|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Jeffrey P. Cohen; Cletus C. Coughlin; Jonas Crews; Stephen L. Ross |
| Abstract: | A busy airport’s closure has large effects on noise, real estate markets, and neighborhood demographics. Using a unique dataset, we examine the effects of closing Denver’s Stapleton Airport on nearby housing markets. We find evidence of immediate anticipatory price effects upon announcement, but no price changes at closing and little evidence of upward trending prices between announcement and closing. However, after the airport closure, more higher-income and fewer black households moved in, and developers built higher quality houses. Finally, post-closing, these demographic and housing stock changes had substantial housing price effects, even after restricting the sample to pre-existing housing sales. |
| JEL: | G14 R21 R31 R41 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29385&r= |
| By: | Daminger, Alexander; Dascher, Kristof |
| Abstract: | Subsidizing homeownership makes cities decentralize, so Muth (1967) suggested over half a century ago, and so Voith (1999) and Glaeser (2011) have argued more recently. This paper provides a first quasi-experimental test of "Muth's hypothesis". We analyze a homeownership subsidy's effects on urban form, by turning to Germany's 2005 subsidy repeal. Because housing in the city center was predominantly rental, prospective owner-occupiers needed to move to the city periphery. We are able to identify the subsidy's effect on decentralization because we capitalize on the subsidy's variation both in timing and design. We find that repealing the subsidy did contribute to recentralizing Germany's cities. This highlights the decentralizing role of the original homeownership subsidy. Inasmuch decentralization begets greater carbon dioxide emissions, encouraging homeownership is at cross-purposes with mitigating global warming. |
| Keywords: | Homeownership Subsidy,Subsidy Repeal,Housing Recentralization,Global Warming,Suburban Land Use |
| JEL: | R12 D72 R52 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242367&r= |
| By: | Fabien Moizeau (CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR1 - Université de Rennes 1 - UNIV-RENNES - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Carl Gaigné (CREATE - ULaval - Université Laval [Québec]); Hans Koster (HSE - Higher School of Economics [Perm] - MAI - National research university, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Jacques-François Thisse (HSE - Higher School of Economics [Perm] - MAI - National research university, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We develop a new model of a "featureful" city in which locations are di¤erentiated by two attributes, that is, the distance to employment centers and the accessibility to given amenities. The residential equilibrium involves the spatial separation of households sharing similar incomes. Under Stone-Geary preferences, amenities and commuting are subsumed into a location-quality index. Hence, the assignment of households to locations becomes one-dimensional. Since residential choices are driven by the location-quality index, the income mapping may be fully characterized. Using a rich micro-dataset on the Netherlands, we show that household income sorting is indeed driven by amenities and commuting times. |
| Keywords: | cities,Social stratification and inequality,income,amenities,Commuting costs |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03379541&r= |
| By: | Giulia Bovini (Bank of Italy); Paolo Sestito (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines territorial gaps in achievement among Italian students and explores the various determinants at the individual, family, school and local level. The analysis relies on microdata from the INVALSI standardized tests that took place in 2018/19 and from questionnaires distributed to students and to a sample of school principals and teachers. The paper shows that, while in primary schools, children from the Centre and North and from the South of Italy perform similarly, marked gaps in disfavour of the latter area emerge in secondary school. Furthermore, in the South of Italy, the differences between schools and classes tend to be larger in primary and lower secondary school, and test scores are more dispersed in some subjects (also in terms of value added); these facts point to the existence of more pronounced inequalities in that macro-area. Families’ socio-economic conditions, which are on average less favourable in the South, cannot fully account for the differences in average test scores, and neither can the differences in the observable characteristics of pupils, schools, teachers and school principals. The characteristics of the local context where children grow up appear to play a role as well. |
| Keywords: | skills, regional gaps, achievement production function |
| JEL: | I20 R10 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_645_21&r= |
| By: | Kindermann, Fabian; Le Blanc, Julia; Piazzesi, Monika; Schneider, Martin |
| JEL: | D83 G51 R21 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242386&r= |
| By: | Presler, Jonathan (Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University) |
| Abstract: | Using daily lunch transaction data from NYC public schools, I determine which students frequently stand next to one another in the lunch line. I use this `revealed' friendship network to estimate academic peer effects in elementary school classrooms, improving on previous work by defining not only where social connections exist, but the relative strength of these connections. Equally weighting all peers in a reference group assumes that all peers are equally important and may bias estimates by underweighting important peers and overweighting unimportant peers. I find that students who eat together are important influencers of one another's academic performance, with stronger effects in math than in reading. Further exploration of the mechanisms supports my claim that these are friendship networks. I also compare the influence of friends from different periods in the school year and find that connections occurring around standardized testing dates are most influential on test scores. |
| Keywords: | Peer effect; network; education; lunch line |
| JEL: | C31 I21 |
| Date: | 2021–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sluecr:2021_002&r= |
| By: | Oguzhan Cepni (Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics, Porcelænshaven 16A, Frederiksberg DK-2000, Denmark); Hardik A. Marfatia (Department of Economics, Northeastern Illinois University, 5500 N St Louis Ave, BBH 344G, Chicago, IL 60625, USA); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa) |
| Abstract: | The housing markets in districts across the United Kingdom (UK) co-move over time. We use the dynamic factor model to decompose the co-movement in house prices of the smallest possible geographical unit into national, regional, and idiosyncratic factors. Using the Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) model, we study the dynamic impact of uncertainty shocks on the synchronization in housing markets. We find that the estimated national factor accurately tracks the overall housing market cycles in the UK and explains nearly all the variations in East, SouthEast, and SouthWest districts. Furthermore, the results from TVP-VAR indicate that the estimated response of the national factor to uncertainty shocks is negative. However, the magnitude of the effect is more pronounced and persists longer in the case of housing price uncertainty shocks compared to overall economic uncertainty. Overall, our results suggest that uncertainty about house prices is a primary driver of the national factor. |
| Keywords: | Uncertainty Shocks, Macroeconomic Shocks, Housing Prices, Regional Markets, the United Kingdom |
| JEL: | C32 D8 E30 E40 R31 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:202168&r= |
| By: | Clémence Tricaud (UCLA Anderson School of Management, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, LIEPP - Laboratoire interdisciplinaire d'évaluation des politiques publiques [Sciences Po] - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on why municipalities are often reluctant to integrate. Exploiting a French reform that made intermunicipal cooperation mandatory, I find that urban municipalities forced to integrate experienced a large increase in construction, consistent with NIMBYism explaining their resistance, while rural municipalities ended up with fewer local public services. I do not find the same effects for municipalities that had voluntarily integrated prior to the law, while both types of municipality enjoyed similar benefits in terms of public transport and fiscal revenues. These findings support the fact that municipalities resisted to avoid the local costs of integration. |
| Keywords: | Local governments,Intermunicipal cooperation,Difference-in-differences,Housing regulations,Local public services |
| Date: | 2021–10–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03380333&r= |
| By: | Ni, Shawn (University of Missouri); Podgursky, Michael (Sinquefield Center for Applied Economic Research, Saint Louis University); Wang, Xiqan (Beijing University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Many states enhanced benefits in teacher retirement plans during the 1990s. This paper examines the school staffing effects of one such enhancement in a major urban school district with mostly high poverty schools. Pension rule changes in 1999 for St. Louis public school teachers resulted in large increases in pension wealth for active teachers, as well as a powerful increase in “push” incentives for earlier retirement. Simple descriptive statistics on retirement patterns before and after the enhancements suggest much earlier retirement resulted. Shorter teaching spells imply a steady state with more teacher turnover and a larger share of novice teachers in classrooms. To better understand the long run effects of these changes and alternatives policies, the authors estimate a structural model of teacher retirement. Simulations of retirement behavior for representative senior teachers point to shorter completed teaching spells and earlier retirement age as a result of the enhancements. By contrast, moving from the post-1999 to a DC-type plan would extend the teaching career of a representative senior teacher by roughly two years. |
| Keywords: | Teacher pensions; teacher compensation; state and local pension finance |
| JEL: | H72 J26 J32 |
| Date: | 2021–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:sluecr:2021_001&r= |
| By: | Frédéric Dobruszkes; Amparo Moyano |
| Abstract: | This chapter first investigates the geography of actual rail transport worldwide. In doing so, we set up a typology based upon network- and traffic-related indicators per country, with special attention paid to the distinction between passenger and freight traffic. Then the chap-ter covers the factors that explain the geography of infrastructures and traffic, taking into account historic factors that may have come into play a long time ago, given that many actu-al lines were built a considerable time ago. As the chapter elucidates, rail transport is shaped by physical geography, geo-economic factors, the shape of urban systems, intermodal com-petition in line with distances, railways logics, and the importance of network effects and political factors. |
| Keywords: | Rail transport geography; Railways; High-speed lines; Rail infrastructure; Rail traffic; Rail network; Transport history; Transport planning; Intermodal competition; Urban systems |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/333204&r= |
| By: | Daniel L. Greenwald; Adam Guren |
| Abstract: | To what extent did an expansion and contraction of credit drive the 2000s housing boom and bust? The existing literature lacks consensus, with findings ranging from credit having no effect to credit driving most of the house price cycle. We show that the key difference behind these disparate results is the extent to which credit insensitive agents such as landlords and unconstrained savers absorb credit-driven demand, which depends on the degree of segmentation in housing markets. We develop a model with frictional rental markets that allows us to consider cases in between the extremes of no segmentation and perfect segmentation typically assumed in the literature. We argue that the relative elasticities of the price-rent ratio and homeownership with respect to an identified credit shock is a sufficient statistic to measure the degree of segmentation. We estimate this moment using three different credit supply instruments and use it to calibrate our model. Our results reveal that rental markets are highly frictional and closer to fully segmented, which implies large effects of credit on house prices. In particular, changes to credit standards can explain between 34% and 55% of the rise in price-rent ratios over the boom. |
| JEL: | E3 G51 R31 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29391&r= |
| By: | Jingwen Tan (School of Economics, Henan University); Shixi Kang (School of Economics, Henan University) |
| Abstract: | Push-pull theory, one of the most important macro theories in demography, argues that population migration is driven by a combination of push (repulsive) forces at the place of emigration and pull (attractive) forces at the place of emigration. Based on the push-pull theory, this paper shows another practical perspective of the theory by measuring the reverse push and pull forces from the perspective of housing property rights. We use OLS and sequential Probit models to analyze the impact of urban and rural property rights factors on the social integration of the migrant population-based, on "China Migrants' Dynamic Survey". We found that after controlling for personal and urban characteristics, there is a significant negative effect of rural property rights (homestead) ownership of the mobile population on their socio-economic integration, and cultural and psychological integration in the inflow area. The effect of urban house price on social integration of the migrant population is consistent with the "inverted U-shaped" nonlinear assumption: when the house price to income ratio of the migrant population in the inflow area increases beyond the inflection point, its social integration level decreases. That is, there is an inverse push force and pull force mechanism of housing property rights on population mobility. |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2110.12394&r= |
| By: | Jeffrey P. Cohen; Felix L. Friedt; Jackson P. Lautier |
| Abstract: | Concerns about the lingering novel Coronavirus may have led to long-term structural change in desired dwelling locations in some large U.S. cities, such as New York City. Densely concentrated neighborhoods may be at higher risk of virus contagion, giving more individuals incentives to move out. We investigate whether this pandemic-induced disamenity adversely affected real estate prices of one- or two-family owner-occupied properties across New York City. First, OLS hedonic results indicate that greater COVID case numbers are concentrated in neighborhoods with lower-valued properties. Second, we use a repeat-sales approach for the period 2003 to 2020, and we find that both the fear of contagion and pandemic-induced income effects adversely impacted home sale prices. Estimates suggest sale prices fell by roughly $60,000 or around 8% in response to both of the following: 1,000 additional infections per 100,000 residents; and a 10-percentage point increase in unemployment in a given MODZCTA. These price effects were more pronounced during the second wave of infections. Based on cumulative MODZCTA infection rates through 2020, the estimated COVID-19 price discount ranged from approximately 1% to 50% in the most affected neighborhoods, and averaged 14%. Interestingly, the fear of contagion effect intensified in the more affluent, but less densely populated NYC neighborhoods, while the income effect was more pronounced in the most densely populated neighborhoods with more rental properties and greater population shares of foreign-born residents. This disparity implies the pandemic led to inequality between homeowners in lower-priced and higher-priced neighborhoods. |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2110.12050&r= |
| By: | Luigi Buzzacchi (Politecnico di Torino); Antonio De Marco (Politecnico di Torino); Marcello Pagnini (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers novel evidence on agglomeration economies by examining the link between total factor productivity (TFP) and employment density in Italy. TFP is estimated for a large sample of manufacturing firms and then aggregated at the level of Local Labor Market Areas (LLMAs). We tackle the endogeneity issues stemming from the presence of omitted covariates and reverse causation with an instrumental variable (IV) approach that relies on his-torical and geological data. Our estimate of the TFP elasticity with respect to the spatial con-centration of economic activities is about 6%, a magnitude comparable to that measured for other developed countries. We find that the TFP-density nexus contributes to explaining a large share of the substantial productivity gap between the northern and southern regions of Italy. We also show that no significant heterogeneity emerges in the intensity of agglomera-tion economies across the country and that the positive TFP difference in favor of the firms located in the North is not due to the tougher competition taking place in those areas. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies, density, total factor productivity, regional disparities, selection effects |
| JEL: | R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_637_21&r= |
| By: | Robert J. Hill (Department of Economics, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria); Alicia N. Rambaldi (School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia) |
| Abstract: | We survey some recent developments in the literature on hedonic price indices for housing. The main classes of hedonic methods are presented along with some new methods that have become popular recently. A number of new approaches are then considered for controlling for location in hedonic models. Next we consider how hedonic models can be used to construct separate price indices for land and structures. Significant progress has been made recently in this field. The survey concludes with a discussion of ways of computing higher frequency (e.g., weekly) hedonic price indices, and ways of deriving house price indices for the whole housing stock, as opposed to just those properties that have traded recently. |
| Keywords: | Adoption of hedonic indices; Controlling for location; Land and structure indices; Higher frequency indices |
| JEL: | C31 C43 E01 E31 E52 R31 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uqcepa:169&r= |
| By: | Araujo P., María Daniela; Heineck, Guido; Cruz-Aguayo, Yyannú |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I25 I28 J45 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242448&r= |
| By: | Hvidman, Charlotte; Koch, Alexander; Nafziger, Julia; Albeck Nielsen, Søren; Rosholm, Michael |
| JEL: | I21 C21 D91 I28 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242333&r= |
| By: | Grewenig, Elisabeth; Lergetporer, Philipp; Werner, Katharina; Wößmann, Ludger; Zierow, Larissa |
| JEL: | I24 J62 D30 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242390&r= |
| By: | Pauline Givord (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)) |
| Abstract: | This study provides new empirical evidence of birthday effects over a range of educational and socioemotional outcomes. It relies on data from the recent cycles of the Program for International School Assessment (PISA) for six European countries. Age at entry has a significant and sizeable impact on cognitive outcomes for 15-year-old students as measured in PISA. The magnitude of the birthday effects on socioemotional skills varies, but overall the results suggest that those students who enter school relatively younger have more negative relationships with their teachers and peers at school. These students also have lower intrinsic motivation and self-esteem and have less ambitious educational expectations than their peers who entered school older. |
| Keywords: | Birthday effects,PISA,Instrumental variables,socioemotional outcomes |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03386582&r= |
| By: | Sandner, Malte; Anger, Silke; Dietrich, Hans; Bernhard, Sarah; Patzina, Alexander |
| JEL: | I24 I14 I31 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242462&r= |
| By: | Darren Aiello; Asaf Bernstein; Mahyar Kargar; Ryan Lewis; Michael Schwert |
| Abstract: | U.S. state pensions are underfunded by trillions of dollars, but their economic burden is unclear. In a model of inefficient taxation, real estate fully reflects the cost of pension shortfalls when it is the only form of immobile capital. We study the effect of pension shortfalls on real estate values at state borders, where labor and physical capital could more easily relocate to a state with a smaller shortfall. Using plausibly exogenous variation driven by pension asset returns, we find that one dollar of pension underfunding reduces house prices near state borders by approximately two dollars. Our estimates imply a deadweight loss associated with addressing pension shortfalls that is consistent with prior research in settings with high returns to public spending and costs of taxation. |
| JEL: | H41 H55 H74 R30 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29405&r= |
| By: | Olof Ejermo; Katrin Hussinger (Dep. of Economics and Business Administration - Maastricht University [Maastricht]); Basheer Kalash; Torben Schubert (Fraunhofer ISI - Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research - Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft - Fraunhofer) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effect of the Öresund Bridge, a combined railway and motorway bridge between Swedish Malmö and the Danish capital Copenhagen, on inventive activity in the region of Malmö. Applying difference-in-difference estimation on individual-level data, our findings suggest that the Öresund Bridge led to a significant increase in the number of patents per individual in the Malmö region as compared to the two other major regions in Sweden, Gothenburg and Stockholm. We show that a key mechanism is the attraction of highly qualified workers to the Malmö region following the construction of the bridge. |
| Keywords: | Transportation infrastructure,innovation,Öresund Bridge,cross-border regions,patents,inventors,agglomeration effects |
| Date: | 2021–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03389164&r= |
| By: | Giovanna D'Inverno; Wim Moesen; Kristof De Witte |
| Abstract: | Although the local provision of public goods accommodates better to the heterogeneous local preferences and mitigates the fiscal illusion problem, it comes at the cost of potential diseconomies of scale. This paper examines the relationship between municipal size and local service level provision by applying state-of-the-art non-parametric techniques to a unique panel dataset of Flemish data. We measure the service provision level by using an innovative robust conditional ‘Benefit of the Doubt’ model and we estimate its efficiency in relationship with the local expenditures by means of a robust conditional Data Envelopment Analysis model. Overall, the main findings suggest the presence of diseconomies of scale, and provide weak evidence on an optimal size of local public good provision of around 10,000 citizens. |
| Keywords: | Efficiency analysis; Municipal mergers; Municipal expenditure; Local governments; Composite indicator |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:leerwp:657314&r= |
| By: | Giovanna D'Inverno; Kristof De Witte |
| Abstract: | With increasing decentralization of public activities to the municipalities, it has become imperative to deploy an enhanced service provision analysis at the local level. This paper suggests the innovative use of a composite indicator to measure the multidimensional aspects of the local public provision comprising of several commonly administered municipal tasks. We propose a robust conditional version of a directional distance composite indicator with weight restrictions based on the municipal expenditure composition. Specifically, we deal with the presence of “undesirable” municipal service indicators and with the heterogeneity among the municipalities in their political preferences, priority public activities and operating environment characteristics. To illustrate the applicability of the suggested method, we show the construction of the municipal service provision composite indicator for 307 Flemish municipalities over the year 2006–2011. |
| Keywords: | Data envelopment analysis, Composite indicator, Weight restrictions, Undesirable indicators, Local governments |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:leerwp:656607&r= |
| By: | Cherbonnier, Frédéric; Lévêque, Christophe |
| Abstract: | Competition can theoretically counter or reinforce tendency of experts to pass biased information to customers. Using data from an online company connecting real estate brokers with clients who want to sell their properties, we show that more competition or lower opportunity to collude induce brokers to raise their ini- tial price estimation by more than 3%. This is observed upstream, when experts appraise the property for sale. Competition partially prevents brokers from biais- ing downward evaluations, and is benecial to the client since it translates into a positive eect on listing and sale prices with no signicant eect on the time to sale. |
| Keywords: | Information revelation; Competition; Price appraisal; Real Estate Bro-; kers; |
| JEL: | L15 D83 R30 L85 |
| Date: | 2021–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:126130&r= |
| By: | Moritz Kuhn; Iourii Manovskii; Xincheng Qiu |
| Abstract: | Spatial differences in labor market performance are large and highly persistent. Using data from the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, we document striking similarities in spatial differences in unemployment, vacancies, job finding, and job filling within each country. This robust set of facts guides and disciplines the development of a theory of local labor market performance. We find that a spatial version of a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides model with endogenous separations and on-the-job search quantitatively accounts for all the documented empirical regularities. The model also quantitatively rationalizes why differences in job-separation rates have primary importance in inducing differences in unemployment across space while changes in the job-finding rate are the main driver in unemployment fluctuations over the business cycle. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 J64 R13 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29399&r= |
| By: | Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln; Dirk Krueger; André Kurmann; Etienne Lalé; Alexander Ludwig; Irina Popova |
| Abstract: | Using a structural life-cycle model and data on school visits from Safegraph and school closures from Burbio, we quantify the heterogeneous impact of school closures during the Corona crisis on children affected at different ages and coming from households with different parental characteristics. Our data suggests that secondary schools were closed for in-person learning for longer periods than elementary schools (implying that younger children experienced less school closures than older children), and that private schools experienced shorter closures than public schools, and schools in poorer U.S. counties experienced shorter school closures. We then extend the structural life cycle model of private and public schooling investments studied in Fuchs-Schuendeln, Krueger, Ludwig and Popova (2021) to include the choice of parents whether to send their children to private schools, empirically discipline it with data on parental investments from the PSID, and then feed into the model the school closure measures from our empirical analysis to quantify the long-run consequences of the Covid-19 school closures on the cohorts of children currently in school. Future earnings- and welfare losses are largest for children that started public secondary schools at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis. Comparing children from the top- to children from the bottom quartile of the income distribution, welfare losses are ca. 0.8 percentage points larger for the poorer children if school closures were unrelated to income. Accounting for the longer school closures in richer counties reduces this gap by about 1/3. A policy intervention that extends schools by 3 months (6 weeks in the next two summers) generates significant welfare gains for the children and raises future tax approximately sufficient to pay for the cost of this schooling expansion. |
| JEL: | E24 E62 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29398&r= |
| By: | Jessie Handbury; Sarah Moshary |
| Abstract: | We study the private market response to the National School Lunch Program, documenting economically meaningful spillovers to non-recipients. We focus on the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), an expansion of the lunch program under the 2010 Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Under the CEP, participating schools offer free lunch to all students. We leverage both the staggered roll-out and eligibility criterion for the CEP, which is limited to schools where at least 40% of students participate in other means-tested welfare programs. We find that local adoption of the CEP causes households with children to reduce their grocery purchases, leading to a 10% decline in grocery sales at large retail chains. Retailers respond with chain-level price adjustments: chains with the most exposure lower prices by 2.5% across all outlets in the years following adoption, so that the program's welfare benefits propagate spatially. Using a stylized model of grocery demand, we estimate that, by 2016, the indirect benefit had reduced grocery costs for the median household by approximately 4.5%. |
| JEL: | H42 I38 L11 R32 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29384&r= |
| By: | Subasi, Ozge; Kirkulak-Uludag, Berna |
| Abstract: | The growing importance of sharing economy brought criticism with it. Can a new emerging economy be more socially engaged? Given the emergence of local forms of sharing, the current study attempts to collide the authentic socially engaged forms of sharing in the form of platforms, services, and communities from Turkey. Despite intense public attention, there have been very few studies about landscapes of sharing and caring in Turkey. This gap needs to be addressed, as Turkey has great potential. Rapid urbanisation, accompanied by an increasingly young population, provides unique opportunities for scalable new services. In addition to this, there has been remarkable progress in Turkey’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in recent years. To that end, this study carried out a critical review and a thematic categorisation of sharing and caring platforms in Turkey. Based on a social model of sharing, the authors show the ecological, local, and regional values of such platforms. Key findings from the initial thematical mapping indicate regional and cultural potentials. The diversity in the monetary aspects of different platforms and how they relate to the cultural components also show the importance of a variety of assets for defining the value of sharing economy in diverse cultures. |
| Keywords: | Caring; Local Platforms; Sharing; Turkey |
| JEL: | L86 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110251&r= |
| By: | Sanghamitra Mukherjee |
| Abstract: | This work studies the role of socio-economic and geospatial factors in shaping battery electric vehicle adoption for the case study of Ireland. It provides new insights on the level and timing of likely adoption at scale using a Bass diffusion model combined with a spatial model. The Bass model demonstrates that a country like Ireland may experience peak sales between 2025 and 2030 given current trends, reaching overall uptake levels that are not commensurate with current policy goals, whilst also potentially creating gulfs in regional take-up. The key conclusion from the spatial analysis is that location matters for uptake, through various channels that help or hinder adoption such as resources, information, and policy. Additional investment in public charging infrastructure facilities may also be needed as gaps in coverage exist, especially in rural areas to the West and South-West of the country. Although Ireland enjoys good network coverage overall, this study suggests that more charge points may be needed in some counties and Dublin city and suburbia where the number of charge points is currently disproportionate to a minimum network coverage comparable with the land area, population size, number of private vehicle owners, and travel behaviour. As the urgency for climate action intensifies in the coming decade, our spatio-temporal approach to studying uptake will not only help meet Ireland’s socio-ecological vision for the future, but also provide insights and strategies for comparable countries that are similarly placed in terms of electric vehicle adoption. |
| Keywords: | Battery electric vehicle adoption; Spatial analysis; Consumer behaviour; Bass diffusion model; Ireland |
| JEL: | D1 D9 O3 Q4 |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:10197/12560&r= |
| By: | Toman Barsbai; Victoria Licuanan; Andreas Steinmayr; Erwin Tiongson; Dean Yang |
| Abstract: | We study a randomly-assigned program providing information on U.S. settlement for new Filipino immigrants. The intervention, a 2.5-hour pre-departure training and an accompanying paper handbook, has no effect on employment, settlement, and subjective wellbeing, but leads immigrants to acquire substantially fewer social network connections. We rationalize these findings with a simple model, showing that information and social network links are substitutes under reasonable assumptions. Consistent with the model, the treatment reduces social network links more when costs of acquiring network links are lower. Offsetting reductions in the acquisition of social network connections can hence reduce the effectiveness of information interventions. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant integration, social networks, imperfect information, multiple hypothesis testing |
| JEL: | D83 F22 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2021-30&r= |
| By: | Singhal, Puja; Hobbs, Andrew |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the long-term distribution of energy-efficiency outcomes in the German residential sector. To uncover the underlying energy efficiency of buildings, we estimate the causal response of building-level heat energy demand to variability in heating degree days. We examine heterogeneity in temperature response using both panel fixed-effects and causal forests. Our results suggest that the distribution of energy-efficiency is not equitable in the West of Germany, with buildings located in the South attaining the best energy performance standards. Although the housing stock in the East is significantly older and thus less subject to building standards, they perform better than the West counterpart, likely as a result of large investments in retrofitting post-reunification. Finally, we show that the regional distribution of energy-efficiency reflects differences in heating needs - thus, the poorer energy performance of buildings in the North-West should be weighed against the warmer climatic zone. |
| Keywords: | Heat Demand,Energy Efficiency,Targeting,Regional Distribution,Climate Change |
| JEL: | H23 Q52 Q48 Q54 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242343&r= |
| By: | Berns, Katie |
| Abstract: | This chapter reports on Sweden as an active and critical player within the European sharing economy. With a key focus on cities, Sweden has launched a national program, “Sharing Cities Sweden”—a strategic innovation program for smart and sustainable cities with an allocated budget of 12 million EUR over four years. The objectives of the program are to develop world-leading test-beds for the sharing economy in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, and Umeå, as well as develop a national node to significantly improve national and international cooperation and promote an exchange of experience on sharing cities. In the following pages, the sharing economy in Sweden is outlined, first, through exploring the definitions adopted by various actors and key questions to be addressed, and second, with the help of examples of existing collaborative economy platforms. The report concludes with a discussion on the collaborative economy in a Swedish context, forthcoming developments in the sector, and the associated issues and challenges. |
| Keywords: | Sharing Economy; Smart Cities; Sustainable Cities; Sweden |
| JEL: | L86 O18 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110248&r= |
| By: | Mkandawire, Dingase; Gbegbelegbe, Sika Dofonsou; Yami, Mastewal; Nsenga, Justus; Kenamu, Edwin; Manyong, Victor; Abdoulaye, Tahirou; Alene, Arega; Bamba, Zoumana |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2021–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae21:315214&r= |
| By: | Jonathan Chapman (New York University Abu Dhabi) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates whether high borrowing costs deterred investment in sanitation infrastructure in late nineteenth-century Britain. Town councils had to borrow to fund investment, with considerable variation in interest rates across towns and over time. Panel regressions, using annual data from over eight hundred town councils, indicate that higher interest rates were associated with lower levels of infrastructure investment between 1887 and 1903. Instrumental variable regressions show that falling interest rates after 1887 stimulated investment and led to lower infant mortality. These findings suggest that Parliament could have expedited mortality decline by subsidizing loans or facilitating private borrowing. |
| Keywords: | interest rates, public investment, sanitation, Britain, urban infrastructure, mortality decline |
| JEL: | N23 N33 N43 N93 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0218&r= |
| By: | Thokchom Asha Sinha |
| Abstract: | Teachers’ performance is the most crucial input in the field of education. The role of a teacher is so important in producing quality manpower and building better human resource development. The role of a teacher in the modern society is not an easy and smooth. There is no clear picture of how teachers can meet the social and emotional needs of students without taking on one of these other roles. When teachers assume a more active role in promoting the overall development of students, there is a potential for role confusions. Therefore, it is important for educators to discover ways to nurture developmental needs that do not compromise their primary academic responsibilities. Key Words: Economy, Higher education, Quality Manpower. |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vor:issues:2021-39-03&r= |
| By: | Bettega, Mela; Masu, Raul; Alves Pereira Diogo, Vera Lúcia |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we present an overview of the collaborative economy situation in Portugal. The chapter starts by presenting a number of local platforms and services. Overall, there seems to be a concern about the risk involved in the unregulated development of rental and mobility services. Therefore, we also highlight an overview of laws and regulations concerning the sharing economy platforms, especially for renting. This paper also presents issues related to rental platforms and touristification. We also present a list of the major local shared economy platforms and services. |
| Keywords: | Collaborative Economy; Regulation; Ride-Sharing; Right to the City; Touristification |
| JEL: | L86 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110243&r= |
| By: | Westbrock, Bastian; Rosenkranz, Stephanie; Rezaei, Sarah; Weitzel, Utz |
| JEL: | D85 C70 C91 H41 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242447&r= |
| By: | Arthur Guillouzouic--Le Corff; Emeric Henry (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Joan Monras (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UPF - Universitat Pompeu Fabra [Barcelona]) |
| Abstract: | Using French data, we provide: a) causal evidence that a drop in local public goods provision decreases private sector activity, and b) evidence consistent with monopsony power of the public sector in local labor markets. We introduce a public sector with these two key characteristics in an otherwise standard spatial equilibrium model, and show that it delivers the main stylized facts established in our data, in particular, that the share of the public sector relative to the private is independent of the productivity of the city. We emphasize the tradeoffs between allowing governments to freely choose local public employment and wages (as in most of the US public sector), versus imposing rules that constrain public sector pay with some indexation to the local cost of living (as in many European countries). We show that wage indexation limits monopsony power – leading to a larger public sector – and is optimal if the indexation is sufficiently strong. |
| Keywords: | Local public goods,Public service,Market power,Spatial economics |
| Date: | 2021–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03389155&r= |
| By: | John A. List; Julie Pernaudet; Dana Suskind |
| Abstract: | Socioeconomic inequalities in child development crystallize at early stages, with associated disparities in parental investment in children. A key to understanding the data patterns is to document the sources underlying the observed inequalities. We first show that there are dramatic differences in parental beliefs across socioeconomic backgrounds (SES), with parents of higher SES being more likely to believe that parental investments impact child development. We then use two field experiments targeted to low-SES families to explore the mutability of such beliefs and their link to parental investments. In both cases, we find that parental beliefs about child development are malleable. The less intensive version of the program based on educational videos changes parental beliefs, but fails to lastingly increase parental investments and child outcomes. By contrast, in the more intensive version of our program combining home visits and feedback, the augmented beliefs are associated with enriched parent-child interactions and improved vocabulary, math, and social-emotional skills for the children. Together, these results suggest that changing parental beliefs can be an important pathway to raising parental investments and reducing socioeconomic gaps in children’s skills, but that simple informational policies may not be sufficient. |
| JEL: | C93 D83 I21 J13 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29394&r= |
| By: | Morgan Kelly |
| Abstract: | Historical persistence studies and other regressions using spatial data commonly have severely inflated t statistics, and different standard error adjustments to correct for this return markedly different estimates. This paper proposes a simple randomization inference procedure where the significance level of an explanatory variable is measured by its ability to outperform synthetic noise with the same estimated spatial structure. Spatial noise, in other words, acts as a treatment randomization in an artificial experiment based on correlated observational data. Combined with Müller and Watson (2021), randomization gives a way to estimate credible confidence intervals for spatial regressions. The performance of twenty persistence studies relative to spatial noise is examined. |
| Keywords: | Historical persistence; Spatial data; Randomization inference; Spatial noise |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:202124&r= |
| By: | Valerio Della Corte (Bank of Italy); Claudio Doria (Bank of Italy); Giacomo Oddo (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the response to the COVID-19 pandemic of inbound tourism to Italy looking at variation across countries and across provinces. To this end, it uses weekly data on the number of foreign visitors in Italy from January 2019 until February 2021, as provided by a primary mobile phone operator. We document a very robust negative relation at province level between local epidemiological conditions and the inflow of foreign travellers. Moreover, provinces with a historically higher share of art tourism, and those that used to be ‘hotel intensive’ were hit the most during the pandemic, while provinces with a more prevalent orientation towards business tourism proved to be more resilient. Entry restrictions with varying degrees of strictness played a key role in explaining cross-country patterns. After controlling for these restrictions, we observed that the travellers that could arrive by their own, private, means of transportation decreased proportionally less. Overall, this evidence emphasises that contagion risk considerations played a significant role in shaping international tourism patterns during the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | International tourism, travel restrictions, Covid-19 |
| JEL: | I15 L83 F14 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_647_21&r= |
| By: | David Autor; David Dorn; Gordon H. Hanson |
| Abstract: | Abstract We evaluate the duration of the China trade shock and its impact on a wide range of outcomes over the period 2000 to 2019. The shock plateaued in 2010, enabling analysis of its effects for nearly a decade past its culmination. Adverse impacts of import competition on manufacturing employment, overall employment-population ratios, and income per capita in more trade-exposed U.S. commuting zones are present out to 2019. Over the full study period, greater import competition implies a reduction in the manufacturing employment-population ratio of 1.54 percentage points, which is 55% of the observed change in the value, and the absorption of 86% of this net job loss via a corresponding decrease in the overall employment rate. Reductions in population headcounts, which indicate net out-migration, register only for foreign-born workers and the native-born 25-39 years old, implying that exit from work is a primary means of adjustment to trade-induced contractions in labor demand. More negatively affected regions see modest increases in the uptake of government transfers, but these transfers primarily take the form of Social Security and Medicare benefits. Adverse outcomes are more acute in regions that initially had fewer college-educated workers and were more industrially specialized. Impacts are qualitatively—but not quantitatively—similar to those caused by the decline of employment in coal production since the 1980s, indicating that the China trade shock holds lessons for other episodes of localized job loss. Import competition from China induced changes in income per capita across local labor markets that are much larger than the spatial heterogeneity of income effects predicted by standard quantitative trade models. Even using higher-end estimates of the consumer benefits of rising trade with China, a substantial fraction of commuting zones appears to have suffered absolute declines in average real incomes. |
| JEL: | E24 F16 J23 J31 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29401&r= |
| By: | Waal, Martijn; Arets, Martijn |
| Abstract: | The Netherlands has been known as one of the pioneers in the sharing economy. At the beginning of the 2010s, many local initiatives such as Peerby (borrow tools and other things from your neighbours), SnappCar (p2p car-sharing), and Thuisafgehaald (cook for your neighbours) launched that enabled consumers to share underused resources or provide services to each other. This was accompanied by a wide interest from the Dutch media, zooming in on the perceived social and environmental benefits of these platforms. Commercial platforms such as Uber, UberPop and Airbnb followed soon after. After their entrance to the market, the societal debate about the impact of these platforms also started to include the negative consequences. Early on, universities and national research and policy institutes took part in these discussions by providing definitions, frameworks, and analyses. In the last few years, the attention has shifted from the sharing economy to the much broader defined platform economy. |
| Keywords: | Gig Work; Public Values; Shared Mobility; Sharing Economy |
| JEL: | L86 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110239&r= |
| By: | Xiao, Jing (CIRCLE, Lund University); Lindholm Dahlstrand, Åsa (CIRCLE, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between acquisitions and mobility of knowledge workers and managers in small technology companies and how individual skills and capabilities moderate the relationship. Relying on the matched employer-employee data of the Swedish high-tech sectors from 2007 to 2015, we find that acquisitions increase the likelihood of employee departures, mainly in the form of switching to another employer, but that these acquisition effects are weaker for employees with technological competences. Moreover, we also find that managers, compared to other employees, are more likely to exit from the (national) labor market after acquisitions. Our results show that acquiring firms tend to gain access to and retain knowledge workers with engineering background. |
| Keywords: | Acquisitions; Target employee mobility; High-tech sectors; Knowledge workers; Technological capabilities; Managerial capabilities |
| JEL: | C23 G34 J63 L26 |
| Date: | 2021–10–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lucirc:2021_012&r= |
| By: | Asplund, Disa (Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)) |
| Abstract: | This study identifies the welfare optimal frequency of a scheduled public transport service from a methodological perspective, exploring what methods are more suitable for the case of bus services in a small city. The study examines how well various versions of the square-root rule, including established and newly proposed versions, estimate the optimal bus frequencies in the case city of Uppsala, versus estimates generated by a more comprehensive partial equilibrium model. The results indicate that extending the square-root rule by including transfer time, as proposed here, is empirically important. Furthermore, the results indicate that the square-root rule, with this extension, can estimate optimal frequency in Uppsala surprisingly well, and may be suitable for bus lines with two-way demand in the range of 75–200 pax/h. |
| Keywords: | Optimization; Public transport; Service frequency; Square-root rule |
| JEL: | H40 R41 |
| Date: | 2021–10–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:vtiwps:2021_009&r= |
| By: | Yingdan Mei; Li Gao; Wendong Zhang (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD)); Feng-An Yang |
| Abstract: | Coal-fired power plants are among the biggest air polluters both in China and globally. In 2013, China launched a pilot project to switch its power plants from coal to natural gas to curb coal-fired plants' detrimental effects on air quality. Debates about this policy mainly invoke the costs, but no study examines whether the change led to cleaner air and associated economic benefits. This article provides the first causal estimate of the capitalization effect of coal-to-gas conversion on housing prices. We estimate a triple difference model using housing transaction data from 2011 to 2015 and administrative data on all power plants in Beijing. Our results, although marginally significant, show that coal-to-gas conversion leads to a positive price premium of 11% for nearby properties. We provide suggestive evidence that our findings of positive price premiums are likely attributable to the reduction in air pollutants following the coal-to-gas switch, including a 4.9% reduction in particulate matter and 5.2% decrease in SO2. |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ias:cpaper:21-wp625&r= |
| By: | Giovanna D'Inverno; Mike Smet; Kristof De Witte |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes an innovative approach to evaluate the causal impact of a policy change in a multi-input multi-output setting. It combines insights from econometric impact evaluation techniques and efficiency analysis. In particular, the current paper accounts for endogeneity issues by introducing a quasi-experimental setting within a conditional multi-input multi-output efficiency framework and by decomposing the overall efficiency between ‘group-specific’ efficiency (i.e., reflecting internal managerial inefficiency) and ‘program’ efficiency (i.e., explaining the impact of the policy intervention on performance). This framework allows the researcher to interpret the efficiency scores in terms of causality. The practical usefulness of the methodology is demonstrated through an application to secondary schools in Flanders, Belgium. By exploiting an exogenous threshold, the paper examines whether additional resources for disadvantaged students impact the efficiency of schools. The empirical results indicate that additional resources do not causally influence efficiency around the threshold. |
| Keywords: | Data envelopment analysis, Impact evaluation, Efficiency, Causal inference, Equal Educational Opportunities |
| Date: | 2020–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ete:leerwp:659615&r= |
| By: | Jiqian Wang (School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Private Bag X20, Hatfield 0028, South Africa); Oguzhan Cepni (Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics, Porcelaenshaven 16A, Frederiksberg DK-2000, Denmark; Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, Haci Bayram Mah. Istiklal Cad. No:10 06050, Ankara, Turkey); Feng Ma (School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China) |
| Abstract: | We forecast realized variance (RV) of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) for ten leading markets and regions, derived from 5-minutes-interval intraday data, based on the information content of two alternative metrics of daily oil-price uncertainty. Based on the period of the analysis covering January 2008 to July 2020, and using variants of the popular MIDAS-RV model, augmented to include oil market uncertainties, captured by its RV (also derived from 5-minute intraday data) and implied volatility (i.e., the oil VIX), we report evidence of significant statistical and economic gains in the forecasting performance. The result is robust to the size of the forecasting samples, including that of the COVID-19 period, jump risks, lag-length, nonlinearities, and asymmetric effects, and forecast horizon. Our results have important implications for investors and policymakers. |
| Keywords: | REITs, International data, Realized volatility, Oil-Price Uncertainty, Forecasting |
| JEL: | C22 C53 G15 Q02 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:202173&r= |