michael; Esmkhani, Khalil; Gallipoli, Giovanni |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new evidence on worker-firm complementarities. We combine matched employer-employee data with direct measures of workers' cognitive and noncognitive skills, and propose an empirical approach that separately identifies the firm-level return for each attribute. We find that similar skills command different returns across employers and that workers' sorting into firms depends on returns to both attributes. We derive theoretical restrictions that characterize many-to-one matching in employer-employee data, linking within-firm skill dispersion to between-firm differences in average skills. Estimates support these restrictions. Firm heterogeneity in skill returns raises both the average level and dispersion of earnings. |
| Keywords: | Firm Heterogeneity; inequality; Skill Returns; sorting; wages |
| JEL: | D30 E23 J23 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15480&r= |
| By: | Sebastian Heise; Tommaso Porzio |
| Abstract: | We develop a general equilibrium model of frictional labor reallocation across firms and regions, and use it to quantify the aggregate and distributional effects of spatial frictions that hinder worker mobility across regions in Germany. The model leverages matched employer-employee data to unpack spatial frictions into different types while isolating them from labor market frictions that operate also within region. The estimated model shows sizable spatial frictions between East and West Germany, especially due to the limited ability of workers to obtain job offers from more distant regions. Despite the large real wage gap between East and West of Germany, removing the spatial frictions leads, in equilibrium, to only a small increase in aggregate productivity and it mostly affects the within-region allocation of labor to firms rather than the between-region allocation. However, spatial frictions have large distributional consequences, as their removal drastically reduces the gap in lifetime earnings between East and West Germans. |
| JEL: | J6 O1 R1 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28792&r= |
| By: | Marcos Deuñas (Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano); Mercedes Campi (Universidad de Buenos Aires/CONICET); Luis Olmos (University of California) |
| Abstract: | We analyze mobility changes following the implementation of containment measures aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in Bogot ´a, Colombia. We characterize the mobility network before and during the pandemic and analyze its evolution and changes between January and July 2020. We then link the observed mobility changes to socioeconomic conditions, estimating a gravity model to assess the e?ect of socioeconomic conditions on mobility flows. We observe an overall reduction in mobility trends, but the overall connectivity between di?erent areas of the city remains after the lockdown, reflecting the mobility network’s resilience. We find that the responses to lockdown policies depend on socioeconomic conditions. Before the pandemic, the population with better socioeconomic conditions shows higher mobility flows. Since the lockdown, mobility presents a general decrease, but the population with worse socioeconomic conditions shows lower decreases in mobility flows. We conclude deriving policy implications. |
| Keywords: | Mobility networks Poverty; Informality Socioeconomic strata COVID-19 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aoz:wpaper:30&r= |
| By: | Bah, Tijan L. (University of Navarra); Batista, Catia (Nova School of Business and Economics); Gubert, Flore (IRD, DIAL, Paris-Dauphine); McKenzie, David (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in border closures in many countries and a sharp reduction in overall international mobility. However, this disruption of legal pathways to migration has raised concerns that potential migrants may turn to irregular migration routes as a substitute. We examine how the pandemic has changed intentions to migrate from The Gambia, the country with the highest pre-pandemic per-capita irregular migration rates in Africa. We use a large-scale panel survey conducted in 2019 and 2020 to compare changes in intentions to migrate to Europe and to neighboring Senegal. We find the pandemic has reduced the intention to migrate to both destinations, with approximately one-third of young males expressing less intention to migrate. The largest reductions in migration intentions are for individuals who were unsure of their intent pre-pandemic, and for poorer individuals who are no longer able to afford the costs of migrating at a time when these costs have increased and their remittance income has fallen. We also introduce the methodology of priming experiments to the study of migration intentions, by randomly varying the salience of the COVID-19 pandemic before eliciting intentions to migrate. We find no impact of this added salience, which appears to be because knowledge of the virus, while imperfect, was already enough to inform migration decisions. Nevertheless, despite these decreases in intentions, the overall desire to migrate the backway to Europe remains high, highlighting the need for legal migration pathways to support migrants and divert them from the risks of backway migration. |
| Keywords: | migration intentions, COVID-19 pandemic, priming and salience experiments, backway migration, The Gambia |
| JEL: | F22 O15 J61 C93 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14337&r= |
| By: | Eric Brunner; Shaun Dougherty; Stephen L. Ross |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of attending stand-alone technical high schools on student short- and long-term outcomes using a regression discontinuity design. Male students are 10 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school and have half a semester less time enrolled in college, although effects on college fade-out. Male students have 32% higher quarterly earnings. Earnings effects may in part reflect general skills: male students have higher attendance rates and test scores, and industry fixed effects explain less than 1/3rd of earnings gains. We find little evidence that attending a technical high school affects the outcomes of female students. |
| JEL: | I21 I26 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28790&r= |
| By: | Edmond Berisha (Montclair State University); John Meszaros (U.S. Postal Service); Rangan Gupta (University of Pretoria) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the secular increase in US income inequality and its relation to growing house prices over the past three decades. We explore income inequality’s effect on house prices based on a high-frequency (quarterly) data-set for all US states, including the District of Columbia. The analysis show that higher income inequality decreases the growth rate of house prices. However, the relationship differs for the Northeast region. We find higher income inequality corresponds with higher house prices across the states within the Northeast region. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, House Prices, Regional Studies |
| JEL: | D60 O40 O50 |
| Date: | 2021–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cth:wpaper:gru_2021_018&r= |
| By: | Dumas, Bernard J; Gabuniya, Tymur; Marston, Richard C |
| Abstract: | The distinction between domicile and place of business is becoming more and more relevant as a growing number of firms have activities abroad. In most statistical studies of international stock returns, a firm is included in a country's index if its headquarters are located in that country. This classification scheme ignores the operations of the firm. We propose, instead, to measure the firms's exposures to "geographic zones" according to the place where they conduct business. As a representation of "geographic risks", we synthesize zone factors from all firms in the dataset, be they domestic firms or multinationals. And we show the properties of the exposures to the zone factors. |
| Keywords: | country factors; expectations-maximization algorithm; factor models; geographic investing; stock return exposures; stock return indexes |
| JEL: | C4 F3 F6 G1 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15503&r= |
| By: | Diego Carrasco-Novoa (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia); Sandro D´ıez-Amigo (Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology); Shino Takayama (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia) |
| Abstract: | We introduce a flexible theoretical framework to model the mechanics of peer effects in education. Then we take advantage of a natural experiment in order to illustrate how the proposed model can be used to gain additional empirical insights from reduced-form econometric analysis. Leveraging the exogenous variation in peer characteristics generated by the random assignment of freshman college students to their first semester class groups, we observe a negative impact on academic performance of secondary schoolmate presence and concentration in the first semester college classroom, suggesting that in the study context socialization was in overall terms distractive, and that the group structure increased socialization for all students. We also find some evidence of a negative impact of higher average admission scores on academic performance, suggesting that in the study context the direct positive impact of peer mean ability on academic performance was more than eclipsed by the negative effect of higher peer mean ability on self-confidence. Observed peer effects generally persist throughout the duration of undergraduate studies. |
| Date: | 2021–04–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:644&r= |
| By: | Caitlin Grey; Melissa Mack |
| Abstract: | This case study explores how a Performance Partnership Pilots for Disconnected Youth (P3) implemented a process for connecting youth experiencing homelessness to Housing Choice Vouchers. |
| Keywords: | youth homelessness, youth homelessness prevention, performance partnership pilot, disconnected youth |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:2c0b377ea70645ff9b730d8fe21a01b6&r= |
| By: | Vanden Eynde, Oliver; Wren-Lewis, Liam |
| Abstract: | Complementarities between infrastructure projects have been understudied. Our paper examines interactions in the impacts of large-scale road construction, electrification, and mobile phone coverage programs in rural India. We find strong evidence of complementary impacts between roads and electricity on agricultural production: dry season cropping increases significantly when villages receive both, but not when they receive one without the other. These complementarities are associated with a shift of cropping patterns towards market crops and with improved economic conditions. In contrast, we find no consistent evidence of complementarities for the mobile coverage program. |
| Keywords: | Infrastructure, India, Complementarities, Roads, Mobile phone |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:docweb:2104&r= |
| By: | Fabien Leurent (LVMT - Laboratoire Ville, Mobilité, Transport - IFSTTAR - Institut Français des Sciences et Technologies des Transports, de l'Aménagement et des Réseaux - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech) |
| Abstract: | Shared Scooter Services (S3) have been deployed in many cities to provide public transport to individual users on a free-floating basis. The article brings about an analytical traffic model for such service under ring shape, i.e. postulating there is a ring road along which the scooters are required to park and expected to be driven, in order to avoid detours and increase vehicle productivity as well as local availability to potential users. Opportunistic Riding is also postulated: on their way, every user takes the first available vehicle which they encounter. Also postulated are the homogeneity in both space and time. With respect to the ring circumference, the daily volume of potential trips, the statistical distributions of trip lengths, walk speeds an ride speeds, as well as the fleet size, operation period and transaction times, analytical formulas are provided for (i) access lengths and times, together with usage probability, (ii) ride lengths and times, (iii) vehicle occupation at the fleet level, (iv) the average number of available vehicles. Traffic equilibrium is shown to exist and to be unique. Its characteristic equation is recast as a fleet sizing rule according to demand volume and target access length, which stand respectively as the quantitative and qualitative service objectives. |
| Keywords: | shared mobility services,free-floating scooters,vehicle occupation,fleet sizing,stochastic model,traffic equilibrium |
| Date: | 2021–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03213262&r= |
| By: | Peydró, José Luis; Rodriguez Tous, Francesc; Tripathy, Jagdish; Uluc, Arzu |
| Abstract: | Macroprudential regulators worldwide have introduced regulations to limit household leverage in light of existing evidence which suggests that high leverage is associated with household distress during crisis. We analyse the distributional effects of such a macroprudential policy on mortgage and house price cycles. For identification, we exploit the universe of UK mortgages and a 15%-limit imposed in 2014 on lenders-not households-for high loan-to-income ratio (LTI) mortgages. Despite some regulatory arbitrage (e.g. increases in LTV and average loan size), more-constrained lenders issue fewer high-LTI mortgages. Partial substitution by less-constrained lenders leads to overall credit contraction to low-income borrowers in local-areas more exposed to constrained-lenders, lowering house price growth. Following the Brexit referendum (which led to house-price correction), the 2014-policy strongly implies-via lower pre-correction debt-better house prices and mortgage defaults during an episode of house price correction. |
| Keywords: | Credit cycles; House Prices; inequality; macroprudential policy; Mortgages |
| JEL: | E5 G01 G21 G28 G51 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15275&r= |
| By: | Lars E.O. Svensson |
| Abstract: | The “debt-overhang hypothesis” – that households cut back more on their spending in a crisis when they have higher levels of outstanding mortgage debt (Dynan, 2012) – seems to be taken for granted by macroprudential authorities in several countries in their policy decisions, as well as by the international organizations that evaluate and comment on countries’ macroprudential policy. Results are presented for UK microdata that reject the debt-overhang hypothesis. The results instead support the “spending-normalization hypothesis” of Andersen, Duus, and Jensen (2016a), what can also be called the “debt-financed overspending” hypothesis – that the correlation between high pre-crisis household indebtedness and subsequent spending cuts during the crisis reflects high debt-financed spending pre-crisis and a return to normal spending during the crisis. As discussed in Svensson (2019, 2020), this is consistent with the correlation reflecting debt-financed overspending through what Muellbauer (2012) calls the “housing-collateral household demand” and Mian and Sufi (2018) the “debt-driven household demand” channel. The correlation is thus spurious and an example of omitted-variable bias. A simple model shows that consumption and debt changes are directly and strongly positively correlated, whereas consumption and debt levels are quite weakly negatively correlated. Importantly, and in contrast, examples show that there is no systematic relation between consumption cuts and levels of or changes in LTV ratios. The lack of a robust relation between consumption cuts and levels of or changes in LTV ratios implies that tests of these hypotheses should generally not be done by regressions of consumption cuts on levels of or changes in LTV ratios. |
| JEL: | E21 G01 G18 G21 R21 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28806&r= |
| By: | Rebolloso McCullough, Sarah PhD |
| Abstract: | Transportation agencies are recognizing the importance of undertaking robust public engagement, especially with historically disadvantaged communities. Many of these communities have been subject to redlining, division and demolition from highway construction or redevelopment efforts, and other forms of institutional discrimination perpetuated by civic agencies, including transportation departments. This history has fostered distrust, which makes current public engagement efforts challenging. This challenge is exacerbated by a lack of networks that might aid transportation practitioners in connecting with local residents. |
| Keywords: | Social and Behavioral Sciences |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt3vt6z7ps&r= |
| By: | Ryosuke Moriyasu (Keio Economic Observatory, Keio University) |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the role of information for university enrollment. We examine whether information on university enrollment positively influences the desire to advance on to higher education among Japanese high school students. The analysis is based on a clusterrandomized controlled trial. It is considered that this paper conducts the first verification in Japan using a randomized controlled trial targeting schools from an economic perspective. We randomly assigned 1st-year students of a certain Japanese local high school into three groups. The first treatment group was provided with information on the Returns to higher education, the second treatment group was provided with the Costs to higher education, and the remaining one is the control group that was provided with information unrelated to education. As a result, due to the small sample size, the providing information did not have a significant effect on the desire to advance on to university. However, it was found that their willingness to study increases. This suggests that human capital investment behavior should be promoted. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education, Information, Perceived Returns, Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trials |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J24 |
| Date: | 2021–04–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:keo:dpaper:2021-008&r= |
| By: | Galecka-Burdziak, Ewa (Warsaw School of Economics); Góra, Marek (Warsaw School of Economics); Jessen, Jonas (DIW Berlin); Jessen, Robin (RWI); Kluve, Jochen (KfW Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper quantifies labour market effects of changes in the potential benefit duration (PBD). The empirical approach uses a particular unemployment insurance set-up from Poland that generates two sources of identifying variation: individual workers' PBD depends directly on the county unemployment rate relative to the national average—12 months of PBD above a cut-off of 125 per cent and 6 months below. In addition, this cut-off shifted from 125 to 150 per cent in a 2009 reform. We use i) the natural experiment generated by this reform, and ii) the sharp discontinuity generated by the cut-offs to estimate effects of shortening PBD on exit from benefit receipt, exit from unemployment, and entry into employment. The analysis is based on administrative data covering unemployment spells for prime age workers during the years 2006-2018. A one-month shorter PBD decreases average benefit duration by 0.5 months and average unemployment duration by 0.4 months. The PBD reduction by six months increased the job finding rate within the first 9 months by 6 percentage points. Using the stock of unemployed per county, we find evidence for positive market-level employment effects. |
| Keywords: | unemployment benefits, extended benefits, spell duration |
| JEL: | H55 J20 J65 |
| Date: | 2021–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14340&r= |
| By: | Johan Fourie; Jonathan Jayes |
| Abstract: | The 1918 influenza – the Spanish flu – killed an estimated 6% of South Africans. Not all were equally affected. Mortality rates were particularly high in districts with a large share of black and coloured residents. To investigate why this happened, we transcribed 39,482 death certiï¬ cates from the Cape Province. Using a novel indicator – whether a doctor’s name appears on the death certiï¬ cate – we argue that the unequal health outcomes were a consequence of unequal access to healthcare. Our results show that the racial inequalities in health outcomes that existed before October 1918 were exacerbated during the pandemic. Access to healthcare, as we expected, worsened for black and coloured residents of the Cape Province. Unexpectedly, however, we found that other inequalities were unchanged, or even reversed, notably age, occupation and location. Living in the city, for instance, became a health hazard rather than a beneï¬ t during the pandemic. These surprising results contradict the general assumption that all forms of inequality are exacerbated during a crisis. Our analyses suggest explanations for the widening racial gap in healthcare access during the 1918 pandemic, from both the demand and the supply side. We could ï¬ nd, however, no evidence of racial prejudice. Our ï¬ ndings conï¬ rm the importance of taking race into account in studying the effects of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic or other world crises. |
| Keywords: | Spanish flu, health care, inequality, Healthcare, influenza, pandemic |
| JEL: | I14 N37 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:852&r= |
| By: | Martin Carree (Maastricht University [Maastricht]); Marcus Dejardin (UNamur - Université de Namur [Namur], UCL - Université Catholique de Louvain) |
| Abstract: | Firm entry and exit flows in the retailing and consumer services may be viewed as market equilibrating processes. Local markets with considerable market room and high unemployment may be thought of having high subsequent entry rates and possibly low exit rates. We examine this relationship and obtain empirical results for a range of industries in 563 Belgian municipalities. We show that, over a three-year period, (net) entry is positively affected by the presence of local 'market room'. We find a significant 'unemployment push' effect on entry in some industries, but also a significantly positive effect of unemployment on exit. This pattern possibly indicates a 'revolving door regime' in areas marked by unemployment where new entrants leave the market relatively soon after entry, or only crowd out local competitors without creating additional employment. |
| Keywords: | entry,exit,entrepreneurship,unemployment,local development |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03220690&r= |
| By: | Baruah, Neeraj; Henderson, Vernon; Peng, Cong |
| Abstract: | Institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure and conditions under which 100's of millions of people live in Sub-Saharan African cities. In a sample of 318 cities, Francophone cities have more compact development than Anglophone, overall, in older colonial sections, and at clear extensive margins long after the colonial era. Compactness covers intensity of land use, gridiron road structures, and leapfrogging of new developments. Why the difference? Under British indirect and dual mandate rule, colonial and native sections developed without coordination. In contrast, integrated city planning and land allocation were featured in French direct rule. These differences in planning traditions persist. |
| Keywords: | Africa; Colonialism; Persistence; Sprawl; urban planning |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15327&r= |
| By: | Danisewicz, Piotr; Ongena, Steven |
| Abstract: | Can local government spending spur entrepreneurial activity? To answer this question we study Poland where municipalities with lower tax revenues receive direct monetary grants from the national budget that vary at multiple pre-determined and non-manipulable thresholds. Employing a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, we find a positive impact of fiscal transfers on the number of firms, especially sole proprietorships and small firms. The impact is stronger in municipalities where the opposition is more involved in the legislative process or more parties are represented in the municipal council, and in regions where historical legacies shaped a more positive attitude towards entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | "Fuzzy" Regression Disconti-nuity Design; entrepreneurship; Fiscal Transfers; Local government spending |
| JEL: | E62 H71 H72 L26 P16 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15384&r= |
| By: | René Böheim; Michael Christl |
| Abstract: | During the last decade, the Austrian labour market experienced a substantial outward shift of the Beveridge curve. Using detailed administrative data on vacancies and registered unemployed by region and skill level, we test which factors caused this shift. We find that the Beveridge curve shifted primarily because mismatch increased substantially. Looking on the regional and skill dimension of mismatch unemployment, we find a substantial increase of mismatch unemployment for manual routine tasks as well as for the region of Vienna. |
| Keywords: | beveridge curve, unemployment, matching efficiency |
| JEL: | J21 J64 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9080&r= |
| By: | Michele Costa; Flavio Delbono; Francesco Linguiti |
| Abstract: | Our main objective is exploring the association between widespread prosperity and the presence of the cooperative movement at the regional level in Italy between 2010 and 2019. We summarize the widespread prosperity through an index originally proposed by Sen (1976) and we then perform a panel regression showing that there is a positive and significant association between such an index and the presence of the cooperative movement as captured by the relative size of cooperative employees. We also detect that the cooperative movement contributes to the regional prosperity more through its employment than in terms of the added value it generates. Moreover, the size of the cooperative presence significantly concurs to explain some large differentials among Italian regions. |
| JEL: | I31 J54 |
| Date: | 2021–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp1161&r= |
| By: | Kristin Hallgren; Daniel Welsh; Ashley Hong |
| Abstract: | This assessment is designed to help community partnerships take a closer look at their areas of strength and areas where they can go deeper to effect place-based systems change. |
| Keywords: | place-based systems change, partnership, P-16 initiative, community, equity |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:404e0da51cb544a388e75d053793651a&r= |
| By: | Jean Hindriks; Leonardo Madio; Valerio Serse |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of the Belgium lockdown on retail prices using a unique dataset tracking daily prices and promotions for various products in different stores and retail chains. Two distinctive features of our analysis are the ban on promotions during the first two weeks of the lockdown, and the presence of local pricing retail chains (LP) competing with uniform (national) pricing retail chains (UP). We decompose the price changes into the regular price, the frequency, and the size of promotions. The sale price (i.e., the price paid by consumer purchasing on “sale”) increased by 7% within two weeks and by 2.5% within three months. We then provide an heterogeneity analysis of the regular price variation across stores, retailers, products, and over time. We show that LP chains reacted the most to the lockdown with spatial heterogeneity. The heterogeneity in price response also suggests that the price increase was not driven by cost inflation. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, pricing, lockdown, retailers |
| JEL: | D22 E30 E31 L11 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9074&r= |
| By: | Meg Long; Wanda Casillas; James Liou |
| Abstract: | This tool is intended to help funders who have elected to invest in place-based systems change efforts better match communities’ current and future assets and needs based on their developmental phase and learn how to work more collaboratively with the communities they serve. |
| Keywords: | education, place-based systems change, funder, ecocycle model, community |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpr:mprres:3c50c05ec2304a24aedad4e428628eb1&r= |
| By: | Colas, Mark; Sachs, Dominik |
| Abstract: | Low-skilled immigrants indirectly affect public finances through their effect on native wages & labor supply. We operationalize this general-equilibrium effect in the workhorse labor market model with heterogeneous workers and intensive and extensive labor supply margins. We derive a closed-form expression for this effect in terms of estimable statistics. We extend the analysis to various alternative specifications of the labor market and production that have been emphasized in the immigration literature. Empirical quantifications for the U.S. reveal that the indirect fiscal benefit of one low-skilled immigrant lies between $770 and $2,100 annually. The indirect fiscal benefit may outweigh the negative direct fiscal effect that has previously been documented. This challenges the perception of low-skilled immigration as a fiscal burden. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal Impact; General Equilibrium; Immigration |
| JEL: | H20 J31 J62 J68 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15325&r= |
| By: | Khashabi, Pooyan; Kretschmer, Tobias; Mohammadi, Ali; Raffiee, Joseph |
| Abstract: | Cognitive ability and intelligence have been highlighted as the primary personnel measures used for hiring decisions, and gurus and popular business outlets consistently recommend that managers hire people smarter than themselves. However, the sustainability of such hiring strategies with respect to employee retention has not been fully investigated, largely due to data constraints. In this research note, we examine the relationship between cognitive ability and employee mobility, taking advantage of unique microdata from Sweden. Our empirical results show that higher cognitive ability is negatively associated with turnover, implying that cognitively-gifted employees settle with better employment options internally, compared to the external labor market. Nevertheless, when the employee has a significantly higher cognitive ability than their manager , employees are more likely to the firm. The results shed light on the relationship between cognitive ability and mobility, and highlight the role of managers for the success of hiring strategies based on cognitive ability. |
| Keywords: | cognitive ability; cognitive distance; employee mobility; Managers; retention |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15265&r= |
| By: | Silvia de Almeida; Joao Firmino; Jose Mesquita; Maria Joao Hortas; Luis Catela Nunes |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the territorial distribution of students with an immigrant background enrolled in the 3rd cycle of basic education in Portugal and on the differences in the academic performance of students enrolled in the last year of this cycle based on their birthplace and immigrant background when compared to their native peers in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. These differences are examined by estimating several linear regression models using as dependent variable three performance indicators – student’s results in the 9th grade national exams in the Maths and Portuguese Language subjects, as well as a binary indicator of a successful academic record during the 3rd cycle. The observed results confirm the hypothesis that there are significant differences in the students’ academic performance depending on their immigrant background and birthplace: (i) 2nd-generation and 1st-generation students perform worse than Native students; (ii) students from Brazil and PALOP countries have the most significant differences compared to students from Portugal. We also identify that a substantial part of these differences is already present in the end of the 2nd cycle of basic education. Furthermore, our results indicate that a considerable part of the differences is explained by factors inherent to the school and the class of the student, and not so much to the municipality, which might indicate the existence of some type of segregation experienced by these students, either at intra-municipality level (by the different schools) or intra-school level (by the different classes). |
| Keywords: | Students with an immigrant background, academic results, Lisbon Metropolitan Area |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:unlfep:wp638&r= |
| By: | Bonfatti, Roberto; Gu, Yuan; Poelhekke, Steven |
| Abstract: | Africa's interior-to-coast roads are well placed to export natural resources, but not to support regional trade. Are they the optimal response to geography and comparative advantage, or the result of suboptimal political distortions? We investigate the political determinants of road paving in West Africa in 1965-2014. Controlling for geography and comparative advantage, we find that autocracies focused more than democracies on connecting metal and mineral deposits to ports, resulting in more interior-to-coast networks. This deposit-to-port bias was only present for deposits located on the elite's ethnic homeland, suggesting that Africa's interior-to-coast roads were the result of ethnic favoritism by autocracies. |
| Keywords: | democracy; Development; infrastructure; Natural resources; political economy |
| JEL: | D72 H54 O18 P16 P26 Q32 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15354&r= |