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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Gnagey, Matthew |
| Abstract: | Land development is a central topic in environmental, resource, urban and regional economics, yet our empirical knowledge of people behind land development, the developers, and the supply of urban land is limited. In response I develop a model of exurban land developers to test the spatial interactions of heterogeneous developers in exurban areas. Using estimation techniques that identify a parameter isolate the spatial competition and interaction effect I am able to determine the effects of developer behavior. I find significant evidence of land developers competing spatially as they locate across an exurban county. |
| Keywords: | Land Developer, Housing supply, Exurban development, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124932&r=ure |
| By: | David H. Autor; Christopher J. Palmer; Parag A. Pathak |
| Abstract: | Understanding potential spillovers from the attributes and actions of neighborhood residents onto the value of surrounding properties and neighborhoods is central to both the theory of urban economics and the development of efficient housing policy. This paper measures the capitalization of housing market spillovers by studying the sudden and largely unanticipated 1995 elimination of stringent rent controls in Cambridge, Massachusetts that had previously muted landlords' investment incentives and altered the assignment of residents to locations. Pooling administrative data on the assessed values of each residential property and the prices and characteristics of all residential transactions between 1988 and 2005, we find that rent control's removal produced large, positive, and robust spillovers onto the price of never-controlled housing from nearby decontrolled units. Elimination of rent control added about $1.8 billion to the value of Cambridge's housing stock between 1994 and 2004, equal to nearly a quarter of total Cambridge residential price appreciation in this period. Positive spillovers to never-controlled properties account for more half of the induced price appreciation. Residential investments can explain only a small fraction of the total. |
| JEL: | D61 H23 R23 R31 R32 R38 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18125&r=ure |
| By: | Ivan Muñiz Olivera (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona); Miguel Angel García López (Departament d'Economia Aplicada, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | One of the criticisms leveled at the model of dispersed city found all over the world is its unarticulated, random, and undifferentiated nature. To check this idea in the Barcelona Metropolitan Region, we estimated the impact of the urban spatial structure (CBD, subcenters and transportation infrastructures) over the population density and commuting distance. The results are unfavorable to the hypothesis of the increasing destructuring of cities given that the explanatory capacity of both functions improves over time, both when other control variables are not included and when they are included. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uab:wprdea:wpdea1207&r=ure |
| By: | Pandit, Ram; Polyakov, Maksym; Sadler, Rohan |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a spatially explicit analysis of the contribution of urban trees and parks to residential property values. We estimated the effects of structural, neighbourhood, and environmental variables, including tree cover, on sale price of single-family homes in Perth using a generalized spatial two-stage least-squares model. The spatial model results indicate that, among other structural and neighbourhood variables, the proportion of tree cover on street verges (public space) and the extent and proximity of neighbourhood parks attract significant price premiums in the Perth housing market. However, we failed to find any evidence of impact of the tree cover on property (private space) on its sale price. Further, we find that the parameter estimate for street tree cover obtained from spatial hedonic model is half the size of estimate obtained from ordinary hedonic model, thus indicating importance of spatially explicit hedonic model on implicit price estimation. Based on the spatial hedonic model, it is estimated that 10% increase in tree cover on street verge above the median cover of 19.66% increases the median house price (AU$ 765,000) by about AU$ 3,250. Our findings have implications on managing and developing urban forest cover along the streets in Perth for both private and public benefits. |
| Keywords: | Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare12:124357&r=ure |
| By: | Goodness C. Aye (Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria); Samrat Goswami (Department of Rural Management and Development, Tripura University); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria) |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the long-run behavior of house prices by addressing the issue of price convergence or divergence across fifteen metropolitan cities in India. Using available city-level quarterly data covering the period 2007-2011 and applying the Im, Pesaran and Shin (2003) panel unit root test, it is found that relative price levels among various metropolitan cities in India do not converge. This implies that the Law of One Price does not hold in the Indian housing market, hence the different metropolitan house markets operate independent to one another. |
| Keywords: | House Prices, Law of One Price, Price Convergence, India |
| JEL: | D40 L85 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201220&r=ure |
| By: | Dennis Guignet |
| Abstract: | Hedonic property value models are widely used, but are susceptible to omitted variable bias and potentially invalid conjectures regarding the assumed measure of environmental quality. This paper focuses on an application where both are of particular concern: leaking underground storage tanks. I estimate a hedonic model using quasi-experimental and spatial econometric techniques. Similar to previous studies, I examine how house prices vary with distance to the disamenity. This approach yields little evidence that prices are adversely impacted. However, to better measure risks, I utilize home-specific data on correspondence from environmental regulators, and find a 9-12% depreciation when households are well-informed. |
| Keywords: | hedonic analysis, housing prices, leaking underground storage tanks, LUST, contaminated sites, groundwater contamination, remediation benefits |
| JEL: | D62 I18 Q51 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp201201&r=ure |
| By: | Kristof De Witte; Chris Van Klaveren |
| Abstract: | A combination of school mismanagement, weak financial situation and low student attainments led to a permanent closure of primary schools in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2007. This study examines if the school closure positively affected the test scores that children achieved on a standardized and national test and if secondary school level advices children received at the end of primary education are higher. More specifically, we examine if receiving more years of education on a new and presumably better primary school leads to higher test scores and better secondary school level advices. In doing so, we compare children who switched schools because of the school closure with a control group of children at receiving schools and with a similar ideological background. The results indicate that student test scores are unaffected by the school closure. Secondary school advices, however, tend to be higher for children who received one year of education on a new primary school, but this effect fades out, and eventually becomes negative, for students who are enrolled for a longer period in the receiving school. |
| Keywords: | School closure; Student attainments; Education Inspectorate; Primary education |
| JEL: | I20 I28 R28 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tir:wpaper:42&r=ure |
| By: | Yoshitsugu Kanemoto (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) |
| Abstract: | Many sources of urban agglomeration involve departures from the first-best world. The benefit evaluation of a transportation project must then take into account agglomeration benefits along with any direct user benefits. Using a monopolistic competition model of differentiated intermediate products, we show that the additional benefits can be expressed as an extended Harberger formula with variety distortion in addition to price distortion. They are positive if variety is procompetitive, but, in the anticompetitive case, we cannot exclude the possibility of negative additional benefits. By introducing the rural sector and multiple cities explicitly, we also show that the agglomeration benefits depend on where the new workers are from. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ngi:dpaper:12-04&r=ure |
| By: | WALTHER Olivier; REITEL Bernard |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence of how national and linguistic borders affect the structure of policy networks. Our analysis of the Basel metropolitan region located across Switzerland, France and Germany considers the case of cross-border public transportation. Using a social network approach based on 44 actors, we show that national borders play a diminishing role in the formation of policy networks for both information exchange and decision making but still limit interactions between German and French-speaking actors. Local actors develop different brokerage roles according to their country of origin, with Swiss actors acting as coordinator and representative brokers vis-à-vis players located in France and Germany. |
| Keywords: | policy networks; cross-border metropolitan region; transport policies; social network analysis; Basel; Switzerland; France; Germany |
| JEL: | F15 F16 J61 R42 R50 R58 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:12-26&r=ure |
| By: | Akay, Alpaslan (IZA); Constant, Amelie F. (DIW DC, George Washington University); Giulietti, Corrado (IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of immigration directly on the overall utility of natives. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to explore such nexus. Combining information from the German Socio-Economic Panel dataset with detailed local labour market characteristics for the period 1997 to 2007, we investigate how changes in the spatial concentration of immigrants affect the subjective well-being of the German-born population. Our results suggest the existence of a robust, positive effect of immigration on natives' well-being. The presence of confounding local labour market characteristics has a negligible impact on the estimates. Furthermore, we find substantial evidence that the effect of immigration on well-being is a function of the assimilation of immigrants in the region. The effect of immigration is higher in regions with an intermediate level of economic assimilation and is essentially zero in areas where immigrants are either least or fully economically integrated. We conduct robustness checks to address the potential endogeneity between subjective well-being and immigration. Our tests indicate that natives are not crowded out by immigrants, and that the sorting of immigrants to regions with higher SWB is weak. This suggests that our main findings are not driven or strongly influenced by reverse causality or selectivity. |
| Keywords: | immigration, subjective well-being, assimilation |
| JEL: | C90 J61 D63 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6630&r=ure |
| By: | Antoci, Angelo; Borghesi, Simone; Marletto, Gerardo |
| Abstract: | Car use is an increasingly serious problem in many modern cities because of polluting emissions, noise, accidents and congestion. To examine this issue, this paper analyzes the individual choice between taking the car and using alternative transport modes (e.g. walking, cycling, taking the bus etc...) in the presence of cars' negative impacts on alternative transport modes. Using a simple evolutionary model, we show the existence of suboptimal Nash equilibria characterized by the widespread use of cars and discuss the effects of simple transport policies that reduce cars' negative impacts on alternative transport modes. |
| Keywords: | urban transport; cars; negative impacts; evolutionary dynamics; suboptimal Nash equilibria |
| JEL: | R40 D62 R41 C73 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39560&r=ure |
| By: | Psycharis, Yannis; Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés; Tselios, Vassilis |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS III level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek prefectures, but also the spillover effects related to the existence of externalities from neighbouring regions. The results point to a positive long-run impact of public investment per capita on regional economic growth – but not on convergence – which also generates considerable spillover effects. However, the returns vary according to different types of public investment, with education and infrastructure spillovers having the highest impact. In general, public investment externalities seem to be more relevant for regional growth than direct public investment in each region. Finally, the impact of different types of public investment in Greece is mediated by politics and political factors, but the effect of politics disappears once we control for political-period-specific spatial-invariant variables. |
| Keywords: | convergence; economic growth; Greece; public investment; regional economics; regional policy; spatial econometrics; spillover effects |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2012–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9011&r=ure |
| By: | Matías Mayor-Fernández (Department of Applied Economics, University of Oviedo, Spain); Roberto Patuelli (Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics-Rimini, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy) |
| Abstract: | In any economic analysis, regions or municipalities should not be regarded as isolated spatial units, but rather as highly interrelated small open economies. These spatial interrelations must be considered also when the aim is to forecast economic variables. For example, policy makers need accurate forecasts of the unemployment evolution in order to design short- or long-run local welfare policies. These predictions should then consider the spatial interrelations and dynamics of regional unemployment. In addition, a number of papers have demonstrated the improvement in the reliability of long-run forecasts when spatial dependence is accounted for. We estimate a heterogeneouscoefficients dynamic panel model employing a spatial filter in order to account for spatial heterogeneity and/or spatial autocorrelation in both the levels and the dynamics of unemployment, as well as a spatial vector-autoregressive (SVAR) model. We compare the short-run forecasting performance of these methods, and in particular, we carry out a sensitivity analysis in order to investigate if different number and size of the administrative regions influence their relative forecasting performance. We compute short-run unemployment forecasts in two countries with different administrative territorial divisions and data frequency: Switzerland (26 regions, monthly data for 34 years) and Spain (47 regions, quarterly data for 32 years) |
| Keywords: | regional forecasts; spatial econometrics; dynamic panel; SVAR |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:15_12&r=ure |
| By: | Lamia Kamal-Chaoui; Marissa Plouin |
| Abstract: | This report, developed within the framework of the OECD Green Cities programme, is a pilot case study examining the green growth potential of the Paris-IDF region. In a context of stiff international competition and internal socio-economic and environmental pressures, green growth could be an appropriate path toward revitalising the regional economy and improving environmental outcomes. Building and transportation are among the urban sectors with the greatest potential. Several emerging approaches to a more flexible form of metropolitan governance show promise, yet would benefit from greater private sector involvement throughout the policymaking process. Financing green growth will require the further greening of public revenue sources and the creation of new ones. Adapting procurement processes and pursuing innovative coorerative arrangements with the private sector could also be considered. |
| Keywords: | sustainable development, government policy, planning, global warming, regional, regional economics, urban sustainability, territorial, cities, urban, green growth, climate |
| JEL: | O1 O3 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 R1 R4 R5 |
| Date: | 2012–02–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2012/2-en&r=ure |
| By: | Cho, Seong-Hoon; Kim, Seung Gyu; Roberts, Roland K.; Kim, JiYoung |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124708&r=ure |
| By: | Giorgio Fazio; Luciano Lavecchia |
| Abstract: | An extensive economics and regional science literature has discussed the importance of social capital for economic growth and development. Yet, what social capital is and how it is formed are elusive issues, which require further investigation. Here, we refer to social capital in terms of “civic capital” and “good culture” as rephrased by Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2010) and Tabellini (2010). The accumulation of this kind of capital allows the emerging of regional informal institutions, which may help explaining differences in regional development. In this paper, we take a regional perspective and use exploratory space and space-time methods to assess whether geography, via proximity, contributes to the formation of social capital across European regions. In particular, we ask whether generalized trust, a fundamental constituent of social capital and an ingredient of economic development, tends to be clustered across space and over time. From the policy standpoint, the spatial “hysteresis” of regional trust may contribute to the formation of “spatial traps” of social capital and act as a further barrier to regional economic development and convergence. |
| Keywords: | Social Capital; Generalized Trust; European Social Survey; Spatial Dynamics; ESTDA |
| JEL: | R1 Z13 C31 F02 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gla:glaewp:2012_07&r=ure |
| By: | Alessandra Colombelli; Jackie Krafft; Francesco Quatraro |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the emergence of new technology-based sectors at the regional level. We focus on the specific case of nanotechnology as representative of an industry based on a technology still in infancy whose evolution can be reliably traced on the basis of filed patent submissions. We implement a methodological framework based on the „product-space? approach, which allows us to investigate whether the development of new technologies is linked to the structure of the existing local knowledge base. We use patent data over the period 1986-2006 to carry out the analysis at the NUTS 2 level over the EU 15 countries. The results of the descriptive and econometric analysis supports the idea that history matters in the spatial development of a sector, and that the technological competences accumulated at the local level are likely to shape the future patterns of technological diversification. |
| Keywords: | product space, technological diversification, new industries, capabilities, EU Regions |
| JEL: | R11 N94 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:1211&r=ure |
| By: | Roberto Patuelli (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy); Maurizio Mussoni (Department of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy; The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis (RCEA), Italy); Guido Candela (University of Bologna, Italy) |
| Abstract: | Culture is gaining increasing importance in the modern tourism industry, and represents a significant force of attraction for tourists (both domestic and international). Cultural tourism allows destinations and regions to expand their customer base, diversify their offer, extend the stay of the tourist, and reduce seasonality. Great efforts are made, by national governments and regions, in order to obtain official designation regarding the relevance of their historical/cultural attractions, for example through UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites (WHS) list. Such an aspect seems particularly relevant for a country like Italy, which has a high number of entries in the WHS list, and where regions take an active role in promoting tourism. Using an 11-year panel of domestic tourism flows, we investigate the importance of the regional endowment in terms of WHS from two perspectives: (a) by separately estimating the effects, on tourism flows, of WHS located in the residence region of tourists and in the destination region; and (b) by taking into account potential spatial substitution/complementarity effects between regions due to their WHS endowment. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is offered to evaluate the spatial extent of the latter. |
| Keywords: | cultural tourism; domestic tourism; World Heritage Sites; spatial interaction model; Italy; spatial competition |
| JEL: | C23 L83 R12 Z10 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rim:rimwps:14_12&r=ure |
| By: | Plerhoples, Christina |
| Abstract: | The United States government spent almost $200 million on vacant building demolitions between 2008 and 2011 under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program alone.2 One of the main justifications for these demolitions is that they reduce the crime caused by vacant buildings. However, it is unclear whether demolitions remove crime or merely displace it to other areas within a city. In this paper, I examine this question using block level monthly panel data from Saginaw, Michigan to estimate a Poisson fixed effects model of the effect of vacant building demolitions on crime. I also analyze the spatial impacts of demolitions through use of spatial lags of demolitions. To control for the endogeneity of crime and demolitions, I compare only those blocks that have had a demolition in that month to those that have a permit pending for a demolition. Initial results indicate that one demolition decreases crime over a six month period by 7.896 crimes, reduces violent crime by 3.906 crimes, and reduces property crime by 9.62 crimes. Using estimates from Levitt (2002), the cost effectiveness of these crime reductions is superior to that of police. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:125003&r=ure |
| By: | Wrenn, Douglas H.; Sam, Abdoul G.; Irwin, Elena G. |
| Abstract: | The spatial configuration of land use can have a signicant impact on both market and non-market outcomes. One type of land use configuration that has received considerable attention in recent decades - because of its impact on the eciency of public service provisioning, on environmental quality and on the productivity of agricultural land - is fragmented development. Many theories have been presented to explain these frag- mented development patterns including variable densities, competing land uses and heterogeneity in agents' expectations. More recently, a number of authors have hypothesized that it is the reduction in congestion and the increase in open space amenities in exurban areas that have attracted people thus creating an increase in low-density, scattered development. While many of these hypotheses have been addressed empirically, most of the work has looked at these factors separately. In addition, most of the previous work has been conducted using global parametric models, which make it dicult to capture the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of the dierent factors and the resulting response. To address these shortcomings it is necessary to have micro-level data that can capture the spatio-temporal nature of the land conversion process and can sepa- rately identify the most important factors, on both sides of the market, as well as have a modeling technique that can capture the potential for spatial heterogeneity and non-stationarity in the eects of the variables across space. In this paper, we ll this gap in the existing land use literature by combining several unique panel datasets of historical land use change for Carroll County, Maryland with an original nonparametric modeling technique to separately identify the heterogeneous eect of amenities, local congestion and real options prices eects on the exurban land conversion decision. The results from our model show that factors on both sides of the market matter and that these factors are not spatially stationary. We nd that much of the fragmented growth pattern observed in our study region can be explained by the dierential eect of local land use interactions across space. This result is particularly important for policy makers interested in protecting farmland, reducing public costs and protecting valuable ecosystem services and biodiversity. |
| Keywords: | Land-use modeling, Nonparametrics, Spatial analysis, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:125007&r=ure |
| By: | Register, D. Lane; Lambert, Dayton M.; English, Burton C.; Jensen, Kimberly L.; Menard, R. Jamey; Wilcox, Michael D. |
| Abstract: | Recent developments in firm location analysis are applied to explore the concentration patterns of firms making up the green energy sectors in 2002 and 2006. A two-step procedure is applied in this analysis. First, Guimarães, Figueiredo, and Woodward’s spatial adaption of Ellison and Glaeser’s industry concentration index are applied to estimate the degree to which firms making up the so-called green energy sectors tend to exhibit concentration. In the second stage, the spatial distribution of concentration is analyzed using a statistical framework, also suggested by Guimarães, Figueiredo, and Woodward. Preliminary results suggest that green energy subsectors exhibit significant global concentration, but localized concentration appears to be random. |
| Keywords: | global, local, industry concentration measures, green energy sectors, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, C21, L20, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124038&r=ure |
| By: | Martin D. Heintzelman; Patrick J. Walsh; Dustin J. Grzeskowiak |
| Abstract: | To guard against urban sprawl, many communities in the United States have begun enacting policies to preserve open space, often through local voter referenda. New Jersey sponsors such municipal action through the Green Acres Program by providing funding and low interest loans to towns that choose, through a referendum, to increase property taxes and spend the money raised on open space preservation for the purposes of conservation and/or recreation. Understanding which factors contribute to the appearance and success of these measures is important for policy makers and conservation advocates, not only in New Jersey, but across the United States. Although previous literature has examined this issue, this is the first study to account for spatial dependence/spatial autocorrelation and to explore dynamic issues through survival analysis. The traditional two stage model from the literature is extended by incorporating a Bayesian spatial probit for the first stage and a maximum-likelihood spatial error model in the second stage. A Cox – proportional hazard model is used to examine the timing of referenda appearance. Spatial dependence is found in the second stage of the analysis, indicating future studies should account for its influence. There is not strong evidence for spatial dependence or correlation in the first stage. The survival model is found to be a useful complement to the traditional probit analysis of the first stage. |
| Keywords: | environmental referenda, open space, survival model, Spatial econometrics, bayesian probit |
| JEL: | C11 C21 Q50 Q57 Q58 |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nev:wpaper:wp201202&r=ure |
| By: | Vanessa OLTRA; Maïder SAINT-JEAN |
| Abstract: | This article tries to apprehend the technological trajectories that develop in Aquitaine region in the field of green chemistry (GC). Breschi’s research works are used to stress that spatial patterns of innovation vary greatly amongst sectors according to the specific features of the underlying technology, as summarized by the concept of technological regime. In such a perspective, we take into account the role of industrial structures and technological regimes to apprehend regional trajectories of innovation in the field of GC. In order to characterize such trajectories, an empirical analysis is carried out by using patent data for the period 1990-2009. We end up with an original database of GC patents for the Aquitaine region which enables us to emphasize the concentration of innovative sources as well as the specialization fields in relation with the regional industrial structure. |
| Keywords: | Green chemistry, Regional trajectories of innovation, Technological Regime, Patents |
| JEL: | O30 R11 L65 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2012-14&r=ure |
| By: | Emilie Caldeira; Martial Foucault; Grégoire Rota-Graziosi |
| Abstract: | Decentralization has been put forward as a powerful tool to reduce poverty and improve governance in Africa. The aim of this paper is to study the existence, and identify the nature, of spillovers resulting from local expenditure policies. These spillovers impact the efficiency of decentralization. We develop a two-jurisdiction model of public expenditure, which differs from existing literature by capturing the extreme poverty of some local governments in developing countries through a generalized notion of the Nash equilibrium, namely, the constrained Nash equilibrium. We show how and under which conditions spillovers among jurisdictions induce strategic behaviours from local officials. By estimating a spatial lag model for a panel data analysis of the 77 communes in Benin from 2002 to 2008, our empirical analysis establishes the existence of the strategic complementarity of jurisdictions' public spending. Thus, any increase in the local public provision in one jurisdiction should induce a similar variation among the neighbouring jurisdictions. This result raises the issue of coordination among local governments, and more broadly, it questions the effeciency of decentralisation in developing countries in line with Oates' theorem. |
| JEL: | D72 H2 H7 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18126&r=ure |
| By: | Ghazala Azmat; José Garcia-Montalvo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of school choice, focusing on the role of information. We consider how parents’ search efforts and their capacity to process information (i.e., to correctly assess schools) affect the quality of the schools they choose for their children. Using a novel dataset, we are able to identify parents’ awareness of schools in their neighborhood and measure their capacity to rank the quality of the school with respect to the official rankings. We find that parents’ education and wealth are important factors in determining their level of school awareness and information gathering. Moreover, these search efforts have important consequences in terms of the quality of school choice. |
| Keywords: | school choice, education in developing country, information gathering, household behavior |
| JEL: | I21 O12 D1 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:639&r=ure |
| By: | Pede, Valerien O.; Sparks, Adam H.; McKinley, Justin D. |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the inequality-growth relationship using data at the sub-national (provincial) level in the Philippines over the period 1991- 2000. A conditional convergence growth model is considered where the growth of per capita income depends on inequality and other growth factors. The contribution of each province to the overall inequality obtained from the Theil index is considered. Results indicate that inequality has a positive and significant effect on per capita income growth. However, the magnitude of the inequality effect is not stable across regions. Geographically Weighted Regression estimates show that the magnitude of the inequality growth relationship varies over a range of 0.72 to 3.36. Other results are also noteworthy in this study. Per capita income grows faster in provinces that contribute more to the overall inequality. Provinces with higher poverty incidence tend to grow less and human capital appears to be a significant booster to per capita income growth. Additionally, urban provinces tend to grow faster than the rural ones. |
| Keywords: | clusters, growth, inequality, spatial econometrics, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, R11, R12, O15, C21, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare12:124402&r=ure |
| By: | Ambrey, Christopher L.; Fleming, Christopher M. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the influence of public greenspace on the life satisfaction of residents of Australia’s capital cities. A positive relationship is found between the percentage of public greenspace in a resident’s local area and their self-reported life satisfaction. On average, it is found that a resident has an implicit willingness-to-pay of $1,168 in annual household income for a one per cent (143m2) increase in public greenspace. The relationship between public greenspace and life satisfaction however, is non-linear. Additional results suggest that the value of greenspace increases with population density and that lone parents, the less educated and those living in high rise dwellings benefit to a greater extent from the provision of public greenspace than the general population. In all, life satisfaction data supports existing evidence that public greenspace is welfare enhancing for urban residents and adequate allowance should be made for its provision when planning urban areas. |
| Keywords: | Happiness, Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Greenspace, Life Satisfaction, Non-market Valuation., Community/Rural/Urban Development, C21, Q51, R20, |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aare12:124302&r=ure |
| By: | Jarko Fidrmuc (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, CESifo Munich, Institute for Eastern European Studies, Regensburg, Comenius University Bratislava, and Mendel University in Brno); Matus Senaj (National Bank of Slovakia, Research Department) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on human capital and housing in Slovakia during the economic reforms of the last two decades. We compare households that entered the labour market before and after the economic reforms in 1990. On the one hand, we study the returns to education in different labour market cohorts using household consumption surveys. On the other hand, we analyse the determinants of housing wealth and its impact on consumption. We show that old cohorts are characterised by lower returns to human capital and consumption levels, but higher housing wealth. Thus, we do not identify a clear pattern of winners and losers from transition. |
| Keywords: | consumption function, housing wealth effect, human capital, survey data |
| JEL: | C31 D12 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:svk:wpaper:1017&r=ure |
| By: | Mohd Safian, Edie Ezwan; Nawawi, Abdul Hadi |
| Abstract: | Geographic Information System (GIS) provides good spatial data. Using map as a main feature helps to capture, analyse, manage, as well as present geographic location data. Many location analysis techniques, including GIS, have developed, mainly on a specific field. In order to evaluate the quality of locational characteristics on a commercial building such as purpose-built office (PBO), GIS application is needed. Combining Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and GIS provide an effective evaluation whereby the needs of property market participants on purpose built offices can be fulfilled. AHP is a method that specialises in identifying the importance of any locational characteristics on commercial building from the tenants or occupiers perception. Thus, integration from AHP and GIS will capture the subjective as well as the objective locational quality of PBO in terms of their commercial aspects. The evaluation index system which is Locational Quality Index (LQI) has been set up through locational characteristics of purpose built office, namely the location of the commercial features, availability of transport options, transportation/ parking distance, vehicle flow, efficiency of property market. Supported by GIS improves AHP in evaluating the quality of locational characteristics of PBO which matches the need of commercial property market participants. |
| Keywords: | Analytical Hierarchy Process; Geographical Information System; Location; Purpose- Built Office |
| JEL: | C8 |
| Date: | 2012–04–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39546&r=ure |
| By: | Martin Gregor (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This paper builds spatial microfoundations for the functional forms used in the analysis of inter-jurisdictional public spending spillovers. It introduces a symmetric bilateral model that distinguishes between three stages: production of multiple public inputs (intermediary goods), production of multiple public outputs (final goods) including asymmetries and non-additive aggregations, and consumption of the public outputs with asymmetries and preferences for variety. The model is characterized by seven modeling features, and the paper demonstrates how these features are combined in the relevant literature. The paper identifies sufficient conditions for the different combinations of the features to be isomorphic. Additionally, it analyzes which microfoundations for the inter-jurisdictional spillovers lead to asymmetrically structured demands for public spending. |
| Keywords: | spillover, externality, complementarity, weak-link, local public goods |
| JEL: | H4 H7 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2012_16&r=ure |
| By: | Sergio Beraldo (Chercheur Indépendant - Aucune); Massimiliano Piacenza (Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth (Ceris-CNR) - Italian National Research Council, Center for Research on Regulated Services - HERMES); Gilberto Turati (Chercheur Indépendant - Aucune) |
| Abstract: | The quality of the institutional environment is a crucial issue in understanding the effective outcome of fiscal decentralization initiatives. However, there has been so far very little work on the subject. In this paper we contribute to fill this gap by considering the municipalities belonging to three provinces in Southern Italy and proxying the presence of a weak institutional environment with the capture of the local government by Mafia-type organizations. The analysis exploits an unforeseen change in fiscal policy by central government increasing Vertical Fiscal Imbalances and tests whether the effects of the lower tax decentralization on municipal spending are conditioned by the quality of the institutional environment. We find no sensible effects when the institutional environment is weak; on the contrary, a 4-6% increase in average spending per capita is estimated as a consequence of the lower tax autonomy in municipalities not captured by Mafia clans. The evidence is robust both to controls for potential confounding factors and sensitivity analyses. Overall, our findings suggest that some caution is needed before deciding to devolve more fiscal power to lower tiers of government. |
| Keywords: | Tax decentralization, Local government accountability, Institutional quality, Mafia-type organizations |
| Date: | 2012–05–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-00706970&r=ure |
| By: | Klaiber, H. Allen; Gopalakrishnan, Sathya |
| Abstract: | Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes to extract shale gas have raised concerns among local residents over the safety of these new drilling techniques. To assess whether potential negative externalities associated with shale gas exploration are capitalized into surrounding homeowners property values, we estimate a hedonic model combining data on 3,464 housing sales occurring between 2008 and 2010 in a suburban/rural county south of Pittsburgh, PA which experienced large numbers of new horizontal Marcellus wells beginning in late 2008. Using hedonic methods, we find a negative and significant impact to households in close proximity both spatially and temporally to this activity. Further we find that this negative impact disproportionately accrues to homeowners near additional agricultural areas and on well water. In all cases, the negative impact appears relatively short-lived |
| Keywords: | Shale gas, Housing values, Risk perceptions, Hedonic, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q51, Q52, R21, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124368&r=ure |
| By: | Essi Eerola; Teemu Lyytikäinen |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of increased price information on the functioning of the housing market. We first study the implications of new information for market outcomes in a theoretical framework so as to disentangle the potential channels through which information may be important. The results suggest that increased information leads to higher prices. The time on the market, in turn, may become longer or shorter depending on which side of the market reacts more to the new information. In the empirical part of the paper, we utilize a Finnish policy intervention to estimate these effects. In July 2007, a website with detailed information about individual housing transactions was opened. The website covered only part of the country, which allows us to use the Differences-in-Differences method to estimate the effect of increased information. The results show that increased information on past transactions led to higher prices and shorter times on the market. In the light of our theoretical results, the empirical evidence therefore indicates that buyers react more to the new information than the sellers. |
| Keywords: | Housing prices, time on the market, information, learning, differences-in-differences |
| JEL: | R30 D83 |
| Date: | 2012–04–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fer:wpaper:30&r=ure |
| By: | Fan, Qin; Klaiber, H. Allen; Fisher-Vanden, Karen |
| Abstract: | This paper employs a two-stage residential sorting model to examine climate change impacts on residential location choices in the US. The estimated coefficients are used to simulate population changes and US migration patterns across regions under hypothetical changes in climate. The main dataset used for estimation is the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample (IPUMS), which provides demographic characteristics of approximately 2.4 million households located in 283 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) of the US in the year 2000. Projected climate data (i.e. extreme temperatures) used for simulation are obtained from the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). In the estimation component, a two-stage random utility sorting model (RUM) is employed. The first-stage discrete choice model employs a multinomial logit specification to recover heterogeneous parameters associated with MSA specific variables, migration costs, along with the mean indirect utility of each MSA. In particular, the interaction terms of temperature extremes and individual-specific characteristics, such as one’s birth region, age and educational attainment, are used to recover valuations of temperature extremes for different classes of people with potentially different preferences. The second stage of this model decomposes the mean indirect utility obtained from the first stage into its MSA-specific attributes controlling for unobservables using region fixed effects. Migration costs are statistically significant. If migration costs are high, individuals are less likely to relocate for the sake of moderate changes in weather extremes. In the simulation component, the estimated coefficients are used to simulate population changes across regions in the US under hypothetical changes in extreme temperatures. We find that extreme temperature and extreme precipitation reduce utility, and people’s preferences for temperature extremes are heterogeneous. The climate of one’s place of birth and demographic characteristics such as age and educational attainment, are significant factors that lead to preference heterogeneity. In addition, we find that population share in the Southern region and California drop, while population share in Northeastern region increases under hypothetical changes in climate. |
| Keywords: | Climate Change, Extremes, Tiebout Sorting, Locational Equilibrium, Migration, Environmental Economics and Policy, Q51 and Q54, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124588&r=ure |
| By: | Agnese Sacchi; Simone Salotti |
| Abstract: | Many countries have recently implemented fiscal decentralization reforms, assigning more functions and spending responsibilities to sub-national governments. In this paper we investigate the reasons behind the decentralization process of different categories of government expenditure (such as health, education, social security and welfare, housing, transports, public order) using IMF and OECD data for 21 developed countries over the period 1972-2006. We pay particular attention to the roles played by the taxing power of sub-national governments and by grants received from upper tiers of government. Then, we also study the determinants of the composition of local expenditure. Using a general-to-specific empirical approach, we adopt different models for each of the spending functions under analysis. This leads to a number of results, not yet reached in the existing literature, on the importance of tax decentralization, demographics, politics, and a number of other socio-economic variables. |
| Keywords: | fiscal decentralization, COFOG, task assignment, local tax revenue, budget composition |
| JEL: | H50 H75 H76 H77 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtr:wpaper:0155&r=ure |
| By: | Aurélie LALANNE (GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113); Guillaume POUYANNE ( GREThA, CNRS, UMR 5113) |
| Abstract: | Research on metropolization has been very active during the 1990s, but it seems to have relatively run out during the next decade. In this paper, we review the way metropolization was dealt with in economics these last ten years. We use bibliometric tools and network analysis so as to bring out four main fields of research. Each one is analyzed from the point of view of the theoretical filiation and of the dynamics of publication. We also bring out the main questions and the controversies of the 2000s. The Global City is based on geographers\' works such as Friedmann and Sassen. Various classifications to qualify the global urban hierarchy are developped. Several authors argue in favour of a more explicit consideration of the territory. The Innovative City is at the intersection of urban economics and the geography of innovation. If the impact of economic diversity and proximity is still studied, the localization of headquarters is an emerging theme. The Cognitive City, which derives from the application of the human capital theory to the city, sees growing research on the nature of the externalities of knowledge. Finally, the Creative City, stemming from Florida’s theses at the beginning of 2000s, is an emergent theme. As such, it is the object of rather lively controversies: on the composition of the creative class, on the \"primacy of location\" of creative people or firms, and on the nature of the \"creative milieu\". This literature brings to the foreground some innovative themes such as the work on cosmopolitanism. |
| Keywords: | metropolization, global city, creative city, innovative city, learning city, bibliometrics |
| JEL: | R10 R11 R12 R19 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grt:wpegrt:2012-11&r=ure |
| By: | Giulia Faggio; Henry G. Overman |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the impact of public sector employment on local labour markets. Using English data at the Local Authority level for 2003 to 2007 we find that public sector employment has no identifiable effect on total private sector employment. However, public sector employment does affect the sectoral composition of the private sector. Specifically, each additional public sector job creates 0.5 jobs in the nontradable sector (construction and services) while crowding out 0.4 jobs in the tradable sector (manufacturing). When using data for a longer time period (1999 to 2007) we find no multiplier effect for nontradables, stronger crowding out for tradables and, consistent with this, crowding out for total private sector employment. |
| Keywords: | Local labour markets, public and private sector employment, wages |
| JEL: | J31 J45 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0111&r=ure |
| By: | Parry, Ian W.H.; Timilsina, Govinda R. |
| Abstract: | Economically efficient prices for the passenger transportation system in the Greater Cairo Metropolitan Area would account for broader societal costs of traffic congestion and accidents, and local and global pollution. A $2.20 per gallon gasoline tax (2006 US$) would be economically efficient, compared with the current subsidy of $1.20 per gallon. Removal of the existing subsidy alone would achieve about three-quarters of the net benefits from subsidy elimination and the tax. Per-mile tolls could target congestion and accident externalities more efficiently than fuel taxes, although they are not practical at present. A combination of $0.80 per gallon gasoline tax to address pollution (versus $2.20 without tolls), and $0.12 and $0.19 tolls per vehicle mile on automobiles and microbuses, respectively, to address traffic congestion and accident externalities (versus $0.22 without fuel taxes) would be most efficient. Current public bus and rail subsidies are relatively close to efficient levels in the absence of such policies; however, if automobile and microbus externalities were fully addressed through more efficient pricing, optimal subsides to public transit would be smaller than current levels. |
| Keywords: | Transport Economics Policy&Planning,Roads&Highways,Airports and Air Services,Transport and Environment,Energy Production and Transportation |
| Date: | 2012–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6083&r=ure |
| By: | Bertoni, Marco (University of Padova); Brunello, Giorgio (University of Padova); Rocco, Lorenzo (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner in standardized school tests reduces the proportion of correct answers in monitored classes by 5.5 to 8.5% – depending on the grade and the test – with respect to classes in schools with no external monitor. We find that the effect of external monitoring in a class spills over to other classes in the same school. We argue that the negative effect of external supervision is due to reduced cheating (by students and/or teachers) rather than to distraction from having a stranger in the class. |
| Keywords: | education, testing, external monitoring |
| JEL: | C31 H52 I2 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6629&r=ure |
| By: | Yamamura, Eiji |
| Abstract: | This paper explores how a perceived tax burden is influenced by the degree that neighbors prefer income redistribution. Further, this paper investigates how the influence of neighbors is affected by the degree of interaction between neighbors. For these purposes, individual-level data and place of residence data were combined. After controlling for individual characteristics, I obtained the following key findings: people are more likely to perceive the amount of tax as low when neighbors are more likely to support redistribution policies. Further, this neighbor effect increases when community participation rates are high. This tendency is clearly observed in high-income groups but not in low-income groups. This implies that the norm for redistribution leads rich people to consider the tax burden as low. Further, the effect of the norm increases when there is a greater accumulation of social capital within a residential area. That is, one’s perceived tax burden is influenced by psychological externalities. |
| Keywords: | Perceived tax; Norm; Redistribution; Social capital; Externality |
| JEL: | D63 D30 H29 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–06–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39434&r=ure |
| By: | Dharmasena, Senarath; Capps, Oral, Jr. |
| Keywords: | non-alcoholic beverages, spatial price competition, Nielsen data, Demand and Price Analysis, Industrial Organization, Marketing, C21, D11, L11, |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124255&r=ure |
| By: | Raffaella Calabrese (University of Milano-Bicocca); Johan A. Elkink (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Most of the literature on spatial econometrics is primarily concerned with explaining continuous variables, while a variety of problems concern by their nature binary dependent variables. The goal of this paper is to provide a cohesive description and a critical comparison of the main estimators proposed in the literature for spatial binary choice models. The properties of such estimators are investigated using a theoretical and simulation study. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper that provides a comprehensive Monte Carlo study of the estimators’ properties. This simulation study shows that the Gibbs estimator (LeSage 2000) performs best for low spatial autocorrelation, while the Recursive Importance Sampler (Beron and Vijverberg 2004) performs best for high spatial autocorrelation. The same results are obtained by increasing the sample size. Finally, the linearized General Method of Moments estimator (Klier and McMillen 2008) is the fastest algorithm that provides accurate estimates for low spatial autocorrelation and large sample size. |
| Date: | 2012–06–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201215&r=ure |
| By: | Willis, David B.; Boys, Kathryn A.; Hughs, David W.; Swindall, Devin C. |
| Abstract: | Supporters claim that entrepreneurship is critical to building and sustaining the regional economies of urban and rural areas across the nation. Proponents argue that economic development practices that enhance and support entrepreneurship are essential because they cultivate innovation which, in turn, creates new jobs, new wealth, and a better quality of life. However, South Carolina’s real self-employed per capita income has decreased over the last decade. This downward trend highlights the need to examine the drivers of entrepreneurial income. The income of self-employed workers, as opposed to the number of self-employed, is critical to economic development because a major goal of economic policy is to increase incomes not just employment. Identifying and quantifying the personal, cultural, and economic factors that influence self-employed income provides policy makers with another tool to enhance economic development policies. This study uses data from the American Community Survey for South Carolina in both an ordinary regression approach and a quantile regression approach to investigate the relationship between individual entrepreneurial income and individual personal attributes, social/institutional assets available to the entrepreneur, and the regional economic environment the entrepreneur operates within. Personal attributes, such as education and sex, and the importance of self-employed income to total family income are significant variables in explaining income variation among self-employed individuals. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, |
| Date: | 2012–08–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124912&r=ure |
| By: | Giulia Ajmone Marsan; Annalisa Primi |
| Abstract: | This paper presents an overview of co-patenting trends at the national and regional level in three technology fields (biotechnology, telecommunications and renewable energy), across regions in the OECD and emerging economies, from the late 1970s to the late 2000s. After a general introduction on regional patenting activities, inter-regional co-inventorship networks in the three selected technologies are built and analysed. Different behaviors and relative network positioning emerge, in terms of top patenting regions both across technological fields and over time. Co-patenting networks increase their density over time and they show preferential attachment properties, namely regions with a central position in an early phase of development of the network tend to maintain their positioning in the future. However, there are also windows of opportunity for new central nodes to emerge in the network. Evidence shows that the structure of the network evolves differently depending on technological field and that the role of spatial proximity and capability proximity is mixed in influencing co-inventorship patterns. Co-patenting networks include star players that establish connections regardless of the proximity of partners; but also several wellperforming actors that benefit from proximity or relative proximity of agents.<BR>Cet article analyse des réseaux de co-brevets parmi les régions des pays OCDE et des économies émergentes sélectionnées, dans trois secteurs technologiques (télécommunications, biotechnologie, énergie renouvelable) sur la période 1977-2007. Après une introduction générale sur la production de brevets à niveau régional, les réseaux inter-régionaux de co-brevets dans les trois technologies sont construits et analysés. Des comportements et des positionnements différents à niveau des régions émergent, dans la structure générale des réseaux analysés, selon la technologie et dans le temps. Les réseaux de co-brevets deviennent plus denses avec le temps et montrent la propriété de l’attachement préférentiel, soit les régions avec une position centrale dans le réseau au début tendent à la garder dans le temps. Toutefois, il existe des opportunités pour atteindre un positionnement central même pour les régions qui entrent dans le réseau dans des phases successives. Les données montrent comment la structure du réseau évolue avec des caractéristiques différentes selon la classe technologique et comment la proximité spatiale et la proximité des connaissances influencent l’évolution du phénomène de la co-invention des brevets : les réseaux d’excellence contiennent les acteurs leaders, qui établissent leurs collaborations innovantes sans tenir en compte la proximité géographique, ainsi que plusieurs acteurs performants qui bénéficient aussi de la proximité géographique relative avec autres agents. |
| Keywords: | ICT, patents, green technologies, biotechnology, regional innovation, network analysis, co-inventorship |
| JEL: | D85 L00 O1 O25 O3 R12 |
| Date: | 2012–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:govaab:2012/3-en&r=ure |
| By: | Cheshire, Paul C.; Hilber, Christian; Kaplanis, Ioannis |
| Abstract: | We use store-specific data for a major UK supermarket chain to estimate the impact of planning on store output. Using the quasi-natural experiment of the variation in policies between England and other UK countries, we isolate the impact of Town Centre First policies. We find that space contributes directly to store productivity; and planning policies in England directly reduce output both by reducing store sizes and forcing stores onto less productive sites. We estimate that since the late 1980s planning policies have imposed a loss of output of at least 18.3 to 24.9% - more than a “lost decade’s†growth. JEL codes: D2, L51, L81, R32. |
| Keywords: | Economia -- Regulació, Supermercats, Planejament urbà, Gran Bretanya, 332 - Economia regional i territorial. Economia del sòl i de la vivenda, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/196650&r=ure |
| By: | Rafael González-Val (Universitat de Barcelona & IEB); Luis Lanaspa (Universidad de Zaragoza); Fernando Sanz (Universidad de Zaragoza) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this work is to test empirically the validity of Gibrat’s law on the growth of cities, using data on the complete distribution of cities from three countries (the US, Spain and Italy) for the entire twentieth century. In order to achieve this, we use different techniques. First, panel data unit root tests tend to confirm the validity of Gibrat’s law in the upper-tail distribution. Second, when we consider the entire distribution, we find that Gibrat’s law does not hold exactly in the long term using nonparametric methods that relate the growth rate to the initial city size. |
| Keywords: | Gibrat’s law, city size distribution, urban growth |
| JEL: | R00 C14 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2012/6/doc2012-18&r=ure |
| By: | Antonioli,Davide; Marzucchi,Alberto; Montresor,Sandro |
| Abstract: | The paper aims at evaluating the additionality of innovation policy in terms of innovative behaviours at the regional level. Innovation behaviours are distinguished, depending on their occurrence within and across the firms and the regional boundaries.The policy role with respect to them is evaluated for a sample of firms in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, by making use of an original, survey-based dataset, to which a Propensity Score Matching approach is applied. Funded firms are more likely to upgrade their competencies, when compared to similar non subsidised companies. On the other hand, their innovation cooperation with other business partners is not significantly affected by the policy, both within and outside the region, unless in the interaction with particular partners. All in all, the investigated innovation policy in the ER region seems to show more of what could be termed ‘cognitive capacity additionality’, rather than ‘network additionality’. |
| Keywords: | Innovation Cooperation, Regional Innovation Systems, Behavioural Additionality |
| JEL: | O32 O38 R11 R58 |
| Date: | 2012–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ing:wpaper:201205&r=ure |
| By: | Charles T. Clotfelter; Helen F. Ladd; Jacob L. Vigdor |
| Abstract: | In 2002/03, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina initiated a broad program of accelerating entry into algebra coursework. The proportion of moderately-performing students taking algebra in 8th grade increased from half to 85%, then reverted to baseline levels, in the span of just five years. We use this policy-induced variation to infer the impact of accelerated entry into algebra on student performance in math courses as students progress through high school. Students affected by the acceleration initiative scored significantly lower on end-of-course tests in Algebra I, and were either significantly less likely or no more likely to pass standard follow-up courses, Geometry and Algebra II, on a college-preparatory timetable. Although we also find that the district assigned teachers with weaker qualifications to Algebra I classes in the first year of the acceleration, this reduction in teacher quality accounts for only a small portion of the overall effect. |
| JEL: | I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18161&r=ure |
| By: | Cassi, Lorenzo; Plunket, Anne |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the determinants of co-inventor tie formation using micro-data on genomic patents from 1990 to 2006 in France. In a single analysis, we consider the relational and proximity perspectives that are usually treated separately. In order to do so, we analyse various forms of proximity as alternative driving forces behind network ties that occur within existing components (i.e. closure ties) as well as those between two distinct components (i.e. bridging ties). In doing so, we contrast network and proximity determinants of network formation and we investigate to what extent social networks allow economic actors to cross over geographical, technological and organizational boundaries. |
| Keywords: | Social networks; relational perspective; proximity; co-patenting; network formation |
| JEL: | L65 Z13 O33 O31 D85 R11 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39481&r=ure |
| By: | Mack, Gabriele |
| Abstract: | Since the introduction of direct payments for suckler cows in 1999, the number of specialized suckler cow farms in Switzerland has seen a significant increase. This paper explains the farm conversions to accommodate suckler cows, specifically taking into account neighborhood influences in traditional and non-traditional suckler cow regions. It confirms the hypothesis that changes in production made by farmers are influenced by their neighboring peers. In the interests of achieving a better understanding of the dynamics of this development, the analysis takes into account different time periods. As far as changes in production were con-cerned, a positive neighborhood influence could be confirmed only for the time periods soon after the political change and for regions where the production technologies were not well-established and consequently represented a technological innovation. In regions where the technology is already well-established, no neighborhood influence in the early phase could be confirmed. The results provide evidence that, from a sociological point of view, neighborhood influence plays a specific role in the expansion of production changes. For all regions, no agglomeration economies for suckler cow production based on a persistent neighborhood influence were verified until the later periods of adoption. |
| Keywords: | Spatial expansion, neighborhood influence, production decisions, spatial econometrics, Swiss agriculture, Farm Management, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Production Economics, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:124849&r=ure |
| By: | Zachary, Drew A.; Palmer, Anne M.; Surkan, Pamela J. |
| Abstract: | Data show that the food desert environment is correlated with high risk of diet-related illness in low-income urban communities. Using an empirical model of grocery purchasing decision processes, we explained how specific components of the economic and structural environment influenced purchasing decisions that conflicted with shoppers understanding of healthy eating. In this paper we describe how the policy environment and suppliers influence purchasing; why interventions to increase healthy purchases must be designed using an understanding of food desert system dynamics; and why several intervention approaches are incomplete. We recommend a complex of evidence-based strategies to facilitate healthy purchasing in urban American food deserts. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, |
| Date: | 2012–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaeafe:123976&r=ure |
| By: | Grossmann, Volker (University of Fribourg); Stadelmann, David (University of Fribourg) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the interaction between migration of high-skilled labor and publicly financed investment. We develop a theoretical model with multiple, ex ante identical jurisdictions where individuals decide on education and subsequent emigration. Migration decisions are based on differences in net income across jurisdictions which may occur endogenously. The interaction between income differences and migration flows gives rise to the potential of multiple equilibria: a symmetric equilibrium without migration and an asymmetric equilibrium in which net income levels differ among jurisdictions and trigger migration flows. In the former equilibrium, all jurisdictions have the same public investment level. In the latter one, public investment is high in host economies of skilled expatriates and low in source economies. We empirically test the hypothesis that emigration rates are negatively associated with publicly financed investment levels for OECD countries. |
| Keywords: | high-skilled migration, human capital externalities, publicly financed investment |
| JEL: | F22 H40 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6610&r=ure |
| By: | Katie Johnson (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Margaretha Breil (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) |
| Abstract: | Urban areas have particular sensitivities to climate change, and therefore adaptation to a warming planet represents a challenging new issue for urban policy makers in both the developed and developing world. Further to climate mitigation strategies implemented in various cities over the past 20 years, more recent efforts of urban management have also included actions taken to adapt to increasing temperatures, sea level and extreme events. Through the examination and comparison of seven cities, this paper identifies the various levels of administrative adaptation planning, the tools and information used in making policy choices, and the roles of governance and finance in urban adaptation to climate change. Lessons learned from these seven cases are presented to better inform the next generation of cities adapting to climate change. |
| Keywords: | Cities, Urban Areas, Adaptation, Climate Change, Governance |
| JEL: | Q54 Q58 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.29&r=ure |
| By: | Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago); Kautz, Tim (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper summarizes recent evidence on what achievement tests measure; how achievement tests relate to other measures of "cognitive ability" like IQ and grades; the important skills that achievement tests miss or mismeasure, and how much these skills matter in life. Achievement tests miss, or perhaps more accurately, do not adequately capture, soft skills – personality traits, goals, motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains. The larger message of this paper is that soft skills predict success in life, that they causally produce that success, and that programs that enhance soft skills have an important place in an effective portfolio of public policies. |
| Keywords: | personality, achievement tests, IQ, cognition |
| JEL: | I20 D01 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6580&r=ure |
| By: | Takeuchi, Nobuyuki |
| Abstract: | We reconsider the effect of economic development on urban unemployment by introducing households with non-homothetic preferences into a sector-specific capital version of the Harris-Todaro model. Contrary to previous studies, this work shows that, while urban development reduces urban unemployment, rural development expands it. As for labor growth, it normally increases urban unemployment. |
| Keywords: | sector-specific capital; Harris-Todaro model; economic development; non-homothetic preference; urban unemployment |
| JEL: | O10 J60 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39378&r=ure |
| By: | Harold Carter (University of Oxford, UK) |
| Abstract: | Housing was the major domestic priority of all postwar UK governments. By 1970 the physical conditions of British housing had been transformed; by the 1990s seventy per cent of households in England owned their own homes. Yet in 2012 there were still parts of many cities that deserved labeling as slums. Why had massive public expenditure not managed to achieve the goal of successive governments? Vested interests, created by each wave of intervention, limited subsequent policy choices. From about 1950 to about 1995, governments expanded owner occupation via a wide range of subsidies, but increasingly restricted the supply of land by restrictive planning laws. There was a massive (and unremarked) tenurial revolution, as privately rented houses were sold off to owner occupiers. At the same time, slum clearance created large single-tenure areas. This changed the nature of the demand for council housing (once occupied by the upper skilled working-class). In some parts of the country, gentrification removed a once-affordable source of owner-occupied housing. But rent control meant there were few homes for would-be renters. Access to good quality social housing thus became a very high-stakes game, for those on modest incomes – and a major source of ethnic tension in some inner cities. From the mid 1980s on, means-tested help with rent payments and market liberalization provided new help to would-be private renters. By 2010 this had resulted in the provision of over 2.2 million new privately rented dwellings in under twenty years (almost as many as had vanished between 1960 and 1975). Small debt-funded capitalist landlords, and tenants with limited security of tenure, would have been familiar one hundred years earlier. But this time the government was paying the rent; guaranteeing the market for a new generation of slum landlords, while producing severe disincentives to labour-market participation by the poor. This new form of subsidy (coupled with continuing high land prices) helped to increase nominal rents much faster than average earnings. Housing benefit expenditure rose £11 billion in 2000 to £22 billion in 2010. As, on the surface, the British housing market moved away from social democracy and towards market liberalism, its underpinnings moved in the opposite direction. Measure was piled on measure, and subsidy on subsidy, until at the end of the century the influence of government had become all-pervasive. Social amelioration of this kind faces two major problems. The first problem is that it tends to reward the majority at the expense of the weak. The second great problem is that it depends on a continuing flow of new resources, to fix each new problem while still maintaining preserving the interests of existing clients. If liberal democracies survive by buying-off trouble from new problems, while continuing to support accrued vested interests, how will they manage if economic growth can no longer be relied upon? Based on the experience of the UK housing market, it seems likely that they will focus their resources on those in the middle. This does not bode well for the poor. |
| Date: | 2012–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nuf:esohwp:_098&r=ure |
| By: | Black, Sandra E. (University of Texas at Austin); Devereux, Paul J. (University College Dublin); Løken, Katrine V. (University of Bergen); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Many countries have implemented childcare subsidies in an effort to help families; in the United States, the government created the Child Care and Development Fund in 1996, which provides public funds for childcare assistance to low-income families. Despite the importance of the issue, little is known about the effect of childcare subsidies on parent and child outcomes. Research in this area has been limited because of the difficulty identifying the causal effect of childcare price on later outcomes; for example, higher childcare prices may be associated with better childcare or wealthier parents, in which case one cannot isolate the effect of price alone on later child outcomes. This paper uses recent data and a novel source of identifying variation--sharp discontinuities in the price of childcare by income in Norway--to identify the effect of childcare subsidies on parental behavior and the later academic achievement of children. There are a number of papers that have examined the effect of childcare subsidies on female labor force participation, with the findings ranging from no effect to significant negative effects (See Blau, 2000, for a summary). More recently, work by Herbst and Tekin (2010b) has examined the effect of childcare subsidies in the United States on children’s academic performance.1 They use a unique identification strategy, applying distance to the nearest social service agency that administers the subsidy application process as an instrument for subsidy receipt. They find small negative effects of subsidy receipt the year before kindergarten on kindergarten performance, although these negative effects have generally disappeared by third grade.2 Our work complements this |
| Keywords: | Education; income subsidy; child care |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2012–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:bergec:2012_009&r=ure |
| By: | Kim, Seung Gyu; Cho, Seong-Hoon; Classen, Roger |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124709&r=ure |
| By: | Wu, Caiwen; Wu, JunJie |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124620&r=ure |
| By: | Anderson, D. Mark (Montana State University); Cesur, Resul (University of Connecticut); Tekin, Erdal (Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | While the contemporaneous association between mental health problems and criminal behavior has been explored in the literature, the long-term consequences of such problems, depression in particular, have received much less attention. In this paper, we examine the effect of depression during adolescence on the probability of engaging in a number of criminal behaviors using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). In our analysis, we control for a rich set of individual, family, and neighborhood level factors to account for conditions that may be correlated with both childhood depression and adult criminality. One novelty in our approach is the estimation of school and sibling fixed effects models to account for unobserved heterogeneity at the neighborhood and family levels. Furthermore, we exploit the longitudinal nature of our data to account for baseline differences in criminal behavior. The empirical estimates show that adolescents who suffer from depression face a substantially increased probability of engaging in property crime. We find little evidence that adolescent depression predicts the likelihood of engaging in violent crime or the selling of illicit drugs. Our estimates imply that the lower-bound economic cost of property crime associated with adolescent depression is about 219 million dollars per year. |
| Keywords: | crime, depression, Add Health |
| JEL: | I10 K42 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6577&r=ure |
| By: | Krüger, Niclas (VTI) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we examine the stochastic properties that long term aggregate traffic demand exhibits. Based on the results of the time series analysis, we examine how fractionally integrated processes affect real option valuation in road projects. We conclude that the long memory property we find in long term aggregate traffic demand using Swedish data, implying that a shock in demand has persistent positive effects on future demand, leads to higher option values in road projects compared to the values from a standard model using geometric Brownian motion. |
| Keywords: | Real option analysis; Fractional Brownian motion; Monte Carlo simulation |
| JEL: | H54 R42 |
| Date: | 2012–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ctswps:2012_017&r=ure |
| By: | Johan Fourie; Maria Santana-Gallego |
| Abstract: | Ethnic reunion is the propensity of tourists to travel to regions where their ancestors originate from, while cultural affinity is the propensity of tourists to travel to regions with a shared cultural identity. This paper uses a "world migration matrix", which records the year-1500 origins of the current populations of 159 countries, in a standard tourism gravity equation to provide the first empirical evidence of the existence of both these tourism traits at the global level. Our results remain robust even when controlling for other historical links, such as colonial legacy and regional trade agreements. By controlling for trade flows, we also show that this impact is unique to tourism. Ethnic reunion and cultural affinity are thus important — and neglected — constituents of tourism patterns (and of research), with important policy implications. |
| Keywords: | migration, trade, tourism, history, cultural affinity, ethnic reunion, ethnicity |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:293&r=ure |
| By: | Richards, Timothy J.; Allender, William J.; Hamilton, Stephen F. |
| Abstract: | Inuential individuals in a social network environment are important in shaping preferences for new products. In this study, we adopt an incentive compatible choice-based conjoint analysis approach to generate data on the introduction of a new ice cream product. We use spatial econometric methods to determine how individuals are likely to change their preferences when exposed to the choices of other members in their social network. We nd evidence that agents look to others for guidance in their preference for subjective or taste-speci c parameters, but rely on own preferences for objectively measured attributes such as price. We also use spatial methods to determine which network-member is the most inuential. We nd that the most connected member is not necessarily the most inuential, and that inuence can be determined econometrically. |
| Keywords: | choice-based conjoint, experimental economics, new product introduction, social network analysis, spatial econometrics, Marketing, Production Economics, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2012–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea12:124762&r=ure |
| By: | Lars-Erik Borge and Arnt Ove Hopland (Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology) |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the paper is to empirically investigate the determinants of maintenance spending and building conditions in Norwegian local governments. In the popular debate there is a concern that low levels of maintenance spending leads to poor building conditions, and in the long run also to excessive costs by reducing the lifetime of the buildings. We take advantage of three different data sources to assess the facility management: i) a comprehensive measure of maintenance spending that includes work conducted by local government employees, ii) survey data for general building conditions, and iii) survey data for school building conditions. The empirical analysis shows that these indicators of facility management are affected by both economic and political factors. Low fiscal capacity, fiscal distress, and a high degree of party fragmentation are associated with low levels of maintenance and poor building conditions. |
| Date: | 2012–06–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nst:samfok:13112&r=ure |
| By: | Xiaodong Liu (University of Colorado at Boulder); Eleonora Patacchini (La Sapienza University of Rome, EIEF and CEPR); Yves Zenou (Stockholm University, Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) and GAINS); Lung-Fei Lee (The Ohio State University) |
| Abstract: | We analyze delinquent networks of adolescents in the United States. We develop a dynamic network formation model showing who the key player is, i.e. the criminal who once removed generates the highest possible reduction in aggregate crime level. We then structurally estimate our model using data on criminal behaviors of adolescents in the United States (AddHealth data). Compared to other criminals, key players are more likely to be male, have less educated parents, are less attached to religion and feel socially more excluded. We also find that, even though some criminals are not very active in criminal activities, they can be key players because they have a crucial position in the network in terms of betweenness centrality. |
| Keywords: | Crime, Bonacich Centrality, Dynamic Network Formation, Crime Policies |
| JEL: | A14 D85 K42 Z13 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2012.39&r=ure |
| By: | Thorvardur Tjörvi Ólafsson; Karen Áslaug Vignisdóttir |
| Abstract: | We utilise a unique nationwide household-level database to analyse how households’ financial position evolved in the run-up to and aftermath of the financial crisis in Iceland. The main focus of our analysis is to assess how the share of indebted households in financial distress evolved and how it was affected by debt restructuring measures and court decisions. We also analyse the share of indebted homeowners in negative housing equity and those in the highly vulnerable situation of being in distress and negative housing equity simultaneously. The analysis suggests that the share of indebted households in distress grew from 12½ per cent in early 2007 to 23½ per cent on the eve of the banking collapse in the autumn of 2008, when the lion’s share of the balance sheet shocks had already taken place. The extent of acute distress nearly quadrupled over the same period. Forbearance efforts provided temporary breathing space, but the share in distress is estimated to have peaked at 27½ per cent in autumn 2009, before declining to 20 per cent at yearend 2010 due to policy and legal interventions. Financial distress is found to be inversely related to income and age, as well as being higher among families with children and those with foreigndenominated debt than among childless couples and those with ISK-denominated loans only. Parents of every fifth child in Iceland were in distress at year-end 2010. The incidence of negative housing equity increased dramatically, from roughly 6 to 37 per cent of indebted homeowners, over the four-year period. Negative housing equity is more widespread among high-income than low-income households. The share of homeowners simultaneously in distress and negative equity rose from roughly 1 to 14 per cent but declined to 10 per cent by the end of the period. Middleincome families with children, most of which had foreign-denominated loans, and low-income singles seem especially vulnerable. Some of the seeds of households’ financial difficulties were sown by imprudent lending in 2007 and 2008, when 16 per cent of the total amount of new loans was granted to households already in distress. Up to 34 per cent of households in distress at yearend 2010 were granted loans in 2007-2008, when they were already financially distressed. |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ice:wpaper:wp59&r=ure |