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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | González-Pampillón, Nicolás |
| Abstract: | I estimate spillovers from new housing supply on house prices. To estimate these effects, I use exogenous variation in supply induced by a housing subsidy implemented in middle-income neighborhoods in the city of Montevideo, Uruguay. I find evidence of externalities from the new supply on house prices, with prices increasing 12%. I explore two possible mechanisms of these externalities: income and crime rates. Although the evidence suggests a reduction in property crime rates, changes in the neighborhood income mix due to the supply expansion represent an important contributor to the external effects. These findings underline the role of amenities in the determination of local house prices. |
| Keywords: | housing supply; neighborhood change; housing prices; crime |
| JEL: | R23 R30 R58 |
| Date: | 2022–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:112932&r=ure |
| By: | Carozzi, Felipe; Hilber, Christian A. L.; Yu, Xiaolun |
| Abstract: | We take advantage of two spatial discontinuities in Britain's Help to Buy (HtB) scheme to explore the effectiveness and distributional implications of mortgage credit expansion policies. Employing a Difference-in-Discontinuities design, we find that HtB significantly increased house prices and had no detectable effect on construction volumes in severely supply constrained and unaffordable Greater London. Conversely, HtB did increase construction numbers without a noticeable effect on prices near the English/Welsh border, an affordable area with comparably lax supply conditions. While HtB did not help would-be-buyers in already unaffordable areas, it boosted the financial performance of developers participating in the scheme. |
| Keywords: | credit constraints; homeownership subsidy; Help to Buy; house prices; construction; housing supply; land use regulation; Fruition Properties (through LSE Advancement) and STICERD |
| JEL: | G28 H24 H81 R21 R31 R38 |
| Date: | 2024–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120627&r=ure |
| By: | Jan Bietenbeck; Natalie Irmert; Linn Mattisson; Felix Weinhardt |
| Abstract: | We study whether autonomous schools, which are publicly funded but can operate more independently than government-run schools, affect student achievement and school segregation across 15 countries over 16 years. Our triple-differences regressions exploit between-grade variation in the share of students attending autonomous schools within a given country and year. While autonomous schools do not affect overall achievement, effects are positive for high-socioeconomic status students and negative for immigrants. Impacts on segregation mirror these findings, with evidence of increased segregation by socioeconomic and immigrant status. Rather than creating "a rising tide that lifts all boats", autonomous schools increase inequality. |
| Keywords: | autonomous schools, student achievement, school segregation |
| Date: | 2023–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1968&r=ure |
| By: | Phuong Nguyen-Hoang (School of Planning and Public Affairs, University of Iowa); Yoon-Jung Choi (Department of Public Policy and Administration, Florida International University) |
| Abstract: | This is the first study to examine the potential effects of property tax levy limits on school infrastructure assets and expenditures (IAE). Specifically, we examine how the limit on school districts’ property tax levy in New York may affect school IAE. Although this limit imposes a restriction only on operating, rather than capital, property tax levy, we hypothesize that the limit may have spillover effects on school IAE. We examine this hypothesis by employing a difference-in-differences estimation approach together with an event-study design on a panel of school districts between 2011 and 2020. We find that at-limit school districts that exhaust their limit, especially urban high-need districts, reduce the expenditures on machinery and equipment. In addition, the limit has a negative effect on rural high-need infrastructure assets captured by the building value. We also find that at-limit school districts do not issue more debt and that urban high-need districts seek out more matching state infrastructure aid. All these results indicate that school districts that are most likely to be constrained by the limit treat operation and capital resources as complements, rather than substitutes. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2326&r=ure |
| By: | Lindsey Currier; Edward L. Glaeser; Gabriel E. Kreindler |
| Abstract: | Which Americans experience the worst infrastructure? What are the costs of living with that infrastructure? We measure road roughness throughout America using vertical acceleration data from Uber rides across millions of American roads. Our measure correlates strongly and positively with other measures of road roughness where they are available, negatively with driver speed, and we find road repair events decrease roughness and increase speeds. We measure drivers’ willingness-to-pay to avoid roughness by measuring how speeds change with salient changes in road roughness, such as those associated with town borders and road repaving events in Chicago. These estimates suggest the roughness of the median local road in the US generates welfare losses to drivers of at least 31 cents per driver-mile. Roads are worse near coasts, and in poorer towns and in poorer neighborhoods, even within towns. We find that a household that drives 3, 000 miles annually on predominantly local roads will suffer $318 per year more in driving pain if they live in a predominantly Black neighborhood than in a predominantly White neighborhood. Road roughness modestly predicts subsequent road resurfacing in New York City, but not in three other cities, which suggests that repaving is only weakly targeted towards damaged roads. Surveys from 120 towns and cities across the US suggest many reasons why resurfacing seems to be weakly targeted. |
| JEL: | L92 O18 R41 R42 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31981&r=ure |
| By: | Paul J. Gertler (University of California-Berkeley); Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (University of California-Berkeley); Tadeja Gracner (RAND); Alexander D. Rothenberg (Syracuse University) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the local welfare impacts of highway maintenance investments. We instrument road quality exploiting Indonesia’s two-step budgeting process for allocating funding to local road authorities. Using comprehensive data on road quality from 1990Ã 2007, we find evidence that better roads help manufacturers create new jobs, enabling worker transitions out of informal employment, and increasing labor income. Road quality also changes the cost of living, reducing perishable food prices but also raising housing prices. We estimate the elasticity of household welfare with respect to road quality to be 0.09 and the benefit/cost ratio for road maintenance investments to be 1.8. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2327&r=ure |
| By: | Zhang, Bowen; Rees, Griffith; Solomon, Guy; Wilson, Alan |
| Abstract: | Modelling complex systems like cities requires a theory of how elements interact (e.g. how transport influences trade, how education and housing impact labour, etc.), tempered by the tractability of measurements and assumptions. Combining the 2017 national UK Input-Output accounting table with local population and sector employment tallies from the Office of National Statistics (ONS), we develop an Multi-Regional Input-Output model with a novel spatial-interaction transport cost component to estimate trade between 48 UK cities and their Gross Domestic Products (GDPs). We extend the model to estimate future scenarios via ONS population projections over a constant national GDP growth of 2% per year. Without external shocks, our results reflect the so-called ‘North-South divide’: while northern UK cities may have higher GDPs than many southern cities (excluding London), their economic output per employee is lower. Our results suggest the prominence of lower value-added sectors like ‘Production’ in northern cities may account for lower income per worker, relative to the dominance of higher value-added sectors like ‘Financial and insurance’ and ‘Professional and support activities’ in southern cities. |
| Date: | 2023–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:sruq7&r=ure |
| By: | Fernando V. Ferreira; Joseph Gyourko |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between housing supply and political partisanship in US cities using a new database of mayoral elections combined with local housing permits since 1980. Endogeneity of which party holds the mayoral office is addressed via a regression discontinuity design that relies on closely contested races between Republicans and Democrats. We find that partisanship has no effect on the supply of single and multifamily housing despite recent increases in extreme partisanship, corroborating that US cities follow the median voter. This indicates that solutions to housing affordability will not be dependent upon the political party in power at the local level. |
| JEL: | H7 P43 R0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31966&r=ure |
| By: | Jason Nassios; James Giesecke; Xianglong Locky Liu |
| Abstract: | While the impact of housing-related tax instruments on economic efficiency and housing markets has been widely studied, the impact of expenditure instruments has received less attention. Housing grants, transfer duty concessions, shared equity schemes, and rental assistance, are several such expenditure instruments that generate debate regarding their efficacy in achieving housing policy aims. This study examines the impact of these instruments on the housing market. We find that each instrument addresses a specific housing policy aim, but cannot simultaneously improve affordability, accessibility, and efficiency. This finding reinforces the need for policymakers to establish clear and targeted objectives to guide housing policy choices. |
| Keywords: | First homeowner grant, Shared equity, Transfer duty concession, Homeownership, Housing affordability, Housing prices, Excess burden |
| JEL: | C68 E62 H2 H71 R38 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cop:wpaper:g-344&r=ure |
| By: | Eren Aydin (University of Hamburg); Kathleen Kürschner Rauck (University of St.Gallen; Swiss Finance Institute) |
| Abstract: | We study the short-term effects of the 9-Euro-Ticket, a major German public transport subsidization program, on particulate matter (PM). Using hourly PM readings from pollution monitoring stations throughout Germany, provided by the German Federal Environmental Agency, we find declines in PM₁₀ and PM₂.₅ at core traffic stations, displaying differential effects of -0.44 µg/m³ and -0.41 µg/m³ relative to less frequented locations, which corresponds to approximately 2.8 % and 8.5 % of the current limit guidelines that the WHO suggests to mitigate adverse effects on human health. Pollution reductions materialize in regions with above-average public-transportation accessibility, are most pronounced during peak travel times on weekdays and in regions with above-average population density and larger car fleets, suggesting reductions in car usage sign responsible for our findings. This notion is supported by plausibility tests that employ NO₂ and SO₂ as outcomes. These insights into consequences of ticket-fare subsidization for air quality and potential causal pathways are of relevance for policymakers involved in transportation (infrastructure) planning to accommodate such directly incentivizing policy tools in the future. |
| Keywords: | Public transport subsidy, Air pollution, 9-Euro-Ticket, Germany |
| JEL: | R48 R41 Q53 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp23109&r=ure |
| By: | Nina Biljanovska; Mr. Chenxu Fu; Ms. Deniz O Igan |
| Abstract: | The rapid increase in house prices in the past few years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, raises concerns about housing affordability. The price-to-income ratio is a widely-used indicator of affordability, but does not take into account important factors such as the cost of financing. The aim of this paper is to construct a measure of housing affordability that takes these factors into account for a large set of countries and long period of time. The resulting dataset covers an unbalanced panel of 40 countries over the period from 1970Q1 to 2021Q4. For each country, the index measures the extent to which a median-income household can qualify for a mortgage loan to purchase an average-priced home. To gauge the performance of the constructed indices, we compare them to other readily-available mesures of affordability and examine the evolution of the indices over time to understand the relevant drivers, including in a regression analysis to assess the extent to which government housing programs could contribute to improving affordability. |
| Keywords: | housing affordability; real estate markets |
| Date: | 2023–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/247&r=ure |
| By: | Falcone Guillermo; César Andrés |
| Abstract: | We study the causal impact of export growth on Chilean local economic development by exploiting spatial and time variations in local exposure arising from past differences in industry specialization across local labor markets and the evolution of tariffs and exports across industries. We find that growing exports implied a significant reduction in labor informality and labor income gains in more exposed local markets, driven by job creation and wage growth in the formal sector. These effects concentrate on senior skilled workers. Exposed locations also exhibit a relative decline in monetary poverty. |
| JEL: | F14 F16 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4651&r=ure |
| By: | Mr. Serhan Cevik; Sadhna Naik |
| Abstract: | Households across Europe are struggling with a double crisis—the worst inflation shock since the World War II and a sudden correction in house prices. There is a rich literature on how housing price cycles affect consumer spending, finding mixed results with a wide range of consumption responses to changes in housing wealth. In this paper, using quarterly data on 20 countries in Europe over the period 1980–2023, we analyze the dynamic relationship between inflation-adjusted housing wealth and consumer spending and obtain statistically significant and economically intuitive results. Household consumption responds positively and swiftly to changes in real house prices and gross disposable income as expected. Using the estimated coefficients, we can deduce that the average quarter-on-quarter decline of -1.96 percent in real house prices in the first quarter of 2023 in Europe could dampen consumer spending by about -0.51 percentage points in real terms on a cumulative basis over a horizon of eight quarters. |
| Keywords: | House prices; wealth effects; consumer spending; Europe |
| Date: | 2023–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/256&r=ure |
| By: | Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M.; Barr, Jason |
| Abstract: | We document that skyscraper growth since the end of the 19 th century has been driven by a reduction in the cost of height, increasing urbanization, and rising incomes. These stylized facts guide us in developing a competitive open-city general equilibrium model of vertical and horizontal city structure. We use the model to show that (i) vertical costs and benefits affect the horizontal land use pattern within cities; (ii) the causal relationship between skyscrapers and urbanization is bi-directional; and (iii) height limits reduce the size of large cities, leading to lower agglomeration economies, productivity, and urban GDP. We substantiate the model's predictions by novel estimates of urban height gradients. |
| Keywords: | density; economics; history; height regulations; skyscraper; urbanization |
| JEL: | R30 N90 |
| Date: | 2022–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:112791&r=ure |
| By: | János Köllő (HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, IZA); Anna Sebők (HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies) |
| Abstract: | In 2013, the Hungarian government cut the school leaving age from 18 to 16. We study the impact of this unique reform on the country's sizeable Roma minority using census data on the universe of 17-year-olds in 2011 and a 10 percent random sample in 2016. School attendance fell by more than 20 percentage points among Roma youth as opposed to less than 6 points with their non-Roma counterparts. Roma's post-reform drawbacks in school enrolment were predominantly explained by their family background, neighborhood characteristics, and, much less importantly, below-average school performance. Changes in local employment prospects had no remarkable impact on the post-reform ethnic gap. More stringent selection and self-selection by social status and school performance (rather than ethnicity) nevertheless affected the Roma minority disproportionally, with close to 30 percent of their 17-year-old children being out of education, training, and employment three years after the reform. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: school leaving age, Roma, Hungary |
| JEL: | I24 J15 J48 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2331&r=ure |
| By: | Emma Duchini; Victor Lavy; Stephen Machin; Shqiponja Telhaj |
| Abstract: | Low-performing, high-poverty, public schools notoriously struggle to attract and retain good teachers. This paper studies a setting where independent organizations, including charities and businesses, take over the management of under-performing schools, while funding remains public. Exploiting the staggered expansion of English Sponsor-led academies since the early 2000s, we show that the Sponsor-led takeover leads to substantial changes in the teaching body and the school personnel policy. The probability that the Sponsor appoints a new headteacher doubles upon the takeover, with the new headteacher being, on average, better paid, and more likely to come from outstanding schools. The takeover also induces teacher sorting, with older and lower-achieving teachers leaving the school, and new teachers joining the Sponsor-led school from outstanding schools. Lastly, Sponsors substantially restructure teachers’ rewarding scheme and abandon a pay scale entirely based on seniority, leading to a 10 percent increase in pay dispersion across equally experienced teachers. |
| JEL: | I28 J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31994&r=ure |
| By: | Gagliardi, Luisa (Bocconi University); Moretti, Enrico (University of California, Berkeley); Serafinelli, Michel (University of Essex) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the employment consequences of deindustrialization for 1, 993 cities in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States. In all six countries we find a strong negative relationship between a city's share of manufacturing employment in the year of its country's manufacturing peak and the subsequent change in total employment, reflecting the fact that cities where manufacturing was initially more important experienced larger negative labor demand shocks. But in a significant number of cases, total employment fully recovered and even exceeded initial levels, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs. Overall, 34% of former manufacturing hubs–defined as cities with an initial manufacturing employment share in the top tercile–experienced employment growth faster than their country's mean, suggesting that a surprisingly large number of cities was able to adapt to the negative shock caused by deindustrialization. The U.S. has the lowest share, indicating that the U.S. Rust Belt communities have fared relatively worse compared to their peers in the other countries. We then seek to understand why some former manufacturing hubs recovered while others didn't. We find that deindustrialization had different effects on local employment depending on the initial share of college-educated workers in the labor force. While in the two decades before the manufacturing peak, cities with a high college share experienced a rate of employment growth similar to those with a low college share, in the decades after the manufacturing peak, the employment trends diverged: cities with a high college share experienced significantly faster employment growth. The divergence grows over time at an accelerating rate. Using an instrumental variable based on the driving distance to historical colleges and universities, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in local college share results in a rate of employment growth per decade that is 9.1 percentage points higher. This effect is in part explained by faster growth in human capital-intensive services, which more than offsets the loss of manufacturing jobs. |
| Keywords: | manufacturing hubs, spatial heterogeneity, human capital |
| JEL: | J21 R12 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16648&r=ure |
| By: | Rahlff, Helen (University of Hagen); Rinne, Ulf (IZA); Sonnabend, Hendrik (Fern Universität Hagen) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the prevalence of bullying in Germany during COVID-19, both as a real-life phenomenon (in-person bullying, or in our context: school bullying) and via social media and electronic communication tools (cyberbullying). Using Google Trends data from 2013 to 2022 and exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment when schools switched to distance learning, we document stark changes in the prevalence of (cyber)bullying in Germany: Our results indicate that during school years affected by COVID-19, online searches for school bullying decreased by about 25 percent, while online searches for cyberbullying increased by about 48 percent during the same periods. |
| Keywords: | school bullying, cyberbullying, Google Trends |
| JEL: | H75 I12 I21 I28 I31 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16650&r=ure |
| By: | Javad Eshtiyagh; Baotong Zhang; Yujing Sun; Linhui Wu; Zhao Wang |
| Abstract: | Gentrification--the transformation of a low-income urban area caused by the influx of affluent residents--has many revitalizing benefits. However, it also poses extremely concerning challenges to low-income residents. To help policymakers take targeted and early action in protecting low-income residents, researchers have recently proposed several machine learning models to predict gentrification using socioeconomic and image features. Building upon previous studies, we propose a novel graph-based multimodal deep learning framework to predict gentrification based on urban networks of tracts and essential facilities (e.g., schools, hospitals, and subway stations). We train and test the proposed framework using data from Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles. The model successfully predicts census-tract level gentrification with 0.9 precision on average. Moreover, the framework discovers a previously unexamined strong relationship between schools and gentrification, which provides a basis for further exploration of social factors affecting gentrification. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.15646&r=ure |
| By: | Pierre-Philippe Combes (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Clément Gorin (UP1 UFR02 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - École d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Shohei Nakamura (World Bank Group); Mark Roberts (World Bank Group); Benjamin Stewart (World Bank Group) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a detailed descriptive analysis of patterns of urbanization across Sub-Saharan Africa for the year circa 2015. Despite the rapidity and importance of Sub-Saharan Africa's urbanization, little is known about the anatomy of patterns of urbanization across the region due to a lack of detailed and accurate official data on urban settlements and populations. To address this gap, the paper applies a modified version of the "dartboard" algorithm to high-resolution gridded population data for the region, which is derived from digitized maps of the footprints of all buildings in the region from very high-resolution satellite imagery. This allows for a consistent definition of urban areas across all countries in the region, overcoming the measurement problems that arise from relying on official definitions of urban areas, which vary markedly across countries. Using this definition, the paper presents evidence on key empirical regularities that are related to disparities across the urban hierarchies, such as the extent of urban primacy and Zipf's law, as well as on the internal structures of cities, such as population density gradients and the number of centers that cities possess. The paper also analyzes how these characteristics are related to key country characteristics. Finally, the paper compares the results with those that arise from the use of an alternative definition of urban areas—the degree of urbanization. |
| Keywords: | Urbanization, Sub-Saharan Africa, dartboard approach, satellite imagery, population density |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-04345529&r=ure |
| By: | David Molitor; Corey D. White |
| Abstract: | Do environmental conditions pose greater health risks to individuals living in urban or rural areas? The answer is theoretically ambiguous: while urban areas have traditionally been associated with heightened exposure to environmental pollutants, the economies of scale and density inherent to urban environments offer unique opportunities for mitigating or adapting to these harmful exposures. To make progress on this question, we focus on the United States and consider how exposures—to air pollution, drinking water pollution, and extreme temperatures—and the response to those exposures differ across urban and rural settings. While prior studies have addressed some aspects of these issues, substantial gaps in knowledge remain, in large part due to historical deficiencies in monitoring and reporting, especially in rural areas. As a step toward closing these gaps, we present new evidence on urban-rural differences in air quality and population sensitivity to air pollution, leveraging recent advances in remote sensing measurement and machine learning. We find that the urban-rural gap in fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅) has converged over the last two decades and the remaining gap is small relative to the overall declines. Furthermore, we find that residents of urban counties are, on average, less vulnerable to the mortality effects of PM₂.₅ exposure. We also discuss promising areas for future research. |
| JEL: | I12 Q5 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31990&r=ure |
| By: | Jason Allen; Robert Clark; Jean-François Houde; Shaoteng Li; Anna V. Trubnikova |
| Abstract: | We study the role of brokers in selection markets. We find broker-clients in the Canadian mortgage market are observationally different from branch-clients. They finance larger loans with more leverage and longer amortization. We build and estimate a model of mortgage demand to disentangle three possible explanations for these riskier product choices: (i) selection on observables, (ii) unobserved borrower preferences for riskier loans, and (iii) a causal effect of brokers. Although we find that brokers influence product choices, the main reason borrowers choose high-leverage products is unobserved preferences. Borrowers prefer larger loans and brokers facilitate qualification for them. |
| JEL: | G21 L80 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31989&r=ure |
| By: | Nicola Daniele Coniglio (University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy. School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu, Estonia) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the local community-level effects of Filipino labor migration on the income and expenditure of households. Using the IV method, it examines the effects of district-level migration rates on fifteen different categories of household income and expenditure, which altogether form the core of household income and expenditure structure. Migration is shown to have no significant impact on families’ total income or expenditure. However, it is negatively associated with the wages and salaries of families left behind. Determining whether this result reflects the moral hazard problem or the takeover of the departed migrant’s household chores by another family member (or any other explanation) is beyond the scope of this paper. The effect on receipts from abroad is, expectedly, positive and significant. Concerning household expenditure by category, no significant effect of migration was detected, except for migrants’ educational attainment having a positive and significant effect on education spending, which together with medical care spending is sometimes referred to as households’ ‘investments in human capital’. It is also positively associated with expenditures on durable goods and equipment, as well as housing and utilities. The main contribution to the literature is that, for the first time, the relationship between labor migration and economic outcomes has been analyzed at the district level. Considering the well-documented positive effects of Filipino overseas migration on various dimensions of household welfare at the level of individual households, regions, and the whole nation, the fact that neither total income nor expenditure is affected by the rate of local communities’ migration might entail that, at this level of governance, the Philippine migration policy framework is lacking. Further research is required to foster a more thorough understanding of the interrelationship between migration and household economic outcomes at the local community level and inform the meso-level migration policy in the Philippines. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bai:egeiwp:egei_wp-3_2023&r=ure |
| By: | Yuan, Tianchen; Ioannou, Petros A. |
| Abstract: | Freeway and arterial transportation networks in most districts are managed separately without any coordination. This lack of coordination increases the severity of traffic congestion when one or both systems reach their capacities. Some field studies have observed reductions in travel time by coordinating freeway ramps with adjacent arterial signals. To advance the investigation, we propose an integrated traffic management strategy that involves variable speed limit, lane change, ramp metering for freeway traffic flow control, and a traffic-responsive signal control scheme for adjacent traffic light intersections.The variable speed limit and lane change control are designed to alleviate congestion at a lane-drop bottleneck in an arbitrary section, and reject potential uncertainties from measurements or model parameters. The ramp metering algorithm takes advantage of the signal plan of neighboring arterial intersection when estimating on-ramp demands. The signal plan for each arterial intersection is determined by a simulation-based cycle length model and estimated demands of all directions, part ofwhich depend on off-ramp flow measurements. The above data sharing mechanism strengthens the connection between thefreeway and arterial networks and enhances the control performance. We demonstrate the effectiveness and quantify the benefits provided by the proposed system in terms of traffic mobility, safety and emission using microscopic traffic simulations. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Variable speed limit, lane change, ramp metering, traffic signal control, coordination |
| Date: | 2023–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt6q67f9z4&r=ure |
| By: | Houmark, Mikkel Aagaard |
| Abstract: | I study how birth order affects children’s academic achievement, personality, and well-being in elementary school. Earlier-born children not only perform better in reading and mathematics throughout elementary school, but they are also more conscientious, agreeable, and emotionally stable, and report higher well-being. Reading ability and conscientiousness – crucial skills for success – appear particularly sensitive to the early childhood environment. These effects are remarkably stable across different groups. I also provide new evidence on the quantity-quality trade-off by showing that family size has a negative effect on earlierborn siblings which enlarges the birth order effect by disproportionately affecting younger siblings. |
| Keywords: | Skill Formation; Parental Investments; Early Childhood; Sensitive Period; Personality; Academic Achievement; Well-being |
| JEL: | D10 I31 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119325&r=ure |
| By: | Sergio Galeano |
| Abstract: | From April 2022 through March 2023, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity participated in the Reinventing Our Communities (ROC) program, a place-based economic inclusion program designed to increase equity in the workforce development system in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Through applied trainings, workshops, peer learning, and technical support, the program helped public- and private-sector community partners across Chattanooga work toward: • Improved community-led collaboration around racial equity and workforce development • Increased organizational capacity to identify challenges and solutions to advance equity in the workforce system • Greater understanding of actionable strategies to create sustainable systems-level change across their regional economies |
| Date: | 2023–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:a00034:97531&r=ure |
| By: | Echeverría, Lucía; Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio; Molina, José Alberto |
| Abstract: | Introduction: Research has shown that commuting is related to the health of workers, and that mode choice may have a range of effects on this relationship. We analyze the relationship between active commuting (walking and cycling) and the health status reported by US workers. Methods: We use the 2014-2016 Eating and Health (EH) Module of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). We estimate Ordinary Least Squares models on a measure of subjective health that is the self-reported assessment of individual general health status, and on the body mass index. Results: longer commutes by bicycle are significantly related to higher levels of subjective health and to lower body mass index, while commuting by walking is only weakly related to both health measures. We test the robustness of our results to possible measurement error in commuting times, to the exclusion of compensating factors, to the estimation method, and to the inclusion of time devoted to leisure-based physical activities. Conclusions: Our results may help policy makers in evaluating the importance of infrastructures that facilitate the use of bicycles as a means of transport, boosting investment in these infrastructures, especially in larger cities. |
| Keywords: | Commuting; Salud; Trabajadores; Medios de Transporte; Estados Unidos; 2014-2016; |
| Date: | 2023–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:4010&r=ure |
| By: | Navid Sabet; Christoph Winter |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of immigrant legalization on fiscal transfers from state to local governments in the United States, exploiting variation in legal status from the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). State governments allocate more resources to IRCA counties, an allocation that is responsive to the electoral incentives of the governor. Importantly, the effect emerges prior to the enfranchisement of the IRCA migrants and we argue it is driven by the IRCA’s capacity to politically empower already legal Hispanic migrants in mixed legal status communities. The IRCA increases turnout in large Hispanic communities as well as Hispanic political engagement, without triggering anti-migrant sentiment. |
| Keywords: | distributive politics, state and local government, immigrant legalization |
| JEL: | J15 H72 P16 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10787&r=ure |
| By: | Thomas Benison (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Julia Talbot-Jones (Victoria University of Wellington) |
| Abstract: | With urbanisation and climate change placing increasing pressure on water security around the world, demand-side mechanisms, such as metering and pricing, have emerged as core components of urban water management. Yet the impacts of metering and pricing on water production and consumption in Aotearoa New Zealand are not well understood. This constrains the ability of decision-makers to make targeted wellbeing improvements for the communities they serve. In this paper, we endeavour to estimate the impact of metering and pricing on urban water consumption in Aotearoa. We collect data on residential water production and consumption from 67 local councils and provide comparisons of water use across regions and over time, with particular attention given to Tauranga and Wellington. Our experience reveals the extent of the drinking water data gaps in urban areas in Aotearoa, raising questions about how evidence is being used to inform the design of urban water policy in Aotearoa and issues of public accountability. |
| Keywords: | Data gaps; demand management; drinking water; metering; policy; pricing |
| JEL: | Q21 Q25 Q28 |
| Date: | 2023–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:23_11&r=ure |
| By: | ITO Tadashi |
| Abstract: | The covid-19 pandemic triggered the widespread use of remote work. Many firms closed their headquarters in Tokyo and moved to neighboring or regional areas. Revitalization of regional economies has been one of the core policy issues of the Japanese government for the last 10 years. Relocation of firms to regional areas could help the regional economies’ development. This study analyses the characteristics of the relocated firms and their CEOs, and the possibility of the relocation of new firms and their effects on the revitalization of the regional economies through new business opportunities or new transactions. The analyses show that 1) only a small portion of firms relocate, as in the case of the other developed countries, and the ratio of firms that relocated between prefectures during the period of about 10 years was merely 0.74%; 2) most firms relocated to neighboring areas; 3) large firms or productive firms, or young (years since establishment) firms and firms run by young CEOs are more likely to relocate; 4) ICT-related firms are more likely to relocate and agglomerate in the central urban areas; 5) relocated firms are more likely to change their transaction partner firms; and 6) firms are likely to relocate closer to their customers’ locations. Moreover, the analyses find a positive correlation between the numbers of firms relocated into areas/industries and the growth rate of those areas/industries. On the other hand, there is a substantial number of large firms that relocated from Tokyo or Osaka areas to regional areas and most of those firms are in manufacturing industries. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:23050&r=ure |
| By: | Can Chen (Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University); Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (International Center for Public Policy, Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | The often-forgotten dimension of public infrastructure finance is the difficulty of maintaining a proper level of infrastructure in good condition. Given that increasing responsibilities for public infrastructure investment have been decentralized worldwide, this study investigates the impact of fiscal and political decentralization on infrastructure maintenance expenditures using a panel cross-country analysis from 1995 to 2020. To address the endogeneity concerns and estimate the causal impact of fiscal decentralization (revenue and expenditure decentralization), this research uses the Geographic Fragmentation Index (GFI) and country size as two valid instrumental variables for fiscal decentralization. Our main results confirm that fiscal and political decentralization measures are found to increase public spending on road maintenance. The findings are robust to alternative model specifications and different measures of fiscal and political decentralization. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper2323&r=ure |
| By: | Patrick Dylong; Silke Uebelmesser |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between beliefs about and attitudes towards immigrants and intergroup contact between natives and migrants in eastern Germany, a region characterized by anti-immigrant sentiment. Using probability-based survey data, we randomly vary respondents’ access to a signal about the true size of the immigrant population in the region. Respondents who receive the signal show more supportive attitudes toward immigration, with effect sizes being more pronounced for attitudes toward high-skilled immigrants. Importantly, estimating conditional average treatment effects shows that respondents who have less contact with immigrants prior to our intervention respond more strongly to the treatment. Additional findings suggest that the level of intergroup contact and biased beliefs about immigrants are complementary targets for information campaigns on immigration. |
| Keywords: | beliefs about immigrants, immigration attitudes, intergroup contact, information campaign |
| JEL: | C90 D83 F22 J15 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10808&r=ure |
| By: | Neubauer, Florian; Rose, Julian; Ankel-Peters, Jörg |
| Abstract: | Rogowski et al. (2022) use secondary data to study the impact of historic postal infrastructure on economic development, both cross-country and within the US. Their results suggest a large positive effect of post offices on economic development that is robust across various sensitivity checks. We successfully computationally reproduce all results. In a robustness assessment, we find the results to be robust to simple changes in the analysis but observe some sensitivity to accounting for spatial trends in the cross-country analysis. Additionally, we correct a coding inconsistency, showing that in the corrected version, one main robustness check for the US-analysis is no longer supporting the result. Despite this, we find the results to be overall robust given the numerous analyses and robustness checks in the original paper. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:92&r=ure |
| By: | Silvia Rocchetta; Martina Iori; Andrea Mina; Robert Gillanders |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of different types of technological diversification on the performance of regional economies. We focus on the relatedness and unconventionality of technological capabilities as drivers of GDP and employment growth. Using economic indicators from Eurostat regional statistics and patent records from the European Patent Office (EPO) PATSTAT and the OECD RegPat databases, we estimate Panel Vector Autoregression models and generate Impulse Response Functions to assess to what extent and with what persistence relatedness and unconventionality affect growth. Our findings, which have implications for place-based innovation policies, reveal that technological relatedness has short-term effects on employment growth and negative effects on GDP growth, whereas technological unconventionality has a long-lasting positive impact on GDP growth and no effect on employment growth. |
| Keywords: | Technological capabilities; Diversification; Relatedness; Unconventionality; Innovation; Regional development |
| Date: | 2023–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2023/46&r=ure |
| By: | Paredes, Tatiana; Sevilla, Almudena |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect on students’ scores of incentivizing in-service teacher training in a system that conditions teacher promotions to in-service training take-up. In Ecuador, teachers need to pass a compulsory knowledge test with a minimum score and undergo substantial training to qualify for a promotion. We use a regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effect of incentivizing in-service teacher training on students’ scores on a standardized national university entrance exam. We find that in-service training significantly improves students’ verbal test scores by 0.19 to 0.31 standard deviations (depending on the selected comparison window). |
| Keywords: | professional development; teachers; developing countries; regression discontinuity design; 770839; Elsevier deal |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2024–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120931&r=ure |
| By: | Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá (Department of Business, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain); Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Diego Prior (Department of Business, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain); Emili Tortosa-Ausina (IVIE, Valencia and IIDL and Department of Economics, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain) |
| Abstract: | When decentralized governments share the public budget, distributive policies are needed to allocate public goods and services among them. To date, however, both the theoretical and empirical evidence has largely examined the effect of political orientation on the quantity of transfers received, without considering how efficiently they are managed. This article aims to fill this gap by linking the literature on political alignment and transfers with work on public sector efficiency. Specifically, we examine how bureaucratic input choices might be related to political orientation and political sign, and how political coordination between local and higher levels of government could lead to inefficiencies due to clientelism, corrupt practices, or lack of transparency. Our results suggest that political alignment between local governments and higher-level governments may lead to a decrease in public sector efficiency, which is detrimental to distributive policies. |
| Keywords: | efficiency, local government, political alignment, provincial council, transfers |
| JEL: | C14 H11 H70 R15 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2023/08&r=ure |
| By: | Ben-Hur Francisco Cardoso; Eva Yamila da Silva Catela; Guilherme Viegas; Fl\'avio L. Pinheiro; Dominik Hartmann |
| Abstract: | Research on productive structures has shown that economic complexity conditions economic growth. However, little is known about which type of complexity, e.g., export or industrial complexity, matters more for regional economic growth in a large emerging country like Brazil. Brazil exports natural resources and agricultural goods, but a large share of the employment derives from services, non-tradables, and within-country manufacturing trade. Here, we use a large dataset on Brazil's formal labor market, including approximately 100 million workers and 581 industries, to reveal the patterns of export complexity, industrial complexity, and economic growth of 558 micro-regions between 2003 and 2019. Our results show that export complexity is more evenly spread than industrial complexity. Only a few -- mainly developed urban places -- have comparative advantages in sophisticated services. Regressions show that a region's industrial complexity is a significant predictor for 3-year growth prospects, but export complexity is not. Moreover, economic complexity in neighboring regions is significantly associated with economic growth. The results show export complexity does not appropriately depict Brazil's knowledge base and growth opportunities. Instead, promoting the sophistication of the heterogeneous regional industrial structures and development spillovers is a key to growth. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.07469&r=ure |
| By: | Pietro Santoleri (European Commission - JRC); Emanuele Russo (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | In the attempt to boost innovation, policy-makers have enacted a myriad of programs targeting innovative start-ups in recent years. Empirical evidence on these initiatives has almost exclusively focused on national-level programs, overlooking those implemented at the local level. This paper provides the first quasi-experimental evidence on the joint effects of local policies focusing on Italy, where regional governments have been very active in providing financial support to these firms. By leveraging discontinuities in program design, we adopt a local randomization approach and document a null effect of these programs over a wide range of firm-level outcomes. However, we find that securing local subsidies increases start-ups' probability to obtain additional public subsidies, which points in the direction of a vicious “Matthew effect” in subsidy allocation. Consistent with a reputation/certification mechanism, the increase in follow-on subsidies occurs for funds disbursed at the local level only, whereas no effect is detected for subsidies allocated by national or international authorities. |
| Keywords: | Regression discontinuity design, Innovation Policy, Place-based Policy, Start-ups. |
| JEL: | D22 G24 G32 L53 O31 O38 R58 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:termod:202313&r=ure |
| By: | Dany Bahar (Brown University; Harvard Growth Lab; Center for Global Development); José Morales-Arilla (Princeton University; Harvard Growth Lab); Sara Restrepo (Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the formal labor market integration and firm creation of Venezuelan immigrants and refugees in Colombia between late 2019 to late 2021. It applies a novel framework to identify segments of the Colombian economy where Venezuelan immigrants and refugees are lagging behind. When it comes to labor market dynamics, we identify professional services as one of the sectors where Venezuelan workers are not integrating fast enough consistently across different parts of the country, hinting that the recognition of professional credentials might be an important bottleneck to effective integration. As for entrepreneurship, we find that sectors where there are fewer firm creations by foreigners as compared to locals include commerce and service industries all across the nation. This paper is accompanied by a set of downloadable files which list sectors of the economy in each geographic department with poor integration of Venezuelan immigrants both for labor markets and firm creation. These lists are meant to be used by national and local policymakers for further investigation of possible market failures or distortions hindering immigrant integration, given our results. |
| Date: | 2022–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:ppaper:280&r=ure |
| By: | DI PIETRO Giorgio (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | In this report, we conduct a new meta-analysis of papers examining the impact of Covid-19 school related closure on student performance. While we focus only on OECD countries, the present meta-analysis includes, to the best of our knowledge, a larger number of studies (i.e., 55), effect sizes (i.e., 400) and countries (i.e., 21) than previous similar studies. Our results confirm that Covid-19 had, on average, an adverse effect on learning. While the size of the overall learning loss is estimated to be between 0.11 and 0.17 standard deviations of student achievement, learning losses are found to be smaller for pupils in OECD EU countries than for their peers in OECD non-EU countries. The periods of physical school closure were shorter in OECD EU countries than in OECD non-EU countries and this may provide a possible explanation for our finding. Additionally, our study shows that, overall, students seem to have fallen behind in their learning more in the later stages of the pandemic compared with the earlier stages. This finding is at variance with the outcome of earlier meta-analyses concluding that students did not lose any additional ground but failed to rebound. Our result is driven by the inclusion of recent studies showing that pandemic-related learning deficits have accelerated over time. Consequently, our findings suggest that particular attention should continue to be paid towards ensuring that students are able to catch up on what they have missed while schools have been closed. |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc134506&r=ure |
| By: | Pascaline Dupas; Camille Falezan; Marie Christelle Mabeu; Pauline Rossi |
| Abstract: | Is the persistently high fertility in West Africa today rooted in the decades of forced labor migration under colonial rule? We study the case of Burkina Faso, considered the largest labor reservoir in West Africa by the French colonial authorities. Hundreds of thousands of young men were forcibly recruited and sent to work in neighboring colonies for multiple years. The practice started in the late 1910s and lasted until the late 1940s, when forced labor was replaced with voluntary wage employment. We digitize historical maps, combine data from multiple surveys, and exploit the historical, temporary partition of colonial Burkina Faso (and, more specifically, the historical land of the Mossi ethnic group) into three zones with different needs for labor to implement a spatial regression discontinuity design analysis. We find that, on the side where Mossi villages were more exposed to forced labor historically, there is more temporary male migration to Côte d'Ivoire up to today, and lower realized and desired fertility today. We show evidence suggesting that the inherited pattern of low-skill circular migration for adult men reduced the reliance on subsistence farming and the accompanying need for child labor. We can rule out women's empowerment or improvements in human and physical capital as pathways for the fertility decline. These findings contribute to the debate on the origins of family institutions and preferences, often mentioned to explain West Africa's exceptional fertility trends, showing that fertility choices respond to changes in modes of production. |
| JEL: | J13 N37 O15 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31993&r=ure |
| By: | Bao Hoang Nguyen (Centre for the Economics and Business of Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia); Zhichao Wang (School of Economics and Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA) at The University of Queensland, Australia); Valentin Zelenyuk (School of Economics and Centre for Efficiency and Productivity Analysis (CEPA) at The University of Queensland, Australia) |
| Abstract: | We adapt a range of mainstream spatial econometric models to the four-component error term panel stochastic frontier framework to estimate the inefficiency of public hospitals in Queensland, Australia, and to investigate different channels of spatial effects in hospital performance. Our results demonstrate a statistically significant presence of the spatial dependence from the autoregressive dependent variable and the autocorrelated error term. Additionally, we observe a positive spillover effect of input factors, as well as some impacts from accounting for the spatial dependence on the inefficiency estimation. Specifically, the resulting inefficiency estimates from the spatial models turned out to be higher than those from the non-spatial model, yet the magnitude of difference is relatively modest, confirming the approximate validity of the non-spatial stochastic frontier approach for this data set. |
| Keywords: | RStochastic frontier analysis, spatial model, inefficiency, hospital |
| JEL: | C24 C61 I11 I18 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uqcepa:192&r=ure |
| By: | Effrosyni Adamopoulou (ZEW); Jeremy Greenwood (University of Pennsylvania); Nezih Guner (Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI)); Karen A. Kopecky (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | The role of friends in the US opioid epidemic is examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health), adults aged 25-34 and their high school best friends are focused on. An instrumental variable technique is employed to estimate peer effects in opioid misuse. Severe injuries in the previous year are used as an instrument for opioid misuse in order to estimate the causal impact of someone misusing opioids on the probability that their best friends also misuse. The estimated peer effects are significant: Having a best friend with a reported serious injury in the previous year increases the probability of own opioid misuse by around 7 percentage points in a population where 17 percent ever misuses opioids. The effect is driven by individuals without a college degree and those who live in the same county as their best friends. |
| Keywords: | opioid, friends, instrumental variables, Add Health, severe injuries, peer-group effects |
| JEL: | C26 D10 I12 J11 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eag:rereps:38&r=ure |
| By: | Fasani, Francesco (University of Milan); Frattini, Tommaso (University of Milan); Pirot, Maxime (University of Milan) |
| Abstract: | Is naturalization an effective tool to boost refugees' labor market integration? We address this novel empirical question by exploring survey data from 21 European countries and leveraging variation in citizenship laws across countries, time, and migrant groups as a source of exogenous variation in the probability of naturalization. We find that obtaining citizen status allows refugees to close their gaps in labor market outcomes relative to non-refugee migrants while having non-significant effects on the latter group. We then further explore the heterogeneity of returns to citizenship in a Marginal Treatment Effect framework, showing that migrants with the lowest propensity to naturalize would benefit the most if they did. This reverse selection on gains can be explained by policy features that make it harder for more vulnerable migrant groups to obtain citizenship, suggesting that a relaxation of eligibility constraints would yield benefits for both migrants and host societies. |
| Keywords: | forced migration, citizenship, asylum policy |
| JEL: | J15 J61 F22 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16651&r=ure |
| By: | Elliot Anenberg; Tess C. Scharlemann; Eileen van Straelen |
| Abstract: | We show that the strong negative effect of higher mortgage rates on cash-out refinancing reflects substitution into other borrowing products, not large changes in total new household borrowing. We exploit an exogenous increase in long-term rates to show that, in the cross-section of outstanding mortgage rates, changes in cash-out and alternative borrowing are offsetting. Additionally, we instrument using monetary policy surprises to show that, over the period from 2006-2021, changes in cash-out refinancing are offset by alternative borrowing. Our results suggest that debt substitution substantially weakens the cash-out refinance channel of monetary policy and reduces its path-dependence. |
| Keywords: | Equity extraction; Mortgages and credit; Cash out refinancing; Monetary policy; Refinancing |
| JEL: | G51 |
| Date: | 2023–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2023-73&r=ure |
| By: | Le Tung Bach |
| Abstract: | One of the main stages for achieving success is the adoption of new technology by its users. Several studies show that Property technology is advantageous for real estate stakeholders. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the users' engagement behavior to adopt Property technology in the Vietnamese real estate market. To that end, a purposive sample of 142 participants was recruited to complete an online quantitative approach based survey. The survey consisted of a modified and previously validated measure of acceptance based on the extended demographic version of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology), as well as usage scale items. The empirical findings confirm that participants were generally accepting of Property technology in the Vietnamese real estate market. The highest mean values were associated with the subscales of effort expectancy and performance expectancy, while we can easily identify the lowest mean value in the social influence subscale. The usage of Property technology was slightly more concerned with the gathering of information on properties and markets than transactions or portfolio management. This study provides an in depth understanding of Property technology for firms' managers and marketers. Online social interactions might be either harmful or fruitful for firms depending on the type of interaction and engagement behavior. This is especially true of property portals and social media forums that would help investors to connect, communicate and learn. Findings can help users to improve their strategies for digital marketing. By providing robust findings by addressing issues like omitted variables and endogeneity, the findings of this study are promising for developing new hypotheses and theoretical models in the context of the Vietnamese real estate market. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.06994&r=ure |
| By: | Jason Fletcher; Hamid Noghanibehambari |
| Abstract: | Several strands of research document the life-cycle impacts of lead exposure during the critical period of children’s development. Yet little is known about long-run effects of lead exposure during early-life on old-age mortality outcomes. This study exploits the staggered installation of water systems across 761 cities in the US over the first decades of the 20th century combined with cross-city differences in materials used in water pipelines to identify lead and non-lead cities. An event-study analysis suggests that the impacts are more concentrated on children exposed during in-utero up to age 10. The results of difference-in-difference analysis suggests an intent-to-treat effect of 2.7 months reduction in old-age longevity for fully exposed cohorts. A heterogeneity analysis reveals effects that are 3.5 and 2 times larger among the nonwhite subpopulation and low socioeconomic status families, respectively. We also find reductions in education and socioeconomic standing during early adulthood as candidate mechanism. Finally, we employ WWII enlistment data and observe reductions in height-for-age among lead-exposed cohorts. |
| JEL: | I1 I18 J1 N0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31957&r=ure |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan; García Hombrados, Jorge; Nicińska, Anna |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of communist indoctrination in school on labour force participation and human capital investments. Specifically, we evaluate the impact of a reform in Poland that revoked political indoctrination in school in the mid-1950s, while leaving the rest of the curriculum unchanged. To overcome endogeneity concerns, we exploit cut-off birth dates for school enrolment that exhibit variation in the level of exposure to the reform. We find that a reduction in school indoctrination increased the probability of finishing secondary and tertiary education, and expanded labour force participation about 50 years down the line. |
| Keywords: | education systems; communist education; education reforms; school curriculum; later life outcomes; human capital attainment; labour market participation |
| JEL: | I28 |
| Date: | 2024–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120407&r=ure |
| By: | Belousova, Natalia; Vasileva, Elena; Livchits, Veniamin; Mironova, Inna; Bushansky, Sergey |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the article is modeling the efficiency system assessment of network infrastructure subsystems development and identifying their natural monopoly properties. Methods and models of natural monopoly theory, nonlinear network transport projection and variation analysis are used. The spectrum of models for identifying the natural monopoly properties of the network transport infrastructure, corresponding to changes in the parameters of the total cost functions, has been researched. Applying to modeling the development of fragments of regional transport network, computational algorithms for efficiency system assessment have been elaborated. The influence of the effect of natural monopoly synergy as the sphere of positive values of the economy of scope based on subadditivity testing for cost function has been specified. The results of calculations are presented related both specifying the assessment methodology under diagnostics of natural monopoly properties (primarily using special extensions of algorithms for finding the optimal transportation technology), and with modifications of computational experiments and quantitative assessment with variations of the factors. |
| Keywords: | network transport infrastructure, system efficiency, natural monopoly indicators/ technology determinants, formulation of the diagnostics problem, testing the subadditivity of cost function, extra-urban road network, system and user equilibrium, variation of rate of return, cost elasticity |
| JEL: | C61 L12 |
| Date: | 2023–05–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119424&r=ure |
| By: | Semeshenko Viktoriya; De Raco Sergio Andrés |
| Abstract: | In this paper we systematically explore high granularity economic activity data of labor flows using a network filtering reduction technique, focusing on a meso-structure analysis of relevant groups of economic activities. Using administrative data of interindustry labor flows for 1996-2020, we built the networks, extracted their representative backbones and applied a community detection algorithm. The results unmask inter-industry connectivity with persistent structures and well-identified communities organized in a core-periphery structure. |
| JEL: | J6 B4 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4693&r=ure |
| By: | Cho, Sunghun (KOREA INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY (KIEP)); Kim, Jaehyung (New York University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of education policy in raising specific human capital for industrialization during the period of economic miracle in Korea. As part of the Heavy and Chemical Industry (HCI) drive, the Korean government built technical schools near industrial complexes, resulting in a prompt supply of skilled labor. With practical curricula and training, young and skilled workers were able to enter the new sector. We also document these two patterns by using the Technical School List and the Occupational Wage survey. This government-led education reform led to higher firm-level productivity and growth, which is one of the important aspects explaining the success of the industrial policy. Motivated by historical evidence, we combine the administrative Mining and Manufacturing survey with the Technical School List to study the effectiveness of industry-oriented education reform. We incorporate an education layer into the targeted industries under the HCI drive by exploiting the variation in technical school openings at the county level. Our results show that plants in treated regions tend to employ and invest more than those in control regions, but value-added and labor productivity are negatively correlated with our interaction terms. This implies that firms in HCI sectors experienced disproportionate growth and should pay higher on-the-job costs for workers while education reform may reduce the overall cost of hiring industry-specific labor. In contrast, non-HCI sector firms exhibit a positive correlation with value added and labor productivity. These firms might benefit from the education reform that improved overall quality of skilled workers. Lastly, the effect of education reform was concentrated before the end of the HCI drive period and did not persist after 1980. In the era of emerging industrial policy, our paper presents a new mechanism that encourages more workers to enter a new sector targeted by government-led plans. Our results serve as a starting point for re-evaluating contemporary industrial policy and underscore the need to consider this additional layer in future policy design. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Policy; Heavy and Chemical Industry Drive; IndustryOriented Education Reform |
| JEL: | O14 O25 O53 |
| Date: | 2023–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kiepwp:2023_003&r=ure |
| By: | Tamás Hajdu (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies); Gábor Kertesi (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies); Bence Szabó (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Corvinus University of Budapest) |
| Abstract: | This study uses linked administrative data on live births, hospital stays, and census records for children born in Hungary between 2006 and 2011 to examine the relationship between poor housing quality and the health of newborns and children aged 1-2 years. We show that poor housing quality, defined as lack of access to basic sanitation and exposure to polluting heating, is not a negligible problem even in a high-income EU country like Hungary. This is particularly the case for disadvantaged children, 20-25% of whom live in extremely poorquality homes. Next, we provide evidence that poor housing quality is strongly associated with lower health at birth and a higher number of days spent in inpatient care at the age of 1-2 years. These results indicate that lack of access to basic sanitation, hygiene, and nonpolluting heating and their health impacts cannot be considered as the exclusive problem for low- and middle-income countries. In high-income countries, there is also a need for public policy programs that identify those affected by poor housing quality and offer them potential solutions to reduce the adverse effects on their health. |
| Keywords: | Keywords: health at birth, early childhood health, housing quality, basic sanitation, indoor air pollution |
| JEL: | I10 I14 J13 Q53 |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2328&r=ure |
| By: | Erica Xuewei Jiang; Gregor Matvos; Tomasz Piskorski; Amit Seru |
| Abstract: | Building on the work of Jiang et al. (2023) we develop a framework to analyze the effects of credit risk on the solvency of U.S. banks in the rising interest rate environment. We focus on commercial real estate (CRE) loans that account for about quarter of assets for an average bank and about $2.7 trillion of bank assets in the aggregate. Using loan-level data we find that after recent declines in property values following higher interest rates and adoption of hybrid working patterns about 14% of all loans and 44% of office loans appear to be in a “negative equity” where their current property values are less than the outstanding loan balances. Additionally, around one-third of all loans and the majority of office loans may encounter substantial cash flow problems and refinancing challenges. A 10% (20%) default rate on CRE loans – a range close to what one saw in the Great Recession on the lower end -- would result in about $80 ($160) billion of additional bank losses. If CRE loan distress would manifest itself early in 2022 when interest rates were low, not a single bank would fail, even under our most pessimistic scenario. However, after more than $2 trillion decline in banks’ asset values following the monetary tightening of 2022, additional 231 (482) banks with aggregate assets of $1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) would have their marked to market value of assets below the face value of all their non-equity liabilities. To assess the risk of solvency bank runs induced by higher rates and credit losses, we expand the Uninsured Depositors Run Risk (UDRR) financial stability measure developed by Jiang et al. (2023) where we incorporate the impact of credit losses into the market-to-market asset calculation, along with the effects of higher interest rates. Our analysis, reflecting market conditions up to 2023:Q3, reveals that CRE distress can induce anywhere from dozens to over 300 mainly smaller regional banks joining the ranks of banks at risk of solvency runs. These findings carry significant implications for financial regulation, risk supervision, and the transmission of monetary policy. |
| JEL: | G2 L50 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31970&r=ure |
| By: | Philipp Engler; Ms. Margaux MacDonald; Mr. Roberto Piazza; Galen Sher |
| Abstract: | We propose a novel approach to measure the dynamic macroeconomic effects of immigration on the destination country, combining the analysis of episodes of large immigration waves with instrumental variables techniques. We distinguish the impact of immigration shocks in OECD countries from that of refugee immigration in emerging and developing economies. In OECD, large immigration waves raise domestic output and productivity in both the short and the medium term, pointing to significant dynamic gains for the host economy. We find no evidence of negative effects on aggregate employment of the native-born population. In contrast, our analysis of large refugee flows into emerging and developing countries does not find clear evidence of macroeconomic effects on the host country, a conclusion in line with a growing body of evidence that refugee immigrants are at disadvantage compared to other type of immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; productivity; dynamic gains |
| Date: | 2023–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2023/259&r=ure |
| By: | SHUALI TRACHTENBERG Tamar; TENREIRO RODRÍGUEZ Victoria; NEUBAUER Adrián; BAR CENDÓN Antonio; CENTENO Clara (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | The present report is the last output of the INNO4DIV project, which aimed at addressing the educational needs of teachers in the EU for inclusive education in a context of diversity. It builds on all the previous steps of the project (literature review and analysis of 21 good practices) and provides a set of Implementation Guidelines addressed to all relevant stakeholders: policy makers at EU, national, regional and local level, tertiary education institutions, school actors, NGOs, non-formal education providers, and, community-based civil society organisations. It provides concrete recommendations, accompanied by examples from the 21 innovative cases analysed, on how stakeholders can contribute to teachers’ Intercultural and Democratic Competence development through innovative actions. This research responds to the “Council recommendation of 22 May 2018 on promoting common values, inclusive education, and the European dimension of teaching (2018/C 195/01)”, which invites Member States to promote active citizenship to foster tolerant and democratic attitudes and social, citizenship and intercultural competences, and enable educational staff to promote common values through initial and continued education. It also responds to the European Commission’s intention to develop and regularly review practical reference tools and guidance documents for policymakers and practitioners and support research and stakeholder engagement to meet knowledge needs. |
| Date: | 2023–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc133175&r=ure |
| By: | Sania Ashraf; Cristina Bicchieri; Upasak Das; Tanu Gupta; Alex Shpenev |
| Abstract: | Prevalence of open defecation is associated with adverse health effects, detrimental not only for the individual but also the community. Therefore, neighborhood characteristics can influence collective progressive behavior such as improved sanitation practices. This paper uses primary data collected from rural and urban areas of Bihar to study the relationship between jati (sub-castes) level fractionalization within the community and toilet ownership and its usage for defecation. The findings indicate a diversity dividend wherein jati fractionalization is found to improve toilet ownership and usage significantly. While exploring the channels, we find social expectations to play an important role, where individuals from diverse communities tend to believe that there is a higher prevalence of toilet usage within the community. To assess the reasons for the existence of these social expectations, we use data from an egocentric network survey on a sub-sample of the households. The findings reveal that in fractionalized communities, the neighbors with whom our respondents interacted are more likely to be from different jatis. They are also more likely to use toilets and approve of its usage due to health reasons. Discussions about toilets are more common among neighbors from fractionalized communities, which underscore the discernible role of social learning. The inferences drawn from the paper have significant implications for community level behavioral change interventions that aim at reducing open defecation. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2312.15221&r=ure |
| By: | Eugene Tan; Teegawende H. Zeida |
| Abstract: | We formulate a framework showing that differences in capital returns and capital intensity between groups of firms can identify relative differences in consumer demand and credit constraints. Using micro-data on Black- and White-owned startups, we find robust evidence that Black-owned startups have lower capital returns, implying that Black-owned startups face lower consumer demand due to race. In contrast, we find mixed evidence of tighter credit constraints due to race. We further show that differences in capital returns are persistent over time, whereas capital intensity differences are transitory. This suggests that lower demand, rather than credit constraints, might be the main barrier to growth for Black-owned startups. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination; Investment; Entrepreneurship |
| JEL: | L26 E22 J15 |
| Date: | 2023–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmoi:97508&r=ure |
| By: | Hanioglu, Atilla Eren; Yucel, Eray |
| Abstract: | This study reconsiders the narrow corridor proposed by Acemoglu and Robinson (2017) in an attempt to discover any underlying empirical patterns. Mainly building upon Murphy and O’Reilly (2022, 2023) we first replicate their findings. Afterwards we devise some sub-corridors by dividing the narrow corridor into five sections. This is to characterize graph regions that indicate different developmental paths over time. Our key findings are regardless of position with regards to the corridor, development is likely to occur, being in an undesirable part within the corridor is more likely to hurt development than aid it, and countries with close geographical proximity and similar historical backgrounds are likely to observe similar developmental movements. |
| Keywords: | Narrow corridor; Civil society; State capacity; Development |
| JEL: | H10 N40 O43 |
| Date: | 2023–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:119439&r=ure |
| By: | David Cesarini; Erik Lindqvist; Robert Östling; Christofer Schroeder |
| Abstract: | There is a well-established negative gradient between economic status and crime, but its underlying causal mechanisms are not well understood. We use data on four Swedish lotteries matched to data on criminal convictions to gauge the causal effect of financial windfalls on player’s own crime and their children’s delinquency. We estimate a positive but statistically insignificant effect of lottery wealth on players’ own conviction risk. Our estimates allow us to rule out effects one fifth as large as the cross-sectional gradient between income and crime. We also estimate a less precise null effect of parental lottery wealth on child delinquency. |
| JEL: | K0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31962&r=ure |
| By: | Helen Dempster (Center for Global Development); Nicol Herbert (International Rescue Committee) |
| Abstract: | Humanitarian and development crises are increasingly protracted and complex, lacking clear solutions and paths to reach the most-affected individuals and communities. Those working in such crises must be creative, adaptive, and supported by frameworks that promote efficient and effective responses. Adaptive management is a learning-oriented project management approach that centralizes proactive and ongoing reflection on what is and is not working, adapting the program design or operational delivery based on this new information. This approach is being implemented by a five-year program—Refugees in East Africa: Boosting Urban Innovations for Livelihoods (Re:Build)—aiming to achieve economic self-reliance for urban refugees and other vulnerable residents of Kampala, Uganda and Nairobi, Kenya. The evidence for how to best support refugee economic self-reliance is limited; even less is known about what is effective for urban refugees specifically. Re:Build is utilizing adaptive management principles to navigate this uncertainty with the goal of achieving sustained outcomes for clients and more information about what works. While adaptive management offers a range of potential benefits, it requires implementers and donors to operate in new ways. After summarizing the existing adaptive management literature, this paper outlines lessons from the first two years of Re:Build’s attempts to implement an adaptive program. It concludes by sharing practical recommendations, for both implementers and donors, on how to better live out these principles. |
| Date: | 2023–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:ppaper:295&r=ure |
| By: | Nizalova, Olena; Shepotylo, Oleksandr |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the indirect economic impact of tuberculosis epidemic in one of the high-burden countries, focusing on the productivity at the individual level measured by the average wages and at firm level measured by the average total factor productivity (TFP). We use unique administrative data collected at the level of firms and regions for 2003-2009 and find that the ongoing tuberculosis (TB) epidemic has considerable indirect economic costs in terms of lost productivity and related inefficien- cies. First of all, both firms and individuals in regions with higher TB prevalence have significantly lower TFP and wages. Moreover, consistent with the Compensating Wage Differentials theory and after controlling for the TB prevalence, the risk of contracting the disease - TB incidence rate - is associated with higher wages and higher produc- tivity - a kind of premium for individuals and firms to operate in a risky environment. The latter can also be viewed as a source of inefficiency as this may prevent firms from entering more competitive markets. Additional analysis reveals strong spatial effects which are consistent with the infectious nature of the diseases and emphasize the im- portance of containing the epidemic. Overall, we estimate that a 10% decrease in the TB prevalence can lead to a 1.05% gain in GDP: 0.15% in terms of higher individual productivity and 0.89% in terms of firms' productivity. |
| Keywords: | Tuberculosis, Productivity, Regional Wage, Total Factor Productivity, TB Epidemic |
| JEL: | O18 I15 J24 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1360&r=ure |
| By: | Araujo, Inacio F. (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); Haddad, Eduardo A. (Departamento de Economia, Universidade de São Paulo); León, José Antonio (Disaster Risk Specialist. Ph.D. in in Engineering from the National Autonomous University, Mexico) |
| Abstract: | This technical note outlines the hypotheses and methodologies employed in estimating the Interregional Input-Output Table for Costa Rica (IIOT-CRI) for 2019. The construction process involves utilizing limited information to develop a comprehensive interregional input-output database, shedding light on the intricate spatial linkages within the Costa Rican economy across its 82 cantons and 27 sectors. We provide detailed insights into the methodological procedures adopted for generating the interregional system and the accompanying database. |
| Keywords: | Interregional Input-Output Table; Costa Rica |
| JEL: | R10 |
| Date: | 2023–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:nereus:2023_012&r=ure |
| By: | Schulz, Jessica; März, Simon |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fribpd:280330&r=ure |
| By: | Dimmelmeier, Andreas |
| Abstract: | This FinVis explores the evolving landscape of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information providers, focusing on their geographical distribution and consolidation dynamics. Utilizing a novel dataset of 143 ESG firms, the figure maps the headquarters and Merger and Acquisition (M&A) interactions across three time periods. The findings reveal the dominance of Europe and North America, which concentrate the ownership of over 80% of active firms. In particular, the acquisition trends depict North America's growing influence in the ESG information industry. |
| Date: | 2023–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:8zejr&r=ure |
| By: | Jesse LaBelle; Immaculada Martinez-Zarzoso; Ana Maria Santacreu; Yoto Yotov |
| Abstract: | We build a stylized model that captures the relationships between cross-border patenting, globalization, and development. Our theory delivers a gravity equation for cross-border patents. To test the model’s predictions, we compile a new dataset that tracks patents within and between countries and industries, for 1980-2019. The econometric analysis reveals a strong, positive impact of policy and globalization on cross-border patent flows, especially from North to South. A counterfactual welfare analysis suggests that the increase in patent flows from North to South has benefited both regions, with South gaining more than North post-2000, thus lowering real income inequality in the world. |
| Keywords: | cross-border patents; gravity; policy; globalization; development |
| JEL: | F63 O14 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:97470&r=ure |
| By: | Michael A. Clemens (Center for Global Development, IZA, and CReAM) |
| Abstract: | Very few labor-based pathways for regular migration are available for people in Northern Central America, often called the “Northern Triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. This paper briefly summarizes the state of labor-based migration channels in the region. It then argues that extending those channels is a necessary complement to asylum reform even for the goal of humanitarian protection. It concludes by arguing that five recommendations for long-term reform, though difficult, are needed to unleash the maximum shared benefit of these pathways. |
| Date: | 2022–11–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:ppaper:274&r=ure |
| By: | O'Brien, Thomas J. |
| Abstract: | In partnership with the Southern California Regional Transit Training Consortium (SCRTTC), the California State University at Long Beach (CSULB) expanded potential audiences and offered program support for the Electric Vehicle Transit Bus High Voltage Safety Awareness class, which was previously developed under the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST). CSULB expanded both the number of online offerings and the geographic reach by opening the class to transit agencies and campus fleet operators within the NCST network. The course was designed to enhance a technician's basic electrical skills and 2-circuit diagnosis, while teaching students how to work with a Digital Volt-Ohm Meter (DVOM). The effort supports the broader goal of building the workforce needed to support the transition to alternative energy and zero emission bus fleets. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Education, Engineering, Transit, Online training, Workforce Development, Zero emission |
| Date: | 2023–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt44r461q0&r=ure |
| By: | Giang Nguyen (EM - emlyon business school); My Nguyen; Anh Viet Pham; Man Duy Marty Pham |
| Abstract: | "This study examines how the geographical structure of social networks shapes venture capital (VC) investment decisions. We find that VC firms invest more in portfolio companies in socially connected regions. The effect is more pronounced among independent, smaller, less reputable, early–stage–focused VC firms and those not from a VC hub. We further document that social connectedness lowers the likelihood of a successful exit since it induces VC firms to undertake suboptimal investment decisions. Overall, our findings highlight the role of social connectedness in constituting the geographical differences in VC firms' capital allocation and investment outcomes." |
| Keywords: | Social connectedness, Venture capital, Capital allocation, Investment performance |
| Date: | 2023–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04325756&r=ure |
| By: | Lucy McMillan; Pinghui Wu |
| Abstract: | This study assesses the effects of involuntary job loss and access to credit card loans on working college students’ decision to either remain in school (college persistence) or drop out. The authors conducted the underlying analysis using national data, but their findings are especially relevant to New England, where higher education employs 4 percent of the region’s workforce—more than twice the national average. College persistence therefore carries implications not only for the individual students, but also for the vitality of the region’s labor market. |
| Keywords: | New England; NEPPC; credit card loans; unemployment; college persistence |
| JEL: | I22 I23 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcr:97523&r=ure |
| By: | Miriam Hortas-Rico; Vicente Rios |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the relationship between women’s political empowerment (WPE) and income inequality in a sample of 142 countries between 1990 and 2019. To identify causal effects, we rely on the use of Random Forests techniques and the exogenous variation on ancestral and traditional cultural norms of gender roles within an instrumental variable panel data modeling approach. These tree-based machine learning statistical techniques help us to predict the spatio-temporal distribution of WPE with high accuracy solely using ancestral societal traits. This predicted variable is then used in the second stage of the IV estimation of a panel specification of income inequality including fixed and time-period fixed effects. Our panel-IV regressions show that (i) WPE reduces income inequality and that (ii) this effect is partly transmitted via redistributive policies. In addition, we employ partial identification methods to ensure that our results are not influenced by unobserved confounding variables. Furthermore, we find that the negative link between WPE is robust to the presence of spatial interdependence and time persistence in inequality outcomes, the presence of outliers and influential observations, and an alternative definition of income inequality. Taken together, our results suggest that the observed negative link between WPE and income inequality is likely to be causal. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2023-10&r=ure |
| By: | Chen, Shuai (University of Leicester) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how unemployment and cultural anxiety have triggered different dimensions of the current populism in the United States. Specifically, I exploit the Great Recession (GR) and the 2014 Northern Triangle immigrant influx (IM) to investigate the effects of recent unemployment and unauthorized immigration on attitudes related to populism. I find that recent unemployment during GR, rather than existing unemployment from before GR, increased the probability of attitudes against wealthy elites by 15 percentage points (PP). Such attitudes are connected with left-wing populism. I identify perceived economic unfairness as a mechanism through which recent unemployment drove left-wing populism. However, cultural anxiety rather than economic distress more likely led to the over 10 PP rise in the probability of anti-immigration attitudes during IM. These attitudes are related to right-wing populism. This study intentionally links distinct economic and cultural driving forces, respectively, to different types of populism, while still accounting for their potential interaction effects. This strategy facilitates disentangling the economic and cultural triggers of the currently surging populism. |
| Keywords: | populism, unemployment, immigration, Great Recession |
| JEL: | A13 D31 J01 J64 P16 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16642&r=ure |
| By: | Carlevaro Emiliano A. |
| Abstract: | Capital regulation on banks aims to reduce the probability of failures. In theory, the effect of capital buffers in preventing failures could depend on the linkages among financial institutions. These linkages are nevertheless usually omitted in empirical models. I study the effectiveness of capital regulation in preventing failures using a spatial autoregressive probit model, which accommodates links among banks and feedback effects. I study the Argentinian banking crisis of 2001 for which I build the complete interbank network. By allowing linkages between banks, estimates from the spatial model show that capital regulation is 50% less effective than estimates of a model in which banks are not interconnected. |
| JEL: | E44 C21 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aep:anales:4631&r=ure |
| By: | Colin Davis; Ken-ichi Hashimoto |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how national research subsidies affect productivity growth and national welfare through adjustments in the geographic location of research and development (R&D) across countries. Our two-country framework features a tension in the firm-level innovation location decision between accessing technical knowledge and sourcing low-cost high-skilled labor. With trade costs and imperfect international knowledge diffusion, the larger country has a greater share of industry and tends to host a larger share of innovation. In this setting, we find that an R&D subsidy expands the implementing country’s share of innovation and raises the rate of productivity growth. Although the non-implementing country experiences a welfare improvement, the rising cost of the policy generates a concave relationship between the R&D subsidy and the welfare of the implementing country, yielding an optimal R&D subsidy rate. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1226&r=ure |
| By: | TSURUTA Daisuke |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the relationship between the use of a public credit guarantee scheme for small businesses and the efficiency of credit allocation using region- and industry-level data from Japan for the period from 1968 to 2005. Studies argue that credit constraints are more severe for small businesses than for large firms. Therefore, a public credit guarantee scheme that mitigates this constraint could enhance social welfare. If credit guaranteed loans were allocated to firms with high value added, the public credit guarantee scheme would enhance the efficiency of credit allocation. Conversely, however, public credit guarantee schemes can squeeze credit allocations for small businesses. When financial institutions offer loans through credit guarantee schemes, they can offer loans to small businesses at low risk to themselves, even though small businesses are high-risk borrowers, which may reduce the incentives of the financial institutions to monitor the activity of small business borrowers. In addition, because the public credit guarantee scheme in Japan is a component of a broader set of social policies aiming to eliminate inequality, credit guaranteed loans can be offered to economically distressed firms. We identify a negative relationship between the amount of credit guaranteed and the value added. Moreover, we find that the greater the amount of credit guaranteed loans offered to firms, the larger the default rate among small businesses. We show that the public credit guarantee scheme reduced the efficiency of credit allocations, which has implications for industry and regional growth. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:23083&r=ure |
| By: | Neuber-Pohl, Caroline (BIBB); Pregaldini, Damiano (University of Zurich); Backes-Gellner, Uschi (University of Zurich); Dummert, Sandra (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Pfeifer, Harald (BIBB) |
| Abstract: | By exploiting a labor market reform causing an outflow of German workers to Switzerland, we examine the effect of negative labor supply shocks on training in firms using the market for apprenticeships as an example. Analysis of administrative data reveals that the reform led to more apprentices in German firms despite a decrease in apprentice wages. This can be explained by a standard two-factor production model where firms substitute outflowing skilled workers with more apprentices; setting lower wages is possible because of a rising supply of apprentices owing to substantially improved employment prospects after border openings. |
| Keywords: | negative labor supply shock, training effects after worker outflow, wage effects, training incentives, apprenticeship training supply and demand |
| JEL: | J21 J22 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16652&r=ure |
| By: | Otsu, Taisuke; Sunada, Keita |
| Abstract: | In spatial price competition models, demand factors have correlation with prices through the markup so that their identification power decreases as the number of product grows. Asymptotic results indicate lack of consistency of the estimator due to weak instruments. |
| Keywords: | spatial price competition; weak instruments; Elsevier deal |
| JEL: | C13 |
| Date: | 2024–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:120588&r=ure |
| By: | Costanza Naguib |
| Abstract: | We analyze the impact of an inflow of foreign workers on the wage distribution of residents in a small open economy like Switzerland. We exploit the fact that Swiss mobility regions were differently affected by the intensity and the timing of the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons, depending on their distance from the national border. We extend the results by Beerli, Ruffner, Siegenthaler and Peri (2021) by analyzing heterogeneity in treatment effect via causal forests. We find statistically significant evidence that the treatment effect of opening the borders has been heterogeneous across age, education, and type of activity groups. |
| Keywords: | wage distribution, Bilateral Agreements, causal forest, Conditional Average Treatment Effect |
| JEL: | C14 J31 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp2312&r=ure |