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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Lara Coulier (: Department of Economics, Ghent University); Selien De Schryder (Department of Economics, Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether housing-related macroprudential policy has heterogeneous effects on house price growth in local housing markets. More specifically, we employ an extensive dataset of Belgian municipalities containing a multitude of drivers of local house price dynamics and examine the potential heterogeneity of housing-related macroprudential policy changes driven by local characteristics related to financial constrained and high-risk borrowers, the degree of local housing market activity, and changes in local household indebtedness. We find more dampening effects of the common macroprudential policy tightenings on local house price growth for municipalities characterized by low-income and young citizens, which furthermore increase in hot housing markets. Our findings shed more light on the geographical heterogeneity of national macroprudential policy changes, which indicate the possibility to stabilize local housing market booms. |
| Keywords: | macroprudential policy, local housing markets, heterogeneity, dynamic panel data, quantile regressions |
| JEL: | C22 C23 E58 O18 R3 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202210-421&r=ure |
| By: | Gonçalves, Duarte (Pompeu Fabra University); Peralta, Susana (Nova School of Business and Economics); Pereira dos Santos, João (RWI) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal impact of a 2018 zoning reform that banned new short-term rental registries in some parts of Lisbon. The short-term rental licence expires when the house is sold, hence the ban removes the option value of short-term renting a property. We rely on two administrative data sets on short-term rental registries and real estate transactions, complemented with Airbnb data on listings and prices. We employ a difference-in-differences estimation taking advantage of the spatial discontinuity in the ban. We document a spike in newly registered housing units, between the announcement and the implementation of the ban. The reform decreases real estate prices by 8%, mostly in two-bedroom dwellings, for which the price drops 20%. We conclude that heterogeneous effects are key to understanding the backlash against short-term rentals. |
| Keywords: | Airbnb, policy analysis, housing market, short-term rental, Portugal |
| JEL: | R12 R21 R30 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15706&r=ure |
| By: | Sumit Agarwal; Michael J. Seiler; Ralph Siebert |
| Abstract: | In the U.S. real estate market, around 30 percent of listed properties remain unsold. We examine whether unsold property listings exert externalities in the housing market. Our study builds on a comprehensive dataset that encompasses residential property listings in Orange County (California) from 2000 to 2020. We find that listed properties often remain unsold because speculative owners (also referred to as essayers) make attempts to sell properties for prices far above fair market value (on average, by $59,576 or 8.1 percent). Our results show that overpriced (unsold) listings exert spillover effects that distort and inflate housing prices. They increase other properties’ list prices on average by $40,180 (5.5 percent) and increase sale prices by $37,268 (5.2 percent). We find that sale prices further increase with spillover effects for homes with specific housing and neighborhood attributes (such as large house size, high-income areas, and close proximity to beach, coastal, and central city areas). Overpriced unsold properties cause annual extra earnings (or extra spending) of almost $1 billion in Orange County (California) alone. We also find that the extent of overpricing depends on the economic environment, that is, overpricing is higher (lower) during booms (busts). |
| Keywords: | essayers, hedonic pricing, housing market, spillover effects, unsold properties |
| JEL: | R30 L10 L60 O30 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10069&r=ure |
| By: | Gerard Doménech-Arumi (: Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES)); Paula E. Gobbi (Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES) and CEPR); Glenn Magerman (Universit´e Libre de Bruxelles (ECARES) and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We use detailed information on all real estate stock and transactions since 2006 to study housing inequality in Belgium and how a recent policy shaped it. We use the transactions to predict the market value of all dwellings in the country, to then estimate inequality in value or space at different levels of aggregation – from the federal to the local neighborhood level. Overall inequality is relatively low (Gini of 0.25), but significant heterogeneity exists across and within municipalities. Using a differences-in-differences framework, we study how Flanders’s recent 3% reduction in registration fees affected house prices and inequality. We estimate that the policy increased prices by 3% on average and reduced inequality in Flanders by 0.8% by compressing the price distribution from below. We argue that the primary winners of the policy are low-value homeowners, who see their estate’s valuation increase. The main losers are low-value renters, who might see rent increases in the short term. Both parts of the paper reveal significant geographic heterogeneities, thus highlighting the importance of granularity in the data for studying inequality. |
| Keywords: | Inequality, housing market, fiscal policy. |
| JEL: | D31 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202210-423&r=ure |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M.; Heblich, Stephan; Seidel, Tobias |
| Abstract: | We develop a programming algorithm that predicts a balanced-panel mixadjusted house price index for arbitrary spatial units from repeated crosssections of geocoded micro data. The algorithm combines parametric and non-parametric estimation techniques to provide a tight local fit where the underlying micro data are abundant, and reliable extrapolations where data are sparse. To illustrate the functionality, we generate a panel of German property prices and rents that is unprecedented in its spatial coverage and detail. This novel data set uncovers a battery of stylized facts that motivate further research, e.g. on the positive correlation between density and price-torent ratios in levels and trends, both within and between cities. Our method lends itself to the creation of comparable neighborhood-level rent indices (Mietspiegel ) across Germany. |
| Keywords: | index; real estate; price; property; rent; Elsevier |
| JEL: | R10 |
| Date: | 2022–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:116649&r=ure |
| By: | Arigoni, Filippo (Central Bank of Ireland); McCann, Fergal (Central Bank of Ireland); Yao, Fang (Central Bank of Ireland) |
| Abstract: | The link between mortgage credit and the housing market is central to the objectives of macroprudential policy. In this Note we describe the role that macroprudential policy plays in guarding against the emergence of an unsustainable relationship between credit and house prices, and introduce two models available to the Central Bank of Ireland to assess the likely effects of changes in the calibration of LTI or LTV limits on the aggregate house price to income ratio. Relative to a baseline projection, the recalibration of the mortgage measures for 2023 onward is estimated to increase the aggregate HPI by between 2.8 and 4 per cent over a three year horizon. |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:fsnote:11/fs/22&r=ure |
| By: | Hayes, Michael S. (Rutgers University); Liu, Jing (University of Texas at Austin); Gershenson, Seth (American University) |
| Abstract: | Teachers affect a wide range of students' educational and social outcomes, but how they contribute to students' involvement in school discipline is less understood. We estimate the impact of teacher demographics and other observed qualifications on students' likelihood of receiving a disciplinary referral. Using data that track all disciplinary referrals and the identity of both the referred and referring individuals from a large and diverse urban school district in California, we find students are about 0.2 to 0.5 percentage points (7% to 18%) less likely to receive a disciplinary referral from teachers of the same race or gender than from teachers of different demographic backgrounds. Students are also less likely to be referred by more experienced teachers and by teachers who hold either an English language learners or special education credential. These results are mostly driven by referrals for defiance and violence infractions, Black and Hispanic male students, and middle school students. While it is unclear whether these findings are due to variation in teachers' effects on actual student behavior, variation in teachers' proclivities to make disciplinary referrals, or a combination of the two, these results nonetheless suggest that teachers play a central role in the prevalence of, and inequities in, office referrals and subsequent student discipline. |
| Keywords: | exclusionary discipline, teacher effectiveness, office referrals |
| JEL: | I2 J7 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15663&r=ure |
| By: | Ivaldi, Marc; Quinet, Emile; Ruiz Mejia, Celia |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to estimate the extent of agglomeration externalities taking into account the direct and indirect impacts of transport exposure on productivity. To do so, we take advantage of a rich data infrastructure that combines very fine georeferenced infra-municipality data on more than one million employees with detailed data on the public-transport and road networks of a typical European metropolitan area, namely the Toulouse Metropolitan Area (TMA). We recover the productivity effects of agglomeration and transport measures by the implementation and estimation of a wage determination model in two stages. The first stage assesses the importance of industrial concentration and employees’ characteristics against true productivity differences across zones on the average of local industrial wages. The second stage explains local productivity differences on our local factors of interest: agglomeration and transport. Finally, and to have a full representation of transport impacts, we investigate the size of the indirect effect of transport exposure on productivity by its impact on the distribution of metropolitan employment. We exploit the panel nature of our data and apply instrumentation techniques to cope with the endogeneity of agglomeration and transport measures. Our results suggest that both agglomeration and transport exposure measures have a substantial and significant effect on local productivity. Indeed, when density of employment doubles, productivity increases by 1.6%. Further, the effects of transport exposure measures differ for the two modes considered, private vehicle and public transport. In both cases, a higher exposure to transport supply implies higher levels of employment an productivity. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration economies; accessibility; transport exposure; public transport network; road network; productivity; transport infrastructure; density; cities; commuting costs; urban economics; transport economics. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:127514&r=ure |
| By: | Kulka. Amrita (University of Warwick); Sood, Aradhya (University of Toronto); Chiumenti, Nicholas (FRB Boston) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how various land-use regulations interact to affect housing supply and affordability. We use cross-sectional variation across space from a novel parcel-level zoning data and a boundary discontinuity design at regulation boundaries to obtain causal estimates for the effect of various zoning regulations on the supply of different types of housing, single-family house prices, multifamily rents, and households’ willingness-to-pay for higher density. We find that relaxing density restrictions (minimum lot size and maximum dwelling units), either alone or jointly with relaxing other regulations, is most effective at increasing supply, particularly of multifamily properties, and reducing rents and house prices. Conversely, enabling multifamily zoning or relaxing height regulations alone has little impact. Our results suggest that the small-scale reforms in zoning regulations proposed around the country can increase housing affordability. However, a fall in multifamily rents is often accompanied by a reduction in single-family house prices, complicating the political economy of land-use reform. |
| Keywords: | multifamily zoning ; height restrictions ; density ; house prices ; rents JEL Classification: R21 ; R31 ; R58 ; H77 ; H11 ; K25 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:635&r=ure |
| By: | Sebastian Siegloch (University of Cologne, CEPR, and ZEW); Nils Wehrhöfer (Deutsche Bundesbank and ZEW); Tobias Etzel (Deutsche Bundesbank) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effects of a large place-based policy, subsidizing up to 50% of the investment costs of manufacturing firms in East Germany. We show that a one percentage-point decrease in the subsidy rate leads to a 1% decrease in manufacturing employment. We document important local spillovers for untreated construction and retail sectors, counties connected via trade, and local tax rates. There is no evidence for regional reallocation or changes in commuting and residential decisions. The cost per job amount to at most $23000. Last, we show that local subsidies are substantially more effective in curbing regional inequality than place-blind policies. |
| Keywords: | place-based policies, employment, spillovers, administrative microdata |
| JEL: | H24 J21 J23 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:210&r=ure |
| By: | Li, Xiaomeng; Neal, Zachary P. |
| Abstract: | As cities develop more and longer-range external relations, some have challenged the long-standing notion that population size indicates a city's power in its urban system. Instead, they contend that cities' centrality within urban networks provides a better indicator of power. But are city population size and city network centrality really independent properties in practice, or do larger cities tend to be more central in urban networks? To answer this question, we conducted a systematic literature search and performed meta-analysis on 36 reported correlations between city size and degree centrality. The results show that population size and degree centrality are significantly and positively correlated for cities across various urban systems (r=0.75), but the correlation varies by network scale and type. The size-centrality association is weaker for global economic and transportation networks (r = 0.43), and stronger for non-global social and communication networks (r = 0.92). The findings suggest that while city size and centrality may become decoupled at the global scale, size and centrality are closely associated at the regional and national scales, thereby clarifying seemingly contradictory predictions in the literature regarding the association between size and centrality for cities. |
| Date: | 2022–07–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:y3s69&r=ure |
| By: | Ma, Lin (Singapore Management University); Yang, Tang (Nanyang Technological University) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the distributional impacts of transportation networks in China. We show that the quality of roads and railroads vary substantially over time and space, and ignoring these variations biases the estimates of travel time. To account for quality differences, we construct a new panel dataset and approximate quality using the design speed of roads and railroads that varies by vintage, class, and terrain at the pixel level. We then build a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model that allows for multiple modes and routes of transportation and forward-looking migration decision. We find aggregate welfare gain and less spatial income inequality led by expanding transportation network. |
| Keywords: | regional trade; migration; welfare; economic geography |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:smuesw:2022_009&r=ure |
| By: | Jaison R. Abel; Jason Bram; Richard Deitz; Jonathan Hastings |
| Abstract: | Since the start of the pandemic, home prices in the U.S. have increased by an astonishing 40 percent. The New York-Northern New Jersey region saw a similar meteoric rise, as home prices shot up by 30 percent or more almost everywhere—even in upstate New York, where economic growth was sluggish well before the pandemic hit. New York City is the exception, where home price growth was less than half that pace. Indeed, home prices actually declined in Manhattan early in the pandemic, though they have rebounded markedly since. Much of the region’s home price boom can be traced to the rise in remote work, which increased the already strong demand for housing at a time when housing inventories were low and declining. Home price increases have largely outpaced income gains through the pandemic boom, resulting in a reduction in housing affordability in the region. However, with mortgage rates rising, it appears that the region’s housing boom is waning, as it is for the nation as a whole, with prices leveling off, though the inventory of available homes remains historically low. |
| Keywords: | housing; home prices; pandemic; housing affordability; regional; COVID-19 |
| JEL: | R10 R31 |
| Date: | 2022–11–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fednls:95028&r=ure |
| By: | Marco Ovidi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | I show that parents select schools by considering attributes of the student-school match that improve the learning outcomes beyond average school quality. Using the centralized algorithm for offers to primary school in London, I compare the achievement of students who are as good as randomly enroled in schools ranked differently in their application. Enroling at the most-preferred school versus an institution ranked lower increases achievement by 0.10 SD beyond school value-added among students with similar characteristics. Only a small part of the match effects of parental choice can be explained by student’s characteristics such as gender, ability, or socioeconomic status. |
| Keywords: | Centralised assignment, Deferred acceptance, School choice, School effectiveness. |
| JEL: | H75 I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def121&r=ure |
| By: | Kuhn, Andrea (Bertelsmann Foundation) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an empirical exploration of the geography of adolescents' occupational choices, using data covering a single cross-section of the population of all individual-level apprenticeship contracts in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. The unique feature of the data is that they cover both the training firm's location and the apprentice's domicile at a highly disaggregated level. Even though the geographic area covered by these data is small by any absolute standard, the data show that there are large and pervasive differences across different local apprenticeship markets. More specifically, the data show that apprenticeship positions are highly concentrated in a few local apprenticeship markets and that the same regions are also characterized by a larger number of distinct training occupations from which perspective apprentices may choose. Moreover, yet somewhat less obvious, there is also significant variation in the occupational task structure across local apprenticeship markets. These empirical regularities may have implications for various research questions in the context of adolescents' occupational choices. |
| Keywords: | occupational choice, apprenticeship, geography, spatial heterogeneity, regional occupational structure |
| JEL: | I21 J24 R12 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15679&r=ure |
| By: | Michał Ruszuk (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Krzysztof Spirzewski (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | Real estate market is important part of economy. Its influence is compounded by sectors related to real properties, such as construction, capital and rental markets. Real estate market specifics such as high capital intensity, rigidity of supply and time lags, make macroeconomic imbalance easy to emerge. Sudden changes of market conditions lead to severe consequences for the whole economy. Hence, house markets are important not only for house investors, real estate developers and financial institutions, but also for governments and central banks. In this paper we propose to constitutes a comprehensive overview of house prices determinants. It can be perceived as residential real estate market guide, especially for polish market. In Poland house prices have been consistently increasing since 1990, when transition to a market economy had place. Statistical Pole gets wealthier from year to year, what in conjunction with a strong desire to be on his own, constitutes the powerful driving force of demand for residential real estates The methods we used in this study are descriptive method and statistical models in addition scatter plots and Pearson's correlation coefficients between variables are presented. Empirical study are based on polish market data, published by Central Statistical Office and Centrum AMRON-SARFiN. We aggregated them for voivodeships and quarters, and concern 2010-2019 period. |
| Keywords: | real estate market, price determinants, mortgage |
| JEL: | E31 G21 K25 R31 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2021-21&r=ure |
| By: | Lei Fang; Eric Smith; Zoe Xie |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the US housing market from just before the Great Recession onward (2006–19) and assesses the viability of stock-flow matching in generating the observed outcomes. The paper documents that the probability that a house sells declines sharply after listing for two weeks. Moreover, the probability and associated price of a fast sale recover from the housing slump sooner, faster, and more prominently than slower sales. The simulated stock-flow matching model can mimic not only sales, prices, listings, and time-on-market but also capture the distinctions in quick and slower trades, indicating the importance of stock-flow matching for understanding housing market dynamics. |
| Keywords: | housing; stock-flow matching; trading dynamics; duration dependence |
| JEL: | E30 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2022–10–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:95080&r=ure |
| By: | Yan, Linnan; Tu, Menger; Chagas, André (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Tai, Lufeng |
| Abstract: | Existing studies neglected to assess the resource allocation effect of high-speed railway (HSR). This paper examines the impact of HSR on labor spatial misallocation in China by applying a modified spatial difference-in-differences approach, which identify local treatment effect, spillover effect on treated and untreated regions. The study finds: (1) Opening HSR alleviates not only the local labor misallocation but also the misallocation in surrounding areas to a greater extent, including cities with HSR (treatment group) and without HSR (control group), which contributes to the overall productivity increase. The spillover effect of HSR is larger than the direct effect. (2) The largest spillover effect occurs in adjacent areas near 350 km apart, while the spillover effect disappears beyond 500 km. (3) The direction and magnitude of HSR effect depend on the urban scale. For large-scale cities, the impact of opening HSR is greater versus small-scale ones. |
| Keywords: | high-speed railway; spatial difference-in-differences; labor spatial misallocation |
| JEL: | R10 |
| Date: | 2022–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nereus:2022_004&r=ure |
| By: | Lee, Shu En; Lim, Jing Zhi; Shen, Lucas |
| Abstract: | Social segregation has profound impacts on socioeconomic outcomes. Using anonymized GPS records for Singapore which we spatially join to census records, we examine daily movement across geographically-refined neighborhoods. We show that the GPS-derived data detect segregation by poverty, even with an imperfect proxy, and in the presence of targeted urban policies aimed at social integration. The findings bode well for the use of GPS data in general to measure social segregation. |
| Keywords: | Social segregation; GPS; Mobile Phone Data; Singapore; Mobility |
| JEL: | D31 J15 R23 |
| Date: | 2021–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115301&r=ure |
| By: | Sandro Heiniger (University of St. Gallen); Winfried Koeniger (University of St. Gallen; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); Center for Financial Studies (CFS); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Swiss Finance Institute); Michael Lechner (University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the transmission of the pandemic shock in 2020 to prices in the residential and commercial real estate market by causal machine learning, using new granular data at the municipal level for Germany. We exploit differences in the incidence of Covid infections or short-time work at the municipal level for identification. In contrast to evidence for other countries, we find that the pandemic had only temporary negative effects on rents for some real estate types and increased asset prices of real estate particularly in the top price segment of commercial real estate. |
| Keywords: | Real estate, Asset prices, Rents, Covid pandemic, Short-time work, Affordability crisis. |
| JEL: | E21 E22 G12 G51 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2286&r=ure |
| By: | Abhijeet Singh; Mauricio Romero; Karthik Muralidharan |
| Abstract: | We use a panel survey of ∼19,000 primary-school-aged children in rural Tamil Nadu to study ‘learning loss’ after COVID-19-induced school closures, and the pace of recovery after schools reopened. Students tested in December 2021 (18 months after school closures) displayed learning deficits of ∼0.7σ in math and 0.34σ in language compared to identically-aged students in the same villages in 2019. Two-thirds of this deficit was made up within 6 months after school reopening. Further, while learning loss was regressive, the recovery was progressive. A government-run after-school remediation program contributed ∼24% of the cohort-level recovery, and likely aided the progressive recovery. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, school closures, learning loss, recovery |
| JEL: | H52 I21 I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10031&r=ure |
| By: | Maria Zumbuehl; Stefanie Hof; Stefan C. Wolter |
| Abstract: | Decisions about admission to selective schools usually rely on performance measures. To reach a required achievement threshold students may make use of additional resources, such as private tutoring. We investigate how the use of private tutoring relates to the transition probability to an academically demanding post compulsory school and the probability to successfully pass through this school, controlling for the students competencies after tutoring, but before the transition. Using PISA and linked register data from Switzerland, we find that students who had private tutoring before the transition are more likely to fail in the selective school than students who had the same level of competencies without tutoring. |
| Keywords: | private tutoring, educational achievement, PISA, Switzerland |
| JEL: | D82 I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10044&r=ure |
| By: | Jonathan Halket (University of Essex, Texas A&M University System); Lars Nesheim (UCL - University College of London [London]); Florian Oswald (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | Which housing characteristics are important for understanding homeownership rates? How are housing characteristics priced in rental and owner-occupied markets? What can answers to these questions tell us about economic theories of homeownership? Using the English Housing Survey, we estimate a selection model of property allocations to the owner-occupied and rental sectors. Structural characteristics and unobserved quality are important for selection. Location is not. Accounting for selection is important for rent-to-price ratio estimates and explains some puzzling correlations between rent-to-price ratios and homeownership rates. These patterns are consistent with, among others, hypotheses of rental market contracting frictions related to housing maintenance. |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03799462&r=ure |
| By: | Goulas, Sofoklis (Stanford University); Megalokonomou, Rigissa (University of Queensland); Zhang, Yi (University of Queensland) |
| Abstract: | How much does your neighbor impact your test scores and career? In this paper, we examine how an observable characteristic of same-age neighbors—their gender—affects a variety of high school and university outcomes. We exploit randomness in the gender composition of local cohorts at birth from one year to the next. In a setting in which school assignment is based on proximity to residential address, we define as neighbors all same-cohort peers who attend neighboring schools. Using new administrative data for the universe of students in consecutive cohorts in Greece, we find that a higher share of female neighbors improves both male and female students' high school and university outcomes. We also find that female students are more likely to enroll in STEM degrees and target more lucrative occupations when they are exposed to a higher share of female neighbors. We collect rich qualitative geographic data on communal spaces (e.g., churches, libraries, parks, Scouts and sports fields) to understand whether access to spaces of social interaction drives neighbor effects. We find that communal facilities amplify neighbor effects among females. |
| Keywords: | neighbor gender peer effects, cohort-to-cohort random variation, birth gender composition, geodata, STEM university degrees |
| JEL: | J16 J24 I24 I26 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15733&r=ure |
| By: | Wudu Muluneh (Institute of Land Administration, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia); Tadesse Amsalu (Institute of Land Administration, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia) |
| Abstract: | The provision of essential urban infrastructure and services for the expanding population is a persistent financial challenge for many of the rapidly expanding cities in developing nations like Ethiopia. The land lease system has received little academic attention as a means of financing urban infrastructure in developing countries. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to assess the contribution of land leasing in financing urban infrastructure and services using evidence from Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia. Primary and secondary data-gathering techniques have been used. Descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis have been adopted. The results show land lease revenue is a dominant source of extra-budgetary revenue for Bahir Dar city. As evidenced by Bahir Dar city, a significant portion of urban infrastructure expenditure is financed by revenues from land leasing. However, despite the critical importance of land lease revenue to investments in urban infrastructure, there is inefficiency in the collection of potential lease revenue due to weak information exchange, inadequate land provision for various uses, lack of transparency in tender committees, and the existence of poor documentation. Our findings suggest that Bahir Dar City needs to manage lease revenue more effectively to increase investment in urban infrastructure while giving due consideration to availing more land for leasing. Keywords: urban, land, revenue, inefficiency, lease, financing, Bahir Dar City |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12061&r=ure |
| By: | Durrmeyer, Isis; Martinez, Nicolas |
| Abstract: | We develop a structural model to represent individual transportation decisions, the equilibrium road traffic levels, and speeds inside a city. The model is micro-founded and incorporates a high level of heterogeneity: individuals differ in access to transportation modes, values of travel time, and schedule constraints; road congestion technologies vary within the city. We apply our model to the Paris metropolitan area and estimate the model parameters from publicly available data. We predict the road traffic equilibria under driving restrictions and road tolls and measure the policy consequences on the different welfare components: individual surplus, tax revenues, and cost of emissions. |
| Keywords: | structural model; policy evaluation, transportation; congestion, distributional effects; air pollution |
| JEL: | L9 R41 Q52 |
| Date: | 2022–11–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:127467&r=ure |
| By: | Silvia Peracchi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of local exposure to the migrant crisis on the local news market. Exploiting a narrow geographical setting, it explores a policy dating from June 2015, whereby French authorities introduced militarized controls at the Italian frontier. With the border controls in place, groups of migrants and asylum seekers who had planned to cross the border irregularly were pushed back to the Italian lands. With rejected migrants clustering at the border, natives residing along the Italian region were unevenly exposed to their settlement. Taking advantage of this unequal treatment as a natural experiment, this study uses novel data collected on the text and on the number of local news items for the border areas of Liguria, Italy, between 2011 and 2019. It documents that the backlog of migrants in the Italian border area was substantially mediatized: coverage of migration rose most in the most exposed municipalities. Conversely, anti-immigrant discourse in the news grew more in areas least directly in contact with the border. Exploring further this framing dimension, the bias effect turns out to be shaped by readers’ demand and to be closely associated with local news penetration. Finally, this study documents that anti-immigrant slant and voting preferences share a similar broad direction, while a related broad pattern also appears in hate-crime records. |
| Keywords: | media slant, EU borders, immigration, diff-in-diff |
| JEL: | F22 L82 F50 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10070&r=ure |
| By: | Durr-e-Nayab (Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad) |
| Abstract: | We are short of 10 million housing units” has been the clarion cry in politics, media and the donor-driven research for the last 10 years. Given an average household size of well over six persons, this means that nearly one-third of the population is without housing. |
| Keywords: | Shortage, Housing, |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pid:pviewp:2022:36&r=ure |
| By: | NISHIHATA Masaya; KOBAYASHI Yohei |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of COVID-19-related school closures on student learning and screen time. We find that between January 2020 (pre-COVID-19) and May 2020, as the length of a COVID-19-related school closure increased, there was a decrease in learning time and an increase in screen time. These adverse effects tend to be more pronounced for students in low-income households, low academic achievers, and elementary school students living in single-parent households. Moreover, the increase in screen time may have persisted until January 2021 for elementary school students in single-parent households. On average, while live online classes mitigated the effects of decreased learning time for junior high school students, that effect is not found for low academic achievers. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22107&r=ure |
| By: | Kühnle, Daniel (University of Duisburg-Essen); Johnson, Guy (RMIT University); Tseng, Yi-Ping (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Interventions that combine unconditional permanent housing with support services, known as Housing First approaches, generally improve housing outcomes for people who have experienced chronic homelessness. However, little is known about their long-run outcomes or the consequences of ending such services. We investigate both aspects by examining the long-run effects of an intensive support program on the housing, employment, and health outcomes of chronically homeless people in Australia. Evaluating the three-year program over six-years using a randomised controlled trial, we document substantially higher rates of housing and better employment outcomes during the program period for the treated group, but no substantial changes in health. Three years after the program ends, we observe no significant differences between the treatment and control group with respect to any outcomes, including housing. Our results imply that stable housing is a necessary but not sufficient condition to overcome multiple sources of economic and social disadvantage. |
| Keywords: | RCT, social policy, Housing First, homelessness, employment, health |
| JEL: | R28 I38 I12 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15678&r=ure |
| By: | Marina Emiris (: Economics and Research Department, National Bank of Belgium); François Koulischer (University of Luxembourg); Christophe Spaenjers (Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder) |
| Abstract: | We model mortgage refinancing as a bargaining game involving the borrowing household, the incumbent lender, and an outside bank. In equilibrium, the borrower’s ability to refinance depends both on the competitiveness of the local banking market and on the cost of switching banks. We find empirical support for the key predictions of our model using a unique data set containing the population of mortgages in Belgium. In particular, households’ refinancing propensities are positively correlated with the number of local branches and negatively correlated with local mortgage market concentration. Moreover, households are more likely to refinance externally if they already have a relation with more than one bank, but the effect is mitigated if their current mortgage lender has a branch locally. |
| Keywords: | mortgage markets; refinancing; bargaining; bank competition; switching costs |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbb:reswpp:202210-422&r=ure |
| By: | Liu, Jing (University of Maryland); Lee, Monica (Brown University) |
| Abstract: | Student absenteeism is often conceptualized and quantied in a static, uniform manner, providing an incomplete understanding of this important phenomenon. Applying growth curve models to detailed class-attendance data, we document that secondary school students' unexcused absences grow steadily throughout a school year and over grades, while the growth of excused absences remain essentially unchanged. Importantly, students starting the school year with a high number of unexcused absences, Black and Hispanic students, and low-income students accumulate unexcused absences at a signicantly faster rate than their counterparts. Lastly, students with higher growth rates in unexcused absences consistently report lower perceptions of all aspects of school culture than their peers. Interventions targeting unexcused absences and/or improving school culture can be crucial to mitigating disengagement. |
| Keywords: | student absences, racial disparities, growth curve model, school climate |
| JEL: | I2 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15664&r=ure |
| By: | David M. Brasington; Marios Zachariadis |
| Abstract: | We identify an exogenous cut in local taxes accompanied by an equivalent reduction in local government spending, and estimate the impact of these exogenous changes on income by applying a novel regression discontinuity design. This exploits a unique regional dataset that combines local income data with local voting outcomes on renewals of current expense tax levies. We find that balanced budget reductions in taxes and spending cause a large drop in local incomes, suggesting that government expenditure effects on income are larger than fiscal revenue effects. Importantly, this effect of local tax-financed government spending is prominent in low-income areas. Overall, our results regarding the effect of locally tax-financed government spending on income are suggestive of the importance of mechanisms related to the prevalence of liquidity constrained agents. |
| Keywords: | Balanced budget, government spending, tax levies, exogenous variation |
| JEL: | E62 H30 H72 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–11–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucy:cypeua:09-2022&r=ure |
| By: | Gaffney, Edward (Central Bank of Ireland) |
| Abstract: | In this Note, I describe a model of mortgage home loan lending in Ireland, focusing on estimates of the loan-to-income (LTI) ratio distribution of new lending under different macroprudential policy calibrations. The model can be used to estimate responses by borrowers and lenders to the calibration of the Central Bank of Ireland’s mortgage measures, which control shares of lending extended at high loan-to-income ratios to owner-occupiers. It covers three responses to an increase in the limits: leveraging among borrowers willing and able to access larger credit amounts, a plausible change in residential property prices in response to credit availability, and the possibility that new borrowers participate in the market. Under the revised calibration of the mortgage measures, and assuming that broader credit conditions remain comparable to the early 2020s, raising the first-time buyer LTI limit from 3.5 to 4 would increase average LTI ratios from 2.95 to 3.20 in the medium term. |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:fsnote:10/fs/22&r=ure |
| By: | Hübert, Ryan (University of California, Davis); Little, Andrew T. |
| Abstract: | A large economic literature studies whether racial disparities in policing are explained by animus or by beliefs about group crime rates. But what if these beliefs are incorrect? We analyze a model where officers form beliefs using crime statistics, but don’t properly account for the fact that they will detect more crime in more heavily policed communities. This creates a feedback loop where officers over-police groups that they (incorrectly) believe exhibit high crime rates. This inferential mistake can exacerbate discrimination even among officers with no animus and who sincerely believe disparities are driven by real differences in crime rates. |
| Date: | 2022–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:g4c8w&r=ure |
| By: | Endre Kildal Iversen; Kristine Grimsrud (Statistics Norway); Henrik Lindhjem; Ståle Navrud |
| Abstract: | Tourism and recreational home developments generate much of the economic activity at mountain destinations in Norway. At the same time, resulting land use changes pose a severe threat to ecosystem services. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is suitable to examine the trade-offs at the heart of many management problems but has been relatively neglected in tourism economics. Other methods, such as local economic impact analysis, are much more common. This study combines stated preference, economic impact analysis, and geospatial analysis in a comprehensive CBA framework. The CBA is performed both at the local and regional levels for small (S), medium (M), and large (L) developments in the Norefjell-Reinsjøfjell mountain area in Norway. The L-development is the preferred tourism and land management locally as market benefits from property sales and construction outweigh the local nonmarket externalities. However, considering the additional market and nonmarket impacts outside the destination, the S-development generates higher total welfare benefits. We conclude that to achieve socially optimal tourism development, nonmarket externalities inside and outside of the destination should be accounted for. The geospatial analysis demonstrates the geographical distribution of externalities. |
| Keywords: | tourism development; ecosystem services; cost-benefit analysis; stated preference; willingness to pay |
| JEL: | Q51 Q57 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:990&r=ure |
| By: | Singh, Tejendra Pratap; Mtenga, Erica |
| Abstract: | Using novel data on students' performance on national exams administered during secondary schooling in Tanzania, we study how air pollution exposure on the day of the exam affects student performance on these exams. To uncover causal effects, we leverage plausibly exogenous changes in local wind direction in an Instrumental Variables (IV) setup. Our IV estimates imply that an increase in PM2.5 concentration by 10 µg/m3 on the day a student appears for the exam worsens their performance on the exam by 0.06 standard deviations. Our results are robust to a host of falsification checks. We also document that the effects are more pronounced for younger students, males, students appearing for exams in government schools, and those at the lower end of the achievement distribution. Further, we find that these effects could be driven by adverse effects of air pollution on exams that test fluid intelligence. |
| Date: | 2022–08–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:nm9dx&r=ure |
| By: | Van Borm, Hannah (Ghent University); Lippens, Louis (Ghent University); Baert, Stijn (Ghent University) |
| Abstract: | Over the last decades, researchers have found compelling evidence of hiring discrimination toward ethnic minorities based on field experiments using fictitious job applications. Despite increasing efforts to discover why ethnic minorities experience hiring penalties, the academic world has not yet found a satisfying answer. With this study, we aim to close this gap in the literature by conducting a state-of-the-art scenario experiment with genuine American recruiters. In the experiment, we ask recruiters to assess fictitious job applicants of various race-ethnicities but consistent social class. The applicants are rated on 22 statements related to the dominant explanations for ethnic discrimination in hiring that the models of taste-based and statistical discrimination have offered. We find that different race-ethnicity groups are evaluated rather similarly, except for Asian Americans, who are perceived to have better intellectual abilities and organizational skills and to be more ambitious, motivated, efficient, and open. These results suggest that the hiring discrimination found in previous experimental research might be overestimated because part of the reported hiring penalty may be attributed to aspects other than race-ethnicity. |
| Keywords: | hiring, ethnic discrimination, statistical discrimination, social class, stigma |
| JEL: | J71 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15707&r=ure |
| By: | Rania Gihleb; Osea Giuntella; Luca Stella |
| Abstract: | How does previous exposure to massive immigrant inflows affect concerns about current immigration and the integration of refugees? To answer this question, we investigate attitudes toward newcomers among natives and previous immigrants. In areas that in the 1990s received higher inflows of immigrants of German origin—so-called ethnic Germans—native Germans are more likely to believe that refugees are a resource for the economy and the culture, viewing them as an opportunity rather than a risk. Refugees living in these areas report better health and feel less exposed to xenophobia. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, refugees, birthplace diversity, public opinion |
| JEL: | A13 D64 J6 I31 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1174&r=ure |
| By: | Lennart Adenaw; David Ziegler; Nico Nachtigall; Felix Gotzler; Allister Loder; Markus B. Siewert; Markus Lienkamp; Klaus Bogenberger |
| Abstract: | In spring 2022, the German federal government agreed on a set of measures that aim at reducing households' financial burden resulting from a recent price increase, especially in energy and mobility. These measures include among others, a nation-wide public transport ticket for 9 EUR per month and a fuel tax cut that reduces fuel prices by more than 15%. In transportation research this is an almost unprecedented behavioral experiment. It allows to study not only behavioral responses in mode choice and induced demand but also to assess the effectiveness of transport policy instruments. We observe this natural experiment with a three-wave survey and an app-based travel diary on a sample of hundreds of participants as well as an analysis of traffic counts. In this fifth report, we present first analyses of the recorded tracking data. 910 participants completed the tracking until September, 30th. First, an overview over the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants within our tracking sample is given. We observe an adequate representation of female and male participants, a slight over-representation of young participants, and an income distribution similar to the one known from the "Mobilit\"at in Deutschland" survey. Most participants of the tracking study live in Munich, Germany. General transportation statistics are derived from the data for all phases of the natural experiment - prior, during, and after the 9 EUR-Ticket - to assess potential changes in the participants' travel behavior on an aggregated level. A significant impact of the 9 EUR-Ticket on modal shares can be seen. An analysis of the participants' mobility behavior considering trip purposes, age, and income sheds light on how the 9 EUR-Ticket impacts different social groups and activities. We find that age, income, and trip purpose significantly influence the impact of the 9 EUR-Ticket on the observed modal split. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.10328&r=ure |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; Vilaplana, Cristina |
| Abstract: | Individual preferences for ‘ageing in place’ (AIP) in old age are not well understood. One way to test the strength of AIP preference is to investigate the effect of health shocks on residential mobility to smaller size or value dwellings, which we refer to as 'housing downsizing'. This paper exploits more than a decade worth of longitudinal data to study older people's housing decisions across a wide range of European countries. We estimate the effect of health shocks on the probability of different proxies for housing downsizing (residential mobility, differences in home value, home value to wealth ratio), considering the potential endogeneity of the health shock to examine the persistence of AIP preferences. Our findings suggest that consistently with the AIP hypothesis, every decade of life, the likelihood of downsizing decreases by two percentage points (pp). However, the experience of a health shock partially reverts such culturally embedded preference for AIP by a non-negligible magnitude on residential mobility (9pp increase after the onset of a degenerative illness, 9.3pp for other mental disorders and 6.5pp for ADL), home value to wealth ratio and the new dwelling’s size (0.6 and 1.2 fewer rooms after the onset of a degenerative illness or a mental disorder). Such estimates are larger in northern and central European countries. |
| Keywords: | ageing in place; housing downsizing; health shocks at old age; Europe; residential mobility; mental degenerative mental illness; mental disorder; Elsevier deal |
| JEL: | I18 J61 R31 |
| Date: | 2022–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:116941&r=ure |
| By: | Halliday, Timothy J. (University of Hawaii at Manoa); Lusher, Lester (University of Hawaii at Manoa); Inafuku, Rachel (University of Hawaii at Manoa); de Paula, Aureo (University College London) |
| Abstract: | This study pairs variation stemming from volcanic eruptions from Kilauea with the census of Hawai'i's public schools student test scores to estimate the impact of particulates and sulfur dioxide on student performance. We leverage spatial correlations in pollution in conjunction with proximity to Kilauea and wind direction to construct predictions of pollution exposure at each school. We precisely estimate that increased particulate pollution leads to a small but statistically significant drop in average test scores. Then, utilizing Hawai'i's rich diversity across schools in baseline exposure, we estimate sharp nonlinearities schools with higher baseline levels of pollution experience larger decreases in test scores than schools with less pollution exposure on average. At levels of particulate pollution higher than six micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3), we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in PM2.5 leads to a decline in test scores of 1.1 percent of a standard deviation. Lastly, we find that within schools the drop in test scores is concentrated among economically disadvantaged students. The effects of PM2.5 on student test scores are larger by a factor of ten for the poorest pupils. Similarly, the effects of SO2 are larger by a factor of six. We demonstrate that poor air quality disproportionately impacts the human capital accumulation of economically disadvantaged children. |
| Keywords: | VOG, particulates, test scores, kriging, environmental justice |
| JEL: | I22 I24 Q52 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15696&r=ure |
| By: | Hsi-Chuan Wang (The University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | Planning for informal settlements is a challenge in many countries. Informal settlements usually suffer from a lack of basic local services and infrastructure. This paper examines government expenditures in Accra, Ghana, to analyze the extent to which the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) invests in informal settlements. I engage with this topic from three perspectives. First, I review Accra’s urbanization and address how its historical legacies, such as Accra’s first town plan in 1958, have influenced current settlements. I find that little progress has been made because many “focal points” (that is, slums) identified in the 1958 plan remain as locations of present informal settlements. Second, from a fiscal standpoint, I analyze AMA’s budgetary trends from 2013 to 2017 to highlight this local government’s overreliance on the national government for infrastructure investments. Few infrastructure projects in AMA were supported by local government alone and many development projects would not be possible without external funds. Third, I engage with AMA’s unbalanced investments from a governance perspective, in part by exploring the distribution of drainage projects across the city. I notice that the funding for the drainage projects in AMA has not been deployed in the submetros with the most need. This finding also highlights that Ghanaian decentralization policy has not resulted in effective and just urban development, such as balancing citywide drainage development within local jurisdictions. Upon relating these dynamics with Ghana’s decentralization progress, I argue that: (1) Ghana’s arbitrary decision on decentralization does not help alleviate local pressure on informal settlement planning, and that (2) AMA as a local government has overlooked the urgency of balancing local development. I suggest local governments address these issues by enhancing their capacity for just governance and strengthening coalitions with other local governments. |
| Keywords: | Accra, Ghana, informal settlements, infrastructure, drainage |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mfg:perspe:33&r=ure |
| By: | Julia Bachtrögler-Unger; Mathias Dolls; Carla Krolage; Paul Schüle; Hannes Taubenböck; Matthias Weigand |
| Abstract: | We present a novel approach for analyzing the effects of EU cohesion policy on local economic activity. For all municipalities in the border area of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland, we collect project-level data on EU funding in the period between 2007 and 2013. Using night light emission data as a proxy for economic development, we show that the receipt of a higher amount of EU funding is associated with increased economic activity at the municipal level. Our paper demonstrates that remote sensing data can provide an effective way to model local economic development also in Europe, where no comprehensive cross-border data is available at such a spatially granular level. |
| Keywords: | Regional Development, EU Cohesion Policy, Remote Sensing |
| Date: | 2022–11–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wfo:wpaper:y:2022:i:653&r=ure |
| By: | René BELDERBOS; FUKAO Kyoji; IKEUCHI Kenta; KIM Young Gak; KWON Hyeog Ug |
| Abstract: | Do high or low productivity firms self-select into locations characterized by high industry agglomeration? On the one hand, productive firms may benefit more from the availability of specialized (labour) inputs and they are also more likely to survive heightened competition. On the other hand, productive firms face greater risks of knowledge dissipation to collocated rival firms, as they may contribute more than they receive in terms of knowledge spillovers. We examine location decisions for new plant establishments by firms in Japan with established productivity records (multi-plant firms) at the fine-grained level of towns, wards, and cities where knowledge spillovers are most likely to occur. We find that the adverse selection effects of industry agglomeration–the process of agglomerated areas attracting weaker rather than stronger firms–dominate if knowledge spillovers are most harmful to productive entrants when the focal firm and local incumbent establishments target the same (domestic) product market. We conclude that negative sorting processes do occur, but that these can only be uncovered in a more fine-grained analysis that takes into account ex ante measures of firm heterogeneity and the nature of product markets. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22105&r=ure |
| By: | Kono, Tatsuhito; Tatano, Hirokazu; Ushiki, Kenji; Nakazono, Daisuke; Sugisawa, Fumihito |
| Abstract: | The construction of seawalls changes the risk of tsunami inundation and the locations of firms behind the seawalls. In order to estimate the benefits of seawalls and to design land use planning behind seawalls, it is necessary to know the impact of risk reduction on the location of firms. To capture such impacts, we estimate the effects of changes in tsunami inundation risk information on the number of firms behind the seawalls. The data is from Japanese areas with a high possibility of a tsunami. There are regional fixed effects by industry and spatial heterogeneities in risks due to the topographic conditions. We first rigorously derive a fixed-effects model in uncertain situations with expected profits of firms, and theoretically find that, unlike in situations of certainty, we should factor in the interaction between regional fixed effects and the change in risks besides the usual regional fixed effects. Our empirical estimation finds that awareness of a high inundation risk has a negative impact on industries with demand in a wide range of areas, such as manufacturing and wholesale, but no impact on industries with localized demand, such as education and clinics. |
| Keywords: | Difference-in-differences, Relocation of firms, Tsunami hazard map |
| JEL: | R1 R3 |
| Date: | 2022–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115412&r=ure |
| By: | Arigoni, Filippo (Central Bank of Ireland); Kennedy, Gerard (Central Bank of Ireland); Killeen, Neill (Central Bank of Ireland) |
| Abstract: | Construction costs are a key factor to consider when analysing the residential real estate market in Ireland given their impact on housing supply. This Note examines longer-term trends in construction costs in Ireland and shows that these costs have increased steadily over the last twenty-five years and faster than general inflation over the same period. The increase in gross construction costs over this time was driven primarily by cost inflation in two periods, namely the early 2000s and the increases observed since March 2020. Some of these patterns have been accentuated by changes to the tax regime over the period 1998-2008. In the last two years, construction costs in Ireland have increased substantially owing to the impact of the COVID-19 shock and the war in Ukraine on the costs of building and construction materials. Although there are challenges with cross-country comparisons, drawing on a number of data sources and a recent bespoke questionnaire issued to stakeholders in the Irish construction industry, the Note shows that construction costs in Ireland are at the higher end of the price spectrum in Europe. The outlook for construction costs in Ireland remains challenging with expectations of further increases in costs owing to a number of factors including supply chain issues as well as increases in commodity prices. |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cbi:fsnote:12/fs/22&r=ure |
| By: | Green, Colin P. (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)); Nyhus, Ole Henning (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)); Salvanes, Kari Vea (University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | How much young children should be tested and graded is a highly contentious issue in education policy. Opponents consider it detrimental to child mental health, leading to misaligned incentives in educational policy and having little if any redeeming impact on educational performance. Others see early testing of children as a necessary instrument for identifying early underachievement and educational targeting while incentivising schools to improve the educational performance of children. In practice, there is large crosscountry variation in testing regimes. We exploit random variation in test-taking in mathematics among early primary school children in Norway, a low testing environment. We examine two forms of testing, complex but low-stakes mathematics tests and relatively easy screening tests aimed at identifying children in need of educational assistance. In general, we demonstrate zero effects of testing exposure on later test score performance but benefits for screening tests on low-performing students. While we demonstrate no negative effects on student welfare, we do find an indication that testing improves aspects of teaching practices and students' perceptions of teacher feedback and engagement. |
| Keywords: | student assessment, testing, student achievement |
| JEL: | I28 I24 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15686&r=ure |
| By: | Ferwerda, Jeremy; Marbach, Moritz; Hangartner, Dominik |
| Abstract: | The welfare magnet hypothesis holds that immigrants are likely to relocate to regions with generous welfare benefits. Although this assumption has motivated extensive reforms to immigration policy and social programs, the empirical evidence remains contested. In this study, we assess detailed administrative records from Switzerland covering the full population of social assistance recipients between 2005 and 2015. By leveraging local variation in cash transfers and exogenous shocks to benefit levels, we identify how benefits shape within-country residential decisions. We find limited evidence that immigrants systematically move to localities with higher benefits. The lack of significant welfare migration within a context characterized by high variance in benefits and low barriers to movement suggests that the prevalence of this phenomenon may be overstated. These findings have important implications in the European setting, where subnational governments often possess discretion over welfare and parties frequently mobilize voters around the issue of “benefit tourism.” |
| Date: | 2022–06–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:a8rzx&r=ure |
| By: | Ulrike Unterhofer |
| Abstract: | This paper studies peer effects in the context of public sponsored vocational training for jobseekers in Germany. Using rich administrative data, I investigate how individual labour market outcomes of program participants are affected by the peer "quality" in the course, focusing on the employability of the peers. To identify a causal effect, I exploit quasi-random variation in the peer group composition within courses offered by the same training providers over time. I find strong evidence that peer composition matters. Greater average exposure to highly-employable peers has a moderate positive impact on job stability after program participation. Peer effects on earnings are large and differ by program type. They are positive, and long-lasting in classic vocational training and negative but of short duration in retraining. Jobseekers with an individual employability below the median benefit comparatively more across all programs. Overall, the results suggest that peer effects depend on specific program features. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12366&r=ure |
| By: | Erdal Asker (Georgia Institute of Technology); Eric J. Brunner (University of Connecticut); Stephen L. Ross (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | A primary rationale for public provision of K-12 education and state financing of school spending is that education fosters civic engagement and the development of social capital. However, limited evidence exists on whether and how school spending affects civic engagement. Virtually all studies focus on the impact of educational attainment (as opposed to school spending) on political activity. We provide the first causal evidence on how school spending affects volunteerism as well as voting. The court-ordered and legislative school finance reforms that occurred throughout the United States over recent decades led to large and plausibly exogenous shocks to K-12 school spending. We estimate difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) models to isolate the causal impact of school spending on civic engagement. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS), the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS), and the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS), we find that exogenous increases in school spending led to increases in the probability that young adults volunteer and the amount of time they spend volunteering. In contrast, we find little evidence that school spending impacts voting. Consistent with prior studies, we find that increases in school spending increase high school graduation and college attendance. |
| Keywords: | Civic Engagement, Education Spending, Volunteerism, Voting, School Finance Reform |
| JEL: | H42 H72 I22 I26 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2022-16&r=ure |
| By: | Gehrke, Esther; Duquennois, Claire |
| Abstract: | We examine how shocks to migration affect schooling in origin communities. We focus on the migration between Mexico and the United States, and explore how the expansion of the Secure Communities program in the US -- a federal data sharing program that substantially increased the risk of detainment and deportation for illegal migrants -- affected attendance, enrollment, and grades in Mexico. Our results suggest that the Secure Communities program increased attendance and enrollment in municipalities that had stronger migration ties with counties in the US that adopted the program early-on, which is consistent with the interpretation that the Secure Communities program implicitly raised returns to education. We find no effect on grades (within the ?first year of Secure Communities exposure). |
| Date: | 2022–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:4a3g7&r=ure |
| By: | Benjamin G. Hyman; Matthew Freedman; Shantanu Khanna; David Neumark |
| Abstract: | We examine firm responses to location-based hiring subsidies. We leverage institutional features of the California Competes Tax Credit (CCTC), a large-scale business incentive program that incorporates best practices from prior job creation policies. The CCTC award selection procedure combines formula-based and discretionary components. Leveraging applicant score eligibility cutoffs in a regression discontinuity design and taking advantage of rich longitudinal microdata on establishments and their parent firms, we find that firms expand activity in California in response to CCTC awards, particularly in disadvantaged parts of the state. Moreover, we find little evidence of spillovers to other states. Our results suggest that targeted and audited hiring subsidies can be effective in promoting local business expansions without significant cross-state displacement effects. |
| JEL: | H25 H71 H73 J23 J38 R12 R38 R58 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30664&r=ure |
| By: | Rowe, Francisco (University of Liverpool); Lovelace, Robin; Dennett, Adam |
| Abstract: | Spatial interaction (SI) modelling is a core tool in spatial data modelling to predict spatial flows and understand their underpinning factors. SI modelling has been applied to provide data insights and support decision making in multiple settings, notably in transport, human mobility, migration and epidemiology. While considerable progress has been made on advancing the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of spatial interaction modelling, key challenges remain facilitate the application of SI models, extend existing modelling approaches, leverage the greater opportunities afforded by Big Data. We identify three key challenges: reproducibility, calibration and Big Data modelling. We propose a blueprint to tackle these challenges by identifying four areas of development: (1) to enable essential infrastructure to facilitate the training, calibration and reproducibility of SI models; (2) to embrace modelling frameworks to capture spatial, temporal and population heterogeneity; (3) to enhance statistical inference to accommodate Big Data analysis; and, (4) to integrate data science approaches to enhance. SI model-generated predictions and statistical inference. |
| Date: | 2022–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:xcdms&r=ure |
| By: | Lockwood, Ben (University of Warwick, Department of Economics); Porcelli, Francesco (University of Bari and CAGE); Redoano, Michela (University of Warwick, Department of Economics); Schiavone, Antonio (University of Bologna, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We exploit a data disclosure project by the Italian government (OpenCivitas) which allowed mayors to view each other’s detailed expenditure data through a dedicated website. We interpret views on the website as generating a directed network. Mayors in the network are on average younger, more educated, they are more likely to come from larger cities which more often are in the northern regions and are more likely to be affliated to traditional parties, although populist parties usually rely more on the web for communication and political activities. Using directed dyadic models we find that mayors tend to form links with mayors of similar age who manage similar-sized cities and most often in their same region. However, links are more likely to be formed when mayors don’t share the same gender, education and party affliation. Mayors in this network do not engage in yardstick competition with neighbouring municipalities while all the other mayors do, and rather compete with each other, despite the physical distance. We show that this network existed before the website opened, but we find that after data disclosure yardstick competition within the network becomes strongly driven by mayors who are up for re-election. This was not the case before data disclosure. For the other municipalities, yardstick competition between neighbours remains uncorrelated with mayors’ term limits. |
| Keywords: | yardstick competition ; tax competition ; network ; open data ; property tax ; municipalities ; italy JEL Codes: H11 ; H71 ; H77 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1438&r=ure |
| By: | Mayda, Anna Maria (Georgetown University); Orefice, Gianluca (Université Paris-Dauphine); Santoni, Gianluca (CEPII, Paris) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of skilled migrants on the innovation (patenting) activity of French firms between 1995 and 2010, and investigates the underlying mechanism. We present districtlevel and firm-level estimates and address endogeneity using a modified version of the shift-share instrument. Skilled migrants increase the number of patents at both the district and firm level. Large, high-productivity and capital-intensive firms benefit the most, in terms of innovation activity, from skilled immigrant workers. Importantly, we provide evidence that one channel through which the effect works is task specialization (as in Peri and Sparber, 2009). The arrival of skilled immigrants drives French skilled workers towards language-intensive, managerial tasks while foreign skilled workers specialize in technical, research-oriented tasks. This mechanism manifests itself in the estimated increase in the share of foreign inventors in patenting teams as a consequence of skilled migration. Through this channel, greater innovation is the result of productivity gains from specialization. |
| Keywords: | skilled immigration, innovation, patents |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15693&r=ure |
| By: | Lang, Valentin (University of Mannheim); Redeker, Nils; Bischof, Daniel (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | Against the backdrop of rising inequality across regions, place-based policies have become an increasingly popular tool to support “left-behind” places. While existing research provides evidence for average growth effect of such policies, little is known about their distributional effects within regions. We compile a new panel data set on income inequality across and within regions in the European Union (EU), based on household data from more than 2.4 million respondents of national surveys and covering a maximum of 231 European regions in the 1989-2017 period. These data show that inequality within regions is substantial, tends to increase over time and contributes more to inequality in Europe than inequality across regions. We then study the distributional effects of one of the world’s largest placed-based policies, the EU Cohesion Policy, on household incomes. For causal identification we use, first, a discontinuity in disbursed amounts that results from EU eligibility criteria and, second, a difference-in-differences design. We find an economically substantial, positive effect of EU funds on household incomes that is larger at the top of regional income distributions than at the bottom. The place-based policy increases inequality within regions. To understand the policy’s mechanisms, we differentiate by production factors, sectors, and education levels with macro and micro data and find that these effects are driven by higher labor incomes for more highly educated individuals in multiple sectors. In sum, these results suggest that place-based policies can be effective for reducing inequality across regions but the supported regions tend to lift the incomes of the rich rather than those of the poor. |
| Date: | 2022–08–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:2xmzj&r=ure |
| By: | Britta Rude |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of comprehensive and universal early childhood development programs on outcomes in middle childhood. I exploit the birth eligibility cutoff of a pioneer intervention of this type in Chile and use administrative data on grade point averages, standardized test scores, and an extensive early childhood development survey. Program exposure raises standardized math scores by 1.8 percent of a standard deviation, standardized reading scores by 4.0 percent of a standard deviation and grade point averages by 0.03 percent of a standard deviation. However, the effect is less pronounced for girls and socioeconomically vulnerable children. Impacts on several other child development outcomes also differ by gender and socioeconomic status. A cost-benefit analysis suggests that targeted programs might be more cost-effective than comprehensive programs. |
| Keywords: | Education and inequality, government policy, children, human capital |
| JEL: | I24 I28 I38 J13 J24 O15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_384&r=ure |
| By: | Aleksandra Majchrowska (University of Lodz, Chair of Macroeconomics); Paweł Strawiński (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | We explain the variations in the employment effects with respect to minimum wage changes among different groups of workers. Prior analyses considered only two dimensions, investigating employment effects over time across groups of workers or regions. We propose a multidimensional panel data approach to simultaneously analyze the heterogeneous employment effects of minimum wage changes across age groups, economic sectors, and regions over time. Latent heterogeneities in regional employment reactions are discovered, indicating that the employment effect in the regional labor market is the result of a combination of specific labor market features related to the composition of workers and employers. |
| Keywords: | Employment elasticity, minimum wage, regional labor markets, latent heterogeneities, intra-regional differences, Poland |
| JEL: | R23 J21 J31 J38 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2022-18&r=ure |
| By: | Borwein, Sophie; Lucas, Jack (University of Calgary) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the size, socio-demographic correlates, and political implications of place-based resentment in urban, suburban, and rural areas, with a particular focus on similarities and differences in high-resentment individuals across place types. We focus on three research questions. First, we ask how place resentment varies across all possible combinations of urban, suburban, and rural in-groups and out-groups. Second, we explore if high-resentment individuals in urban, suburban, and rural areas share similar socio-demographic and political characteristics. Finally, we investigate how citizens' satisfaction with their elected representatives, and positions on contentious and important policy issues, are related to place-based resentment. We investigate these questions using two large-scale surveys of the Canadian public. We find that place-based resentment is highly asymmetric: resentment is strongest among rural residents regardless of the target (suburban or urban) of their resentment, whereas urban and suburban residents tend to resent each other more than either group resents rural areas. We also find substantial asymmetries in the correlates and political implications of place resentment. Our findings suggest that place resentment is an important and politically consequential phenomenon across all place types, but also that the character and strength of this resentment is quite different in rural, suburban, and urban places. |
| Date: | 2022–08–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:azwsy&r=ure |
| By: | Moritz Goldbeck |
| Abstract: | Digital tools potentially enable remote collaboration. Analyzing how some 191 thousand software developers in the United States collaborate on the largest online open source code repository platform, I find 79.8% of users clustering in only ten economic areas. Conditional on economic-area characteristics, colocated users collaborate about nine times as much as non-colocated users. Apart from this colocation effect, distance is not significantly related to collaboration among software developers. Comparison to social networks shows the colocation effect is weaker for software developers and relative connectedness probability remains at a much higher (stable) level with increasing distance. Software developer and social networks show no significant regional overlap. |
| Keywords: | Geography, digitization, online, open-source, high-skilled, collaboration |
| JEL: | L84 O18 O30 R32 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_386&r=ure |
| By: | Florian Englmaier; Gerd Muehlheusser; Andreas Roider; Niklas Wallmeier |
| Abstract: | We study management practices and performance of public sector organizations in Germany. For a representative sample of municipalities, we provide survey evidence for substantial het-erogeneity in the use of structured management practices. This heterogeneity is not driven by differences across states, regional types, or population size. Moreover, we document a system-atic positive relationship between the degree of structured management and a diverse set of performance measures capturing municipalities’ attractiveness for citizens and firms. Topic modelling (LDA) of survey responses suggests that management styles differ indeed in the extent of structured management, with many municipalities displaying relatively little of it. |
| Keywords: | management practices, public sector organizations, local government, municipal performance, World Management Survey (WMS) |
| JEL: | D20 D73 H11 H73 R50 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10060&r=ure |
| By: | Ulrike Unterhofer; Conny Wunsch |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the macroeconomic effects of active labour market policies (ALMP) in Germany over the period 2005 to 2018. We propose a novel identification strategy to overcome the simultaneity of ALMP and labour market outcomes at the regional level. It exploits the imperfect overlap of local labour markets and local employment agencies that decide on the local implementation of policies. Specifically, we instrument for the use of ALMP in a local labour market with the mix of ALMP implemented outside this market but in local employment agencies that partially overlap with this market. We find no effects of short-term activation measures and further vocational training on aggregate labour market outcomes. In contrast, wage subsidies substantially increase the share of workers in unsubsidised employment while lowering long-term unemployment and welfare dependency. Our results suggest that negative externalities of ALMP partially offset the effects for program participants and that some segments of the labour market benefit more than others. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12437&r=ure |
| By: | Aleksandar Petreski; Dorothea Schäfer; Andreas Stephan |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effect of a firm’s reputation of being a green bond issuer on its financing costs. Using a sample of 73 listed Swedish real estate companies issuing in total about 1500 bonds over the period from 2011 till 2021, difference-in-difference analyses and instrumental variable estimations are applied to identify the causal impact of frequent green vis-à-vis frequent non-green bond issuing on a firm’s cost of capital and credit rating. The paper argues that it is repetitive issuance which lowers a firm’s cost of capital, while the effects from first or one-time green bond issuance is the opposite. In line with the reputation capital hypothesis, issuing green bonds even lowers the firm’s cost of equity capital, while issuing non-green bonds has no effect on the cost of equity capital. |
| Keywords: | Bond issuance, green debt, reputation capital, sustainability, ESG |
| JEL: | G32 R30 R32 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2019&r=ure |
| By: | Lockwood, Ben (University of Warwick); Porcelli, Francesco (University of Bari and CAGE); Redoano, Michela (University of Warwick); Schiavone, Antonio (University of Bologna) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the introduction of an open data online platform - part of a transparency program initiated by the Italian Government in late 2014 - as a natural experiment to analyse the effect of data disclosure on mayors’ expenditure and public good provision. First, we analyse the effect of the program by comparing municipalities on the border between ordinary and special regions, exploiting the fact that the latter regions did not participate in the program. We find that mayors in ordinary regions immediately change their behaviour after data disclosure by improving the disclosed indicators, and that the reaction depends also on their initial relative performance, a yardstick competition effect. Second, we investigate the effect of mayors’ attention to data disclosure within treated regions by tracking their daily accesses to the platform, which we instrument with the daily publication of newspaper articles mentioning the program. We find that mayors react to data disclosure by decreasing spending via a reduction of service provision, resulting in an aggregate decrease in efficiency. Overall, mayors seem to target variables that are disclosed on the website at the expense of variables that are less salient. |
| Keywords: | open data ; local government ; media coverage ; OpenCivitas JEL Codes: H72 ; H79 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1434&r=ure |
| By: | Soukhov, Anastasia; Paez, Antonio; Higgins, Christopher D.; Mohamed, Moataz |
| Abstract: | Accessibility indicators are widely used in transportation, urban, and healthcare planning, among many other applications. These measures are weighted sums of reachable opportunities from a given origin conditional on the cost of movement, and are estimates of the potential for spatial interaction. Over time, various proposals have been forwarded to improve their interpretability, mainly by introducing competition. In this paper, we demonstrate how a widely used measure of accessibility with congestion fails to properly match the opportunity-seeking population. We then propose an alternative formulation of accessibility with competition, a measure we call _spatial availability_. This measure results from using balancing factors that are equivalent to imposing a single constraint on conventional gravity-based accessibility. Further, we demonstrate how Two-Stage Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) methods can be reconceptualized as singly-constrained accessibility. To illustrate the application of spatial availability and compare it to other relevant measures, we use data from the 2016 Transportation Tomorrow Survey of the Greater Golden Horseshoe area in southern Ontario, Canada. |
| Date: | 2022–08–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:sjd5n&r=ure |
| By: | Ohemeng, Frank L.K.; Mohiuddin, Fariya |
| Abstract: | Property tax administration is the bedrock for effective revenue mobilisation, development, and good local governance for local governments. Yet administering property taxation continues to be a major problem, especially for many developing countries. Scholarly explanations for this poor state of affairs have focused on limited capacity, poor quality local cadastres, corruption, and local political resistance to effective property tax administration, among others. This paper moves away from these explanations to focus on a less trodden area: the relationship between central and local government and how this relationship affects property tax administration. Property tax administration involves some collaboration and overlap between different levels of government, and thus depends very much on a good and functional relationship between both levels of government, especially when local governments derive their authorities from the largesse of central governments. This relationship may have powerful implications for the ability of local governments to effectively undertake property tax administration due to the central government’s policies and politics. Using Ghana as a case study, the paper illustrates how a dysfunctional relationship between central and local governments has undermined, and continues to undermine, effective property tax administration in the country, which should serve as a lesson for other developing countries. |
| Keywords: | Governance, |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idq:ictduk:17755&r=ure |
| By: | Mika Akesaka (Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University, JAPAN); Nobuyoshi Kikuchi (Department of Economics, The University of Tokyo, JAPAN) |
| Abstract: | We examine the effects of local labor market conditions during early pregnancy on birth and later outcomes. Using a longitudinal survey of newborns in Japan, we find that improvements in employment opportunities increase the probability of low birth weight, attributable to shortened gestation. This negative effect is driven mainly by the changes in labor demand for women. However, we find little evidence of a lasting effect of changes in labor demand during early pregnancy on severe health conditions or developmental delays in early childhood. Using prefecture-level panel data, we confirm that the negative effect on infant birth weight is not driven by selective fertility and mortality. |
| Keywords: | Labor market conditions; Newborn health; Low birth weight; Recession |
| JEL: | I10 J13 J16 J23 R11 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kob:dpaper:dp2022-37&r=ure |
| By: | Clemens, Michael A. (Center for Global Development); Lewis, Ethan Gatewood (Dartmouth College) |
| Abstract: | The U.S. limits work visas for low-skill jobs outside of agriculture, with a binding quota that firms access via a randomized lottery. We evaluate the marginal impact of the quota on firms entering the 2021 H-2B visa lottery using a novel survey and pre-analysis plan. Firms exogenously authorized to employ more immigrants significantly increase production (elasticity +0.16) with no decrease or an increase in U.S. employment (elasticity +0.10, statistically imprecise) across several pre-registered subsamples. The results imply very low substitutability of native for foreign labor in the policy-relevant occupations. Forensic analysis suggests similarly low substitutability of black-market labor. |
| Keywords: | immigration, immigrant, foreign, labor, mobility, skill, manual, high school, college, firms, elasticity, substitution, productivity, rural, urban |
| JEL: | F22 J61 D22 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15667&r=ure |
| By: | Xiaoxuan Zhang (University of Waikato); John Gibson (University of Waikato); Xiangzheng Deng (IGSNRR, Chinese Academy of Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Several studies in economics and regional science use Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) night-time lights data to measure spatial inequality. These DMSP data are a poor proxy in this context because they have spatially mean-reverting errors, yielding significantly lower inequality estimates than what sub-national GDP data show. Inequality estimates from DMSP are also lower than what newer, research-focused and more accurate, satellites show from their observations of the earth at night. In this paper, county-level data from the United States and China are used to demonstrate the understatement of spatial inequality when DMSP data are used. In both settings, benchmark data on sub-national GDP are available for establishing the level and trend in spatial inequality, which is then used to assess the accuracy of the estimates coming from remote sensing sources. In the rush to use big data it is important to not lose sight of basic measurement error features of some of these data sources. |
| Keywords: | DMSP;mean-reverting error;night lights;spatial inequality;VIIRS |
| JEL: | E01 R12 |
| Date: | 2022–11–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wai:econwp:22/13&r=ure |
| By: | Rowe, Francisco (University of Liverpool); Neville, Ruth; González-Leonardo, Miguel |
| Abstract: | The escalation of conflict in Ukraine has triggered the largest refugee crisis in Europe since WWII. As of 17 August 2022, over 6.6 million people have fled Ukraine. Large-scale efforts have been made to collect data and measure the scale of forced population displacements, and identify the major receiving countries of these population flows. Current evidence has thus focused on providing a country level representation of the unfolding refugee crisis. Less is known about the subnational patterns of population displacement within Ukraine, and potential subnational settlement areas of the continuous flow of Ukrainian refugees in major receiving countries. Highly granular geographical data in real time are critical to these ends to ensure the appropriate delivery of humanitarian assistance where it is most needed. Drawing on digital trace data from Meta-Facebook, this paper aims to identify and assess the potential settlement areas and impacts of population displacements on the demographic and economic structures of sub-national communities within and outside Ukraine. We reveal large population losses in eastern, southern and northern Ukraine, particularly Khersonska (59%), Kharkivska (55%) and Kyiv (45%), and gains in western areas, specially in Livivska (16%). We also find reductions in female and young populations across the country, and increases in male and older populations in central and western regions. We identify likely settlement areas in some countries (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, Germany and Spain), noting that Ukrainian refugees are less likely to remain in countries which have recorded large refugee influxes but lack of local social networks, such as Romania and Turkey. We also reveal the potential impact of refugees moving to areas with old population structures and low unemployment. Yet, these impacts appear to differ across countries. |
| Date: | 2022–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7n6wm&r=ure |
| By: | Orefice, Gianluca (Université Paris-Dauphine); Rapoport, Hillel (Paris School of Economics); Santoni, Gianluca (CEPII, Paris) |
| Abstract: | How do immigrants promote exports? To answer this question we propose a unified empirical framework allowing to identify and disentangle the main mechanisms put forth in the literature: the role of networks in reducing bilateral transaction costs, and the productivity shifts arising from migrationinduced knowledge diffusion and increased workforce diversity. While we find evidence supporting all three channels (at both the intensive and the extensive margins of trade), our framework allows to gauge their relative importance. When focusing on diversity, we find stronger results in sectors characterized by more complex production processes and more intense teamwork cooperation. This is consistent with theories linking the distribution of skills to the comparative advantage of nations. The results are robust to using a theoretically-grounded IV approach combining three variations on the shift-share methodology. |
| Keywords: | international trade, birthplace diversity, migration, productivity |
| JEL: | F14 F16 F22 O47 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15722&r=ure |
| By: | Bhagat-Conway, Matthew Wigginton; Zhang, Sam |
| Abstract: | Urban roadways are used inefficiently, with capacity scaled to meet peak demands and underutilization at off-peak hours. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the transportation system, and one possible outcome is a spreading of rush hour. We use six years of highway sensor data from the California state highway system to evaluate that possibility, and find that peaks are spreading in the post-lockdown period, the spreading is statistically significant, and has been relatively stable since summer 2021. Spreading of peak travel periods calls into question highway expansion plans based on pre-pandemic travel forecasts. |
| Date: | 2022–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:6khsj&r=ure |
| By: | Thibault Rolland (ARAMIS - Algorithms, models and methods for images and signals of the human brain - SU - Sorbonne Université - Inria de Paris - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - ICM - Institut du Cerveau = Paris Brain Institute - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - INSERM - Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale - CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière [AP-HP] - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - SU - Sorbonne Université - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Fabrizio de Vico Fallani (ARAMIS - Algorithms, models and methods for images and signals of the human brain - SU - Sorbonne Université - Inria de Paris - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - ICM - Institut du Cerveau = Paris Brain Institute - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - INSERM - Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale - CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière [AP-HP] - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - SU - Sorbonne Université - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ICM - Institut du Cerveau = Paris Brain Institute - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - INSERM - Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale - CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière [AP-HP] - AP-HP - Assistance publique - Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP) - SU - Sorbonne Université - SU - Sorbonne Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In many fields of science and technology we are confronted with complex networks. Making sense of these networks often require the ability to visualize and explore their intermingled structure consisting of nodes and links. To facilitate the identification of significant connectivity patterns, many methods have been developed based on the rearrangement of the nodes so as to avoid link criss-cross. However, real networks are often embedded in a geometrical space and the nodes code for an intrinsic physical feature of the system that one might want to preserve. For these spatial networks, it is therefore crucial to find alternative strategies operating on the links and not on the nodes. Here, we introduce Vizaj a javascript web application to render spatial networks based on optimized geometrical criteria that reshape the link profiles. While optimized for 3D networks, Vizaj can also be used for 2D networks and offers the possibility to interactively customize the visualization via several controlling parameters, including network filtering and the effect of internode distance on the link trajectories. Vizaj is further equipped with additional options allowing to improve the final aesthetics, such as the color/size of both nodes and links, zooming/rotating/translating, and superimposing external objects. Vizaj is an open-source software which can be freely downloaded and updated via a github repository. Here, we provide a detailed description of its main features and algorithms together with a guide on how to use it. Finally, we validate its potential on several synthetic and real spatial networks from infrastructural to biological systems. We hope that Vizaj will help scientists and practitioners to make sense of complex networks and provide aesthetic while informative visualizations. |
| Keywords: | Complex systems,Physical networks,Dataviz,Software,Art |
| Date: | 2022–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03837671&r=ure |
| By: | Gehrke, Esther; Lenel, Friederike; Schupp, Claudia |
| Abstract: | We analyze whether an interest exploration tool, combined with information about potential careers, paths to higher education and ?financing options can provide guidance to students in rural Cambodia, help them develop long-term career goals and thereby motivate them to continue with school. We target the intervention to adolescents in grade 9, who are about to decide whether to enroll in high school. The intervention was conducted just before schools were closed for a period of six months due to COVID-19. We use survey data, as well as individual-level administrative data obtained from treatment and control schools to track educational decisions during and after school closure. Our fi?ndings suggest that the intervention if at all reduced educational investments. We fi?nd these effects are driven by low-performing students. Students that ranked in the lower half of their class prior to the intervention are less likely to study during school closure, perform worse in the ?final exam and are less likely to transition to high school. Studying potential underlying mechanisms, our analyses suggest that our intervention made low-performing students aware of alternative career paths and more realistic in their expectations. |
| Date: | 2022–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:k6tqr&r=ure |
| By: | Stephen Murchison; Maria teNyenhuis |
| Abstract: | We estimate the share of variable-rate mortgages with fixed payments that reached the so-called trigger rate—the interest rate at which mortgage payments no longer cover the principal. Amid rising interest rates, this share was close to 50% at the end of October 2022 and could potentially reach 65% in 2023. |
| Keywords: | Credit and credit aggregates; Financial institutions; Interest rates; Recent economic and financial developments |
| JEL: | D1 E4 E5 G2 G21 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocsan:22-19&r=ure |
| By: | Carr, Joel (University of Antwerp); James, Jonathan (University of Bath); Clifton-Sprigg, Joanna (University of Bath); Vujic, Suncica (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on racial hate crime in England and Wales. Using various data sources, including unique data collected through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests from UK police forces, a difference-in-difference and event study approaches, we find that racial hate crime against East Asians increased by 70-100%, beginning in early February and persisted until November 2020. This increase was greatest in the weeks leading up to the first national lockdown in the UK. The shock was then lower during lockdown, before increasing again in the summer 2020. We present evidence that hate crime increased as COVID-19 cases in China increased and following announcements from the government signalling that China or Chinese individuals posed a public health risk to the UK. This indicates that protectionism played an important role in the observed hate crime spike. The hate crime shock was also positively correlated with the salience of the national lockdown and government policies restricting certain freedoms. The effect was driven largely by changes in London. This suggests that retaliation for lockdown contributed to the rise in hate crime. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, hate crime, xenophobia, difference-in-differences, event study |
| JEL: | J15 C23 D63 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15718&r=ure |
| By: | Hai-Anh H. Dang (World Bank); Trong-Anh Trinh (World Bank); Paolo Verme (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Hardly any evidence exists on the effects of mental illness on refugee labor outcomes. We offer the first study on this topic in the context of Australia, one of the host countries with the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. Analyzing the Building a New Life in Australia longitudinal survey, we exploit the variations in traumatic experiences of refugees interacted with post-resettlement time periods to causally identify the impacts of refugee mental health. We find that worse mental health, as measured by a one-standard-deviation increase in the Kessler mental health score, reduces the probability of employment by 14.1% and labor income by 26.8%. We also find some evidence of adverse impacts of refugees’ mental illness on their children’s mental health and education performance. These effects appear more pronounced for refugees that newly arrive or are without social networks, but they may be ameliorated with government support. |
| Keywords: | refugees, mental health, labor outcomes, instrumental variable, BNLA longitudinal survey, Australia |
| JEL: | I15 J15 J21 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:376&r=ure |
| By: | Li, Dalei; Gao, Jianzhong |
| Keywords: | Agribusiness |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asae21:329397&r=ure |
| By: | Rowe, Francisco (University of Liverpool) |
| Abstract: | Global warming is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events leading to an increased risk of large-scale population displacements. Since June 2022, Pakistan has recorded destructive flash flooding resulting from melting glaciers and torrential monsoon rainfall. Emergency responses have documented flood-related deaths, injuries and infrastructure, less is known about population displacements resulting from recent floods. Information on these populations and mobility is critical to ensure the appropriate delivery of humanitarian assistance where it is most needed. Lack of granular spatial data in real time have been a key barrier. This article uses digital footprint data from Meta-Facebook to identify the patterns of population displacement in Pakistan in near real time. |
| Date: | 2022–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:c42sf&r=ure |
| By: | Claudio Costanzo |
| Abstract: | Labor automation is generally associated with a decrease in demand for mid-skill jobs,often routine-intensive, in favor of the others. This paper investigates its effects onfertility timing decisions using European panel data, by constructing a measure of localexposure to industrial robotics, and by adopting a Fixed Effect with Two-StageLeast Squares methodology. Higher exposure is associated with an anticipation offertility in low- and high-skilled regional labor markets, and with its postponementin medium-skilled ones. An optimal stopping model, in which individuals adjust thetiming based on their future labor opportunities, formalizes the causal intuition. Itsnumerical application, based on survey data, suggests that the effect of an increase inobserved automation on the willingness to postpone fertility is concave with respect toeducation, consistently with the Routine-Biased Technological Change hypothesis. |
| Keywords: | Automation; Demography; Fertility; Robots |
| JEL: | J13 J21 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/351586&r=ure |
| By: | Baniya, Suprabha (Clark University); Taniguchi, Kiyoshi (Asian Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the trade effects of transportation infrastructure reforms funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program. To do this, we applied a combination of geographic information systems (GIS), econometric, and computable general equilibrium (CGE) analyses. Using GIS analysis, we compute the reduction in bilateral transport time and potential substitution across transportation modes induced by ADB-funded transportation reforms in the CAREC program. Then, using econometric analyses, we examine the direct impacts of transport time on the extensive and intensive margins of trade. We use the average geographical features of trade partners as the instruments of bilateral transport time to address the endogeneity between trade and infrastructure. Finally, implementing the partial equilibrium impacts of transport time reductions on trade in a firm-heterogeneity CGE model in the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), we investigate the additional endogenous effects of transport time on trade. Combining the estimates of bilateral transport time reductions from the GIS analysis and the estimates of extensive and intensive margins of the trade from the two-part model, we find that the ADB transportation reforms in CAREC countries increase the trade values for existing exporters by 3.31% and trade participation by 1.21% on average. Using the CGE analysis, we find that trade values for CAREC countries increase by 2.04% to 8.72%, on average, due to additional endogenous effects on trade. We also find a positive change in total welfare for CAREC countries. |
| Keywords: | CAREC; transportation infrastructure; trade pattern and time sensitivity; CGE analysis; GIS analysis |
| JEL: | F15 R13 R41 |
| Date: | 2022–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0669&r=ure |
| By: | Christopher Cotton (Queen's University); Ardyn Nordstrom (Carleton University); Jordan Nanowski; Eric Richert (University of Chicago (Princeton University Post-Doctoral Fellow)) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the impact of deliberative dialogues about girls' education with groups of parents, teachers, and girls on the education outcomes of girls in rural Zimbabwe. Dialog-based engagement campaigns increased mathematics performance and school enrolment. In later periods, the program was expanded to provide resources and an updated curriculum. During these later periods, we observed improvements in literacy, but no additional improvements in mathematics and enrolment beyond what was observed following the dialog-based engagement campaign alone. A mediation analysis shows how earlier gains in math performance due to the dialogues are positively associated with later gains in literacy. |
| Keywords: | girls' education challenge, education, development, dialogue, conversations, social norms, gender inequality |
| JEL: | I24 I25 J16 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1492&r=ure |
| By: | Markendahl, Jan |
| Abstract: | The use of open and shared data in smart cities and public organizations have gained a lot of attention the last years. In Sweden, there are a number of projects looking into the use of open and shared data in the public sector. One application area of shared data is municipality driven information services on areas or streets with available parking spots. The input for this type of services are ticket machines, parking houses and spaces, and smart phone applications. Besides different types of data and formats, the input data is usually provided by a multitude of different type of actors. Looking back, we can see that mobile phone based solutions for parking services have been used for a decade. These solutions were originally a complement to ticket machines where you did pay with cash or credit cards. Today not only the payment is digital but also the ticket handling is fully digital, the paper ticket is replaced by data records in data bases and receipts are send by be-mails or SMS. This development with digital tickets and parking sessions have enabled an emerging type of information services where car drivers can get information on the availability of free parking spaces in specific zones or streets. However, in Sweden it turns out that these parking information services do not take off on a large scale based on a common framework and exchange of shared data. There are some examples where the municipality manages to provide a reasonably good overall picture, but currently most of these information services provide an "incomplete" map and there is no established way of cooperation between actors in the parking industry. In this paper, we present a set of mechanisms, drivers and problems to share parking information among actors. The main research contribution is to identify patterns of cooperation among different actors and to identify main obstacles for sharing data. The analysis is based on interviews with different types of actors; mobile public and private parking operators and providers of mobile parking apps. |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:itse22:265655&r=ure |
| By: | Du, Xinming (Columbia University); Tan, Elaine (Asian Development Bank); Elhan-Kayalar, Yesim (Asian Development Bank); Sawada, Yasuyuki (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | Since the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, governments around the globe have undertaken multiple policies to control its spread. Yet, only a few studies estimated the cost of COVID-19-related stringency measures on economic output, which can be attributable to the time lag and low frequency of conventional economic data. To bridge this gap in the literature, this paper uses novel high-frequency and spatially granular surface urban heat island (SUHI) data from satellites to quantify the impact of COVID-19-related containment policies in the People’s Republic of China, exploiting variations in such policies. Three empirical results emerge. First, we find stringency measures decrease urban heat island in locked cities only marginally, which is equivalent to 0.04–0.05 standard deviation or CNY22.2 billion ($3.6 billion) of economic output drop which is a 0.09% annual gross domestic product decline in 2020. Second, our results suggest that governments have been learning continuously to manage containment measures better. Third, the government’s containment policies have generated both positive and negative spillover effects on unlocked cities in which the former effect has dominated the latter. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19 pandemic; economic costs of containment measures; surface heat island (SUHI) data from satellites; PRC |
| JEL: | A10 O20 |
| Date: | 2022–10–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:adbewp:0673&r=ure |
| By: | Tranos, Emmanouil; Incera, Andre Carrascal; Willis, George |
| Abstract: | Despite the importance of interregional trade for building effective regional economic policies, there is very little hard data to illustrate such interdependencies. We propose here a novel research framework to predict interregional trade flows by utilising freely available web data and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, we extract hyperlinks between archived websites in the UK and we aggregate these data to create an interregional network of hyperlinks between geolocated and commercial webpages over time. We also use some existing interregional trade data to train our models using random forests and then make out-of-sample predictions of interregional trade flows using a rolling-forecasting framework. Our models illustrative great predictive capability with $R^2$ greater than 0.9. We are also able to disaggregate our predictions in terms of industrial sectors, but also at a sub-regional level, for which trade data are not available. In total, our models provide a proof of concept that the digital traces left behind by physical trade can help us capture such economic activities at a more granular level and, consequently, inform regional policies. |
| Date: | 2022–07–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:9bu5z&r=ure |
| By: | Tizifa, Tapiwa; Maharjan, Keshav Lall |
| Keywords: | Food Security and Poverty |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asae21:329416&r=ure |
| By: | Kaiser, Tim; Menkhoff, Lukas; Oberrauch, Luis |
| Abstract: | We study the malleability of patience via educational interventions by aggregating evidence from earlier experiments in a meta-analysis and by conducting a field experiment. We find that the average effect of interventions on patience is positive but uncertain. The age of students explains a large share of between-study heterogeneity in treatment effects. Thus, we conduct a field experiment covering both youths and adults in Uganda. We find heterogenous effects by age: adults’ patience measured in incentivized tasks is unaffected by the intervention after 15 months follow-up, but we observe large effects on patience and estimated discount factors for youth. |
| Keywords: | Patience,time-preferences,malleability,field experiment,educational intervention |
| JEL: | C93 I21 D15 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:266080&r=ure |
| By: | Divakaruni, Anantha; Alperovych, Yan; Le Grand, François |
| Abstract: | We document public welfare spending as an important growth driver of FinTech lending. Examining the massive austerity-led cuts to local welfare spending initiated by the UK government in 2010, we show that the gradual uneven rollback of the local welfare state since then is strongly associated with a rise in demand for peer-to-peer (P2P) consumer loans among affected areas, primarily in areas facing more banking and digital exclusion. P2P loans issued in austerity-affected areas are more expensive compared to those issued in unaffected areas, consistent with the P2P platform’s risk pricing sensitivity to higher default rates in affected areas. Overall, our findings show that P2P lending, as an alternative means to household finance, can help smooth cuts in welfare transfers particularly among households in economically deprived areas. |
| Date: | 2022–07–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:m4tps&r=ure |
| By: | Clemens Possnig; Andreea Rot\u{a}rescu; Kyungchul Song |
| Abstract: | Spillover of economic outcomes often arises over multiple networks, and distinguishing their separate roles is important in empirical research. For example, the direction of spillover between two groups (such as banks and industrial sectors linked in a bipartite graph) has important economic implications, and a researcher may want to learn which direction is supported in the data. For this, we need to have an empirical methodology that allows for both directions of spillover simultaneously. In this paper, we develop a dynamic linear panel model and asymptotic inference with large $n$ and small $T$, where both directions of spillover are accommodated through multiple networks. Using the methodology developed here, we perform an empirical study of spillovers between bank weakness and zombie-firm congestion in industrial sectors, using firm-bank matched data from Spain between 2005 and 2012. Overall, we find that there is positive spillover in both directions between banks and sectors. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.08995&r=ure |
| By: | Kristine Grimsrud; Cathrine Hagem (Statistics Norway); Kristina Haaskjold; Henrik Lindhjem; Megan Nowell |
| Abstract: | Energy generated from land-based wind power is expected to play a crucial role in the decarbonisation of the economy. With the looming biodiversity and nature crises, spatial allocation of wind power cannot, however, any longer be considered solely a trade-off against local disamenity costs. Emphasis should also be put on wider environmental impacts, especially if these challenge the sustainability of the whole renewable energy transition. We suggest a modelling system for spatial allocation of wind power plants (WPPs) by combining an energy system model with a comprehensive GIS analysis of WPP sites and surrounding viewscapes. The modelling approach integrates monetary cost estimates of local disamenity and loss of carbon sequestration, and impacts on wilderness and biodiversity implemented as sustainability constraints on the model. Simulating scenarios for the Norwegian energy system towards 2050, we find that the southern part of Norway is the most favourable region for wind power siting when only the energy system surplus is considered. However, when gradually adding local disamenity costs (and to a lesser extent carbon costs) and the sustainability constraints, the more beneficial siting in the northern part of Norway become. We find that the sustainability constraints have the largest impact on the spatial distribution of WPPs, but the monetised costs of satisfying them are shown to be modest. Overall, results show that there is a trade-off between local disamenities and loss of biodiversity and wilderness. Siting wind power plants outside the visual proximity of households yield negative consequences for biodiversity and wilderness. |
| Keywords: | wind power, spatial analysis, energy system model, environmental costs, disamenity costs |
| JEL: | C61 D62 Q24 Q42 Q48 Q51 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:992&r=ure |
| By: | Chen, Yuting; Gao, Jingjing; He, Yang; Wang, Tianyi; Liu, Chengfang; Luo, Renfu |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:asae21:329411&r=ure |
| By: | Schultheiss, Tobias (University of Zurich); Pfister, Curdin (University of Zurich); Gnehm, Ann-Sophie (University of Zurich); Backes-Gellner, Uschi (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | We examine how education expansions affect the job opportunities for workers with and without the new education. To identify causal effects, we exploit a quasi-random establishment of Universities of Applied Sciences (UASs), bachelor-granting three-year colleges that teach and conduct applied research. By applying machine-learning methods to job advertisement data, we analyze job content before and after the education expansion. We find that, in regions with the newly established UASs, not only job descriptions of the new UAS graduates but also job descriptions of workers without this degree (i.e., middle-skilled workers with vocational training) contain more high-skill job content. This upskilling in job content is driven by an increase in high-skill R&Drelated tasks and linked to employment and wage gains. The task spillovers likely occur because UAS graduates with applied research skills build a bridge between middle-skilled workers and traditional university graduates, facilitating the integration of the former into R&D-related tasks. |
| Keywords: | educational expansion, worker demand, upskilling, spillover effects, vocational training |
| JEL: | I23 J23 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15687&r=ure |
| By: | René BELDERBOS; IKEUCHI Kenta; FUKAO Kyoji; KIM Young Gak; KWON Hyeog Ug |
| Abstract: | We examine the simultaneous effects of spillovers due to R&D by universities and by firms on total factor productivity in a panel of over 20,000 Japanese manufacturing plants. Estimating geographic decay functions based on the location of the universe of manufacturing plants run by R&D conducting firms and public research institutions in Japan, we find a positive influence of both private and public technologically proximate-R&D stocks, which decay in distance and become negligible at around 500 kilometers. Decomposition analyses show that declining R&D spillovers are responsible for a substantial part of the decline in the rate of TFP growth in Japanese manufacturing. The exit of geographically proximate plants operated by R&D intensive firms, which may be associated with a relocation of manufacturing activity overseas, plays a notable role in this process and is an important phenomenon in major industrial agglomerations such as Tokyo and Osaka. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:22106&r=ure |
| By: | Qinan Lu; Nieyan Cheng; Wendong Zhang; Pengfei Liu |
| Keywords: | Agricultural Finance |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:nc1117:329268&r=ure |
| By: | Safitri, Aulia Mirliani |
| Abstract: | When we enter college, we will be introduced to various kinds of Student Activity Units (UKM) usually, early semester students are encouraged to join the UKM they are interested in. This UKM can be followed by all students, usually, students take part in UKM activities from semester 1 to semester 7. The purpose of this research is to analyze the opportunities and challenges of UKM in improving student achievement. The results of this study indicate that the impact of good and bad times depends on us responding to them. Functional strata in UKM is very influential on student achievement, for example, seen in their knowledge, most people who participate in UKM tend to have a lot of peer and senior relations and easily mingle with anyone outside UKM, making it easier for them to explore knowledge, either through lecturers, seniors and peers. Meanwhile, people who do not participate in UKM tend to feel more embarrassed and find it difficult to blend in and adapt to the surrounding environment. Structural functional on student achievement has a big influence if we occupy the according to our passion. Usually in an organization, we can improve our communication skills because we will get used to speaking in public and carrying out work programs in it. Each UKM has its own bittersweet, so if we are tired, rest, not give up. |
| Date: | 2022–06–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:emk84&r=ure |
| By: | Attanasio, Orazio (Yale University); de Barros, Ricardo Paes (Insper, São Paulo); Carneiro, Pedro (University College London); Evans, David K. (Center for Global Development); Lima, Lycia (Sao Paulo School of Economics); Olinto, Pedro (World Bank); Schady, Norbert (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of publicly provided daycare for children aged 0-3 on outcomes of children and their caregivers over the course of seven years after enrollment into daycare. At the end of 2007, the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil used a lottery to assign children to limited public daycare openings. Winning the lottery translated to a 34 percent increase in time in daycare during a child's first four years of life. This allowed caregivers more time to work, resulting in higher incomes for beneciary households in the first year of daycare attendance and 4 years later (but not after 7 years, by which time all children were eligible for universal schooling). The rise in labor force participation is driven primarily by grandparents and by adolescent siblings residing in the same household as (and possibly caring for) the child, and not by parents, most of whom were already working. Beneciary children saw sustained gains in height-for-age and weight-for-age, due to better nutritional intake at school and at home. Gains in beneciary children's cognitive development were observed 4 years after enrolment but not later. |
| Keywords: | early child development, childcare, Brazil |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15705&r=ure |
| By: | Haddad, Eduardo (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Araujo, Inacio (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Rocha, Ademir (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Sass, Karina (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo) |
| Abstract: | The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, scaled up the ongoing conflict in Donbas beyond its regional borders, hindering and halting different aspects of economic life. Considering the internal geography of Ukraine’s economic structure, the damages to physical infrastructure and supply chain disruptions are likely to propagate to other parts of the country through an intricate plot of production and income linkages. From a disaggregated analysis of multiregional and multisectoral linkages, this paper offers a systematic, integrated account of the structural linkages that allows modeling spillovers from one Ukrainian region to another. This approach breaks new ground by highlighting the internal economic effects of the conflict in Ukraine. We develop an interregional input-output system for Ukraine, providing the numerical basis for developing analytical frameworks to support knowledge building in the recovery process of distressed territories during the post-war period. We offer this database to the international scientific community to support modeling projects focusing on structural features of the Ukrainian economy. As shown in our illustrative exercises, understanding the structure of intersectoral and interregional linkages is critical to understanding better the propagation of exogenous shocks in the economy. |
| Keywords: | Input-output model; Europe; National Security; War |
| JEL: | H56 O52 R15 |
| Date: | 2022–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nereus:2022_005&r=ure |
| By: | Senik, Claudia (Paris School of Economics); Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); D'Ambrosio, Conchita (University of Luxembourg); Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg); Schröder, Carsten (DIW Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We carry out a difference-in-differences analysis of a representative real-time survey conducted as part of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study and show that teleworking had a negative average effect on life satisfaction over the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. This average effect hides considerable heterogeneity reflecting genderrole asymmetry: lower life satisfaction is only found for unmarried men and women with school-age children. The negative effect for women with school-age children disappears in 2021, suggesting adaptation to new constraints and/or the adoption of coping strategies. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction, teleworking, work from home, gender, childcare, COVID-19, SOEP |
| JEL: | I31 M5 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15715&r=ure |
| By: | Xinyu Li |
| Abstract: | Over the past decades, breakthroughs such as Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Agent-based modeling (ABM) have made simulations of economic models feasible. Recently, there has been increasing interest in applying ABM to study the impact of residential preferences on neighborhood segregation in the Schelling Segregation Model. In this paper, RL is combined with ABM to simulate a modified Schelling Segregation model, which incorporates moving expenses as an input parameter. In particular, deep Q network (DQN) is adopted as RL agents' learning algorithm to simulate the behaviors of households and their preferences. This paper studies the impact of moving expenses on the overall segregation pattern and its role in social integration. A more comprehensive simulation of the segregation model is built for policymakers to forecast the potential consequences of their policies. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12475&r=ure |
| By: | Desmet, Klaus; Ortuño-Ortín, Ignacio; Özak, Ömer (Southern Methodist University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes whether the propensity to secede by subnational regions responds mostly to differences in income per capita or to distinct identities. We explore this question in a quantitative political economy model where people's willingness to finance a public good depends on their income and identity. Using high-resolution economic and linguistic data for the entire globe, we predict the propensity to secede of 3,003 subnational regions in 173 countries. We validate the model-based predictions with data on secessionist movements, state fragility, regional autonomy, and conflict, as well as with an application to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Counterfactual analysis strongly suggests that identity trumps income in determining a region's propensity to secede. Removing identity differences reduces the average support for secession from 7.5% to 0.6% of the population. |
| Date: | 2022–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:h4yq3&r=ure |
| By: | Ikhenaode, Bright Isaac; Parello, Carmelo Pierpaolo |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a two-country AK model of growth with cross-country knowledge diffusion and endogenous migration to study the relationship between migration, income inequality and economic growth. In contrast with mainstream AK literature, we show that introducing knowledge diffusion from frontier to non-frontier countries makes AK models predict conditional convergence, with migration playing an important role in speeding up the catching-up process of non-frontier countries. When testing the robustness of the policy implications of the AK literature, we find that subsidizing capital accumulation in frontier countries stimulates migration and worldwide growth, but also that it increases cross-country inequalities in terms of both income and technology. On the contrary, subsidizing capital accumulation in non-frontier countries reduces migration and mitigates inequalities worldwide, but has no effects on the long-run pace of economic growth of the two countries. |
| Keywords: | Two-Country Model; Endogenous Growth; Labor Migration; Technology Transfer; Growth Policy |
| JEL: | E1 F1 O4 |
| Date: | 2022–11–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115340&r=ure |
| By: | Caron, Laura (Columbia University); Tiongson, Erwin R. (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 pandemic placed new constraints and prices on commuting to work around the world. However, traditional methods of measuring household welfare (and, accordingly, poverty and inequality) based on expenditures have not considered these changes. First, we present theory showing significant mismeasurement of welfare for households who can shift into remote work during the pandemic. We then propose methods to impute transportation cost equivalents for household expenditure aggregates. We use Georgia as a case study to compare these methods and assess impacts on poverty and inequality. The proportion of remote work is low, only about 9%, meaning that the impact on overall inequality is negligible. However, considering transportation costs can result in up to a 40% reduction in the measured poverty rate among remote-working households. |
| Keywords: | poverty measurement, inequality measurement, consumption aggregate, expenditures, imputation, living costs, COVID-19, welfare |
| JEL: | I32 D30 R20 J32 |
| Date: | 2022–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15670&r=ure |
| By: | Cassar, Lea (University of Regensburg); Fischer, Mira (WZB - Social Science Research Center Berlin); Valero, Vanessa (Loughborough University) |
| Abstract: | Mindfulness-based meditation practices are becoming increasingly popular in Western societies, including in the business world and in education. While the scientific literature has largely documented the benefits of mindfulness meditation for mental health, little is still known about potential spillovers of these practices on other important life outcomes, such as performance. We address this question through a field experiment in an educational setting. We study the causal impact of mindfulness meditation on academic performance through a randomized evaluation of a well-known 8-week mindfulness meditation training delivered to university students on campus. As expected, the intervention improves students' mental health and non-cognitive skills. However, it takes time before students' performance can benefit from mindfulness meditation: we find that, if anything, the intervention marginally decreases average grades in the short run, i.e., during the exam period right after the end of the intervention, whereas it significantly increases academic performance, by about 0.4 standard deviations, in the long run (ca. 6 months after the end of intervention). We investigate the underlying mechanisms and discuss the implications of our results. |
| Keywords: | performance, mental health, education, meditation, field experiment |
| JEL: | I21 C93 I12 I31 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15723&r=ure |
| By: | Masahiro Kubo; Shunsuke Tsuda |
| Abstract: | This paper uncovers the evolution of cities and Islamist insurgencies, so called jihad, in the process of the reversal of fortune over the centuries. In West Africa, water access in ancient periods predicts the locations of the core cities of inland trade routes -- the trans-Saharan caravan routes -- founded up to the 1800s, when historical Islamic states played significant economic roles before European colonization. In contrast, ancient water access does not have a persistent influence on contemporary city formation and economic activities. After European colonization and the invention of modern trading technologies, along with the constant shrinking of water sources, landlocked pre-colonial core cities contracted or became extinct. Employing an instrumental variable strategy, we show that these deserted locations have today been replaced by battlefields for jihadist organizations. We argue that the power relations between Islamic states and the European military during the 19th century colonial era shaped the persistence of jihadist ideology as a legacy of colonization. Investigations into religious ideology related to jihadism, using individual-level surveys from Muslims, support this mechanism. Moreover, the concentration of jihadist violence in "past-core-and-present-periphery" areas in West Africa is consistent with a global-scale phenomenon. Finally, spillovers of violent events beyond these stylized locations are partly explained by organizational heterogeneity among competing factions (Al Qaeda and the Islamic State) over time. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.04763&r=ure |
| By: | Mantilla, Cesar; Gelvez Ferreira, Juan David Gelvez; Nieto, Maria Paula |
| Abstract: | The increasing lack of trust in the police around the globe reduces their indirect benefits, related to citizens' feelings of safety and beliefs that the police are "doing something'' to fight crime. We explore whether this generalized lack of trust among citizens correlates with their beliefs' accuracy regarding fairness norm enforcement in a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted with future police officers. Two hundred nine police students played a dictator-like game with costly third-party reallocation. Participants acting as a third party could use one-fourth of their endowment to either decrease (i.e., sanction) or increase (i.e., reward) the highest payoff among the two other players, the initial allocator and the transfer's recipient. We randomized whether a police student or a civilian was the recipient. Police students transfer roughly 40% of their endowment, regardless of the recipient's identity. They are likely to incur costly reallocations between 55 and 75 percent of the time, especially when initial allocations are more inegalitarian and the recipient is also a police student. Moreover, when police students interact only with in-group members, they are more likely to reward, whereas they are more likely to sanction if the transfer's recipient is a civilian. The subsequent prediction survey, conducted with over 200 civilians, reveals that respondents expected some in-group favoritism in the transfer and in the likelihood to reward. Although the probability of sanctioning was high, respondents overestimated the likelihood that police students engage in costly sanctions. Incentives and reporting a higher trust in the police are correlated with higher predictive accuracy. |
| Date: | 2022–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:aebxy&r=ure |