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on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Marion Drut |
| Abstract: | Spatial and environmental issues related to mobility are exacerbated in urban areas. Road congestion, rivalry of use for parking spaces and air pollution are major issues regularly at the heart of local transportation policies. They have been dealt with through various approaches. Mass transit have recently been fostered as a solution against road congestion and rivalry of use. These spatial issues relate to the space consumed by transportation modes. Private cars are assumed to consume larger quantities of space than mass transit, while offering similar services, namely origin-to-destination trips. Similarly, cars are the most polluting mode and transportation policies fostering bicycles have thrived in order to reduce air pollution, in particular CO2, and NOX emissions and PM. However, private cars remain the leading transportation mode for commuting trips (except in some large cities, such as Paris where mass transit is the leading mode). On the contrary, shared modes such as taxis, car-sharing and self-service cars or bicycles are often overlooked in transportation policies. In this article, I focus on shared modes, namely vehicle-sharing and self-service vehicles. The contribution is twofold. First, I explore the mechanisms through which shared modes help reduce road congestion and rivalry of use for parking spaces, as well as air pollution, compared to private modes. Second, I highlight the fact that transportation modes do not provide similar services to users. Therefore, gross comparisons in terms of time-space consumptions between modes (Marchand, 1993) are oversimplifying. I suggest to put these gross estimations into perspective accounting for additional services provided by transportation modes. Refined measures of time-space consumptions are presented. When the service provided is accounted for, the gap between mass transit and private cars is reduced. More importantly, the results show that car-sharing and self-service cars constitute relevant alternatives to private cars in terms of time-space consumption per unit of service provided. The analysis provides guidelines for decision-makers since it clearly indicates orders of magnitude for time-space consumptions from various transportation modes. The study reveals that both types of shared modes help reduce spatial and environmental issues related to mobility in urban areas and as such constitute key components of a comprehensive and efficient transportation system. For instance, I demonstrate that shared low-carbon modes, such as self-service bicycles, have the potential to reduce simultaneously both spatial (congestion and rivalry of use) and environmental (air pollution) issues in medium-sized city. Furthermore, I mention the limits of the present organization for shared modes. More precisely, the need for institutionalizing is highlighted for car-sharing, and network expansion required for self-service vehicles. |
| Keywords: | mobility; shared modes; spatial issues; time-space consumption |
| JEL: | D6 D61 Q28 Q30 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p118&r=ure |
| By: | Mira G. Baron; Ella R. Diamant |
| Abstract: | This work explores the impact of ?Studentification? of a neighborhood on the profitability of investment in the housing market. The study breaks down the impact of students on the housing market into two areas: apartments for sale and apartments for rent. The Israeli housing market provides the data for the empirical analysis. The market is different from other markets by the fact that the Israeli real estate investments market is at most 29% of the housing market, since 71% are owner occupied apartments. In order to address profitability, different scenarios have been explored. The classical urban economics model (Alonso, 1964, Mills, 1967 and Muth, 1969) claims that purchasing or renting an apartment close to CBD (Central Business District) will save on commuting costs and on travel time. Resulting in a high price of housing close to the CBD, and a decrease in price further away. Students renting an apartment adjacent to an academic institution (a Studentified neighborhood) will be willing to pay a higher rent and landlords will be willing to pay more for a house. A contrary argument is that students are poorer than the average population. Their willingness to pay for rent is lower, and the landlords will decrease their willingness to pay for houses for investment. An alternative argument is that landlords have an aversion to rent to students due to the claims that they are noisy, generate litter, involved in vandalism and have a negative effect on the neighborhood. In contrast the students want to rent in a Studentified neighborhood. The alternative scenarios are examined empirically in a case study of rents and housing prices in Haifa, Israel, a metropolitan area in the north of Israel. There are two academic institutions with 30 thousand undergraduate students in the city. The neighborhoods adjacent to one of the academic institutions are defined as Studentified. The students of the other institution are not concentrated around it since there is no supply of housing units. We define the neighborhoods in the rest of the city as Non-Studentified. We analyze the price of apartments sold in the period 2005- 2011 and the price of rental units in the period 2011-2012. The empirical results show that Studentification affects positively the rental prices and negatively the price of assets. These results are consistent with landlords' aversion to locations adjacent to academic institutions. The results of the econometric analysis were used to calculate the Sharpe Ratio to examine profitability in Studentified vs. Non-Studentified neighborhoods. In Studentified neighborhoods the return on a house is higher than the rest of the city (the rent is higher and the price of an asset is lower). However, in these neighborhoods the standard deviation is higher (measuring the risk). Thus the Sharpe Ratio, which measures the excess return per unit of risk, is similar in all the neighborhoods of the city. These results which characterize Haifa do not necessarily reflect other cities. It will require repetition of these tests to see what characterizes Studentified neighborhoods elsewhere. |
| Keywords: | Housing Market; Hedonic Prices; Studentification; Sharpe Ratio |
| JEL: | R31 G11 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p642&r=ure |
| By: | Jacob Macdonald; Sofia Franco |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the use of remote sensing techniques and hedonic pricing methods for the valuation of urban green amenities and in particular street trees. The classification and study of these amenities in an urban area is challenged by the high level of spatially detailed data required. While tree canopies are important not only for their aesthetics and ecological benefits, it is difficult to obtain such data to be used for informed policy discussions. A classification algorithm is tested and applied to high resolution aerial photographs of Lisbon to assess the usage of remote sensing techniques for the detection of tree canopies in the city. Results indicate a high accuracy rate of approximately 90%. We further explore how the heterogeneity of urban green amenities influence the residential real estate market under the hedonic valuation framework with a spatial error specification, focusing on the impact of parks, urban forests, cemeteries, playgrounds, the Tagus River and Monsanto Forest Park. Results indicate that different types of green spaces are valued differently and further that there is varying effects in how the real estate market values different types of street trees. Residential real estate capitalizes these trees based on their heterogeneous characteristics such as location and relative age, with results showing that trees have significant positive amenity values in mitigating flood risk in the urban area. This highlights the importance in considering how different trees are contextualized in an urban environment. Remote sensing techniques of tree canopies are thus worthwhile in providing additional dimensions from which urban green amenities can be valued via the hedonic framework. In this way, our findings contribute to the broader debate on applying remote sensing and hedonic pricing to the valuation of ecosystem and environmental services and to assess strategies to increase the level of greenness within urban areas. |
| Keywords: | Environmental amenities; tree canopy; spatial hedonic; remote sensing |
| JEL: | Q51 R21 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p640&r=ure |
| By: | Alejandra Trejo-Nieto |
| Abstract: | The urban labour market is one of fundamental significance due to the possibilities and constraints that imposes on population´s wellbeing, and because its effects on national and local employment rates and wages. The urban dimension of the labour market is closely linked to the spatial proximity between residence and workplace, and therefore it depends on the urban structure. The localization of labour demand and supply and its proximity has been the source of multiple research. During the sixties the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis (SMH), referring to the existence of a spatial gap between labour demand and supply within the cities, was formulated. The SMH means that workers and firms have different locations and, depending on the extent of the separation, it can have negative effects on the efficiency of the labour market and the city. Particularly, the mismatch increases transportation costs, reduces income, and reveals an unequal access to employment within cities. The hypothesis has been revived lately due to the interest on the rising tendency to polycentricism in big cities. Polycentricism has been considered as a path for the integration of large cities, which acts in favour of areas that are more distant from the Central Business District (CBD), improving accessibility to jobs. This paper deals with the SMH due to the importance of measuring and understanding location patterns of workers and jobs, and their interactions. We centre our attention on the location, concentration and the spatial separation of labour demand and supply as a first step to approach the spatial mismatch problem in urban labour markets. First, we aim at identifying the spatial patterns of workers and jobs; we measure by means of alternative techniques the spatial separation; finally, we investigate the differences between submarkets which are determined by the workers? level of education and the corresponding jobs according to their knowledge and technology level required. The manuscript will present the results for the biggest metropolitan area in Mexico, Mexico City metropolitan Area (MCMA) given its population size and economic significance (it concentrates 25% of national GDP and 23% of the jobs located in the country). The methodology we use incorporates as the main tool the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA), using LISAs and Moran indexes in their univariate and bivariate versions, we also employ the ?spatial mismatch index? developed by Raphael and Stoll (2002) and a spatial version proposed by Wong (2003). We use data from the population census of 2010 and the economic census of 2009 carried out by the National Institute of Geography, Informatics and Statistics (INEGI) at the level of the basic geo-statistic areas (AGEBs) in the country. Submarkets are identified according to occupied population?s education levels and the technology intensity of economic activities. |
| Keywords: | urban labour markets; spatial mismatch; spatial analysis |
| JEL: | R00 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p124&r=ure |
| By: | Tsvetkova, Alexandra; Partridge, Mark; Betz, Micael |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we explore how national economic trends in a set of industries that compose local economies and growth in nearby metropolitan areas affect local employment growth in different tiers of the urban-rural hierarchy, paying close attention to the effects of urban proximity. The results of our county-level analyses reveal heterogeneous responses. Favorable economic changes due to a fast-growing local industry composition have the largest positive impact on self-employment growth in small metropolitan areas and the smallest positive impact in rural counties. Self-employment in rural counties is fostered by growth in nearby small MSAs and is hampered by growth in nearby large MSAs. In micropolitan counties, there are no significant negative effects, whereas positive (or spread) effects are detected originating only from small and medium MSAs but not from large MSAs. In urban counties, growth in a nearby large MSA is not related to local self-employment growth in the lower tiers of the urban hierarchy. |
| Keywords: | Urban-rural hierarchy, self-employment, wage and salary employment, urban-rural interdependence |
| JEL: | O1 O51 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2016–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75781&r=ure |
| By: | Ryan Greenaway-McGrevy; Arthur Grimes; Mark Holmes |
| Abstract: | We examine whether a single housing market exists across 16 cities covering two countries, Australia and New Zealand. Distances between almost all of these cities are vastly greater than commuting distances. For instance, Perth is over 2,000 kilometres (kms) from its nearest large city neighbour, Adelaide, and is over 5,000kms from the New Zealand cities. If there is a single housing market across these cities, then the economic forces that lead to such convergence must be other than commuting arbitrage forces that have been posited as driving convergence in densely populated countries such as the United Kingdom. We define a single housing market as one in which a single stochastic trend determines the long run path of real house prices in all cities. We adopt a strong and a weak form definition of a single housing market. The strong form occurs when an innovation to the single stochastic trend affects house prices across all cities to an equal degree. The weak form occurs when an innovation to the single stochastic trend affects house prices in all cities, but not to an equal degree. In the strong case, ratios of house prices between all city pairs stay the same in the long run, while in the weak case house price ratios between cities will tend to diverge even though they are affected by the same long run influences. We find that the sixteen housing markets are characterised by the weak form of single housing market. Thus there is a single shared long-run driver of house prices across cities that are over 5,000 kilometres apart spanning two independent countries that are themselves 2,000 kilometres apart. The dynamic structure of adjustment reveals three groups of cities. House price shocks are first reflected in the price dynamics of a leading group of cities all of which are within Australia (including the two largest cities, Melbourne and Sydney), then flow through to a group of follower cities comprising a mix of peripheral Australian and major New Zealand cities, and then to a group of laggard cities all of which are within New Zealand. Our finding of a single housing market implies that macroeconomic policies must either have been convergent across the two countries or they have been incapable of independently controlling long run real house prices, despite the existence of independent monetary and fiscal policies in each country. Our theoretical model illustrates how the weak form of single housing market may arise due to differences across cities in migration responses to house prices and/or land price responses to migration flows. |
| Keywords: | Housing markets; convergence; Australia; New Zealand |
| JEL: | R31 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p49&r=ure |
| By: | Rémi Lemoy; Charles Raux; Pablo Jensen |
| Abstract: | Reproducing the socio-spatial structure of cities is one of the challenges facing the standard urban economics model of Alonso, Muth, Mills (AMM model). In a widely cited paper, Jan K. Brueckner, Jacques-Fran çois Thisse and Yves Zenou (1999) asked "Why is central Paris rich and downtown Detroit poor?" and proposed a model with a positive central amenity to account for the structure of European cities, where the city center is usually rich, like in Paris. In this work, we exploit the power of the AMM model and show that various utility functions and plausible conditions offer alternative explanations of households' location by income within a city. We first propose to take into account the empirical fact that the share of income spent for housing decreases when income increases. With a Cobb-Douglas utility function and two income groups, this ingredient yields different social structures than the standard one with low income households in the center and rich ones in the periphery. Depending on the relative values of the city radius and a critical radius related to model parameters, different urban forms appear indeed. These include the existence of a "rich" center and more complex socio-spatial urban forms, for instance alternating a rich center, poor suburbs and a rich outer ring, which have not yet been derived from the AMM model to our knowledge. In this work, we combine analytical ideas and illustrations by the means of an agent-based model. Indeed, starting from a random configuration of the city, a system of agents given relevant behaviour rules can find the equilibrium configuration of the AMM model. This modelling approach is inspired from the Monte Carlo method, and from local search optimization algorithms in computer science. Following Brueckner, Thisse and Zenou (1999), we also study the hypothesis of a central amenity. We show that under certain conditions, a central amenity can also yield a rich city center, and even a U-shaped curve of the income as a function of the distance to the city center. This result can be related in particular to empirical findings in some older North American cities, like New York, Chicago or Philadelphia as well as European cities like Paris. We find with agent-based simulations that these outcomes depend strongly on the respective locations of the employment and the amenity centers. Indeed, considering that the CBD and the amenity do not coincide has an important influence on the socio-spatial structure of the city. |
| Keywords: | urban economics; location; income; amenity; agent-based model |
| JEL: | D11 R14 C63 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p524&r=ure |
| By: | Mingfei Ma; Ying Jin |
| Abstract: | Beijing has undergone rapid urbanisation from 1950-2010. The main built-up area expanded concentrically from 100 to 1210 km2. Its urban fringe became popular for new developments, some placed haphazardly. The government concentrated efforts in ?stopping concentric fringe expansion?. E.g. on neighbourhood and district levels, the government intended to densify roads, increase neighbourhood density and improve public transport. However, the effects remain unclear. The LUTI model is widely used to assess the effects of planning policies at entire city scale, and generate the whole metropolitan area?s spatial pattern. However, it is insensitive to micro-level (neighbourhood or district) built form change. E.g. there are two policy scenarios with the same floorspace supply quantity, one case is that all houses concentrate around road nodes, the other that houses distribute sparsely. Given equal floorspace provisions, regardless of built form, the LUTI model will compute the same spatial patterns. However, in reality, different built forms will lead to different policy performances. Most LUTI models, to the best of our knowledge, are incapable of measuring this difference. Therefore, this paper augments existing LUTI models with a LUTI framework compliant built form component, allowing investigations into the impact of built form on whole city function. In our newly assembled model, we quantify the effects of built form change on route selection change. Then, the micro-level travel behaviour change is passed to the macro-level MEPLAN transport model (Echenique, 2004, 2011). Finally, we input the MEPLAN results, including generalised travel cost, distance and time, into a LUTI framework (Jin, Echenique, & Hargreaves, 2013) to simulate population distribution, changes on price level and spatial costs. We then apply this model to Beijing?s case in order to: validate the micro built form component in the general LUTI framework; predict the impacts of alternative built forms in reshaping the city?s fringe; gain insights into how built form at the urban fringe shapes the bigger scale spatial structure. We first calibrate a 130-zone recursive spatial equilibrium model using observed data for 1990-2010. Alternative built forms at the urban fringe for 2000 and 2010 that share the same floorspace provision are tested. These scenarios include densification around subway stations and decreasing road density in built-up area. The model results will show each area?s spatial cost from its built form. The analyses suggest that under rapid transformative urban change, the built form has an indirect but significant impact on the economic performance of the entire city, through travel behaviour change. In densification scenarios, access trip length decreases, as does the spatial cost and price level. In road density restriction scenarios, spatial costs increase in the entire city. These results allow understanding of the impact to whole city economic performance from built form at the neighbourhood scale. They also provide insights into designing better built forms, as such design on neighbourhood and district scale are more feasible in practical implementation ? not only for cities in emerging economies but also fast-growing cities in the developed economies that are revisiting the design. |
| Keywords: | Computable general equilibrium; land use-transport interaction model; urban growth; access link; recursive dynamics |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p203&r=ure |
| By: | Tainá Souza Pacheco; André Luis Squarize Chagas |
| Abstract: | The São Paulo Metropolitan Area has been suffering for several years from enormous congestions that causes many problems, such as air and noise pollution, and productivity losses. Until now a day, the city has never had a policy to solve the causes of the problem. Automobile users cause external costs to other individuals and do not pay for it. Those who commute by car take into account only private costs, lower than the total social one, which considers also external costs. Thus, there is an excessive use of the roads and, consequently, congestion. A congestion pricing policy imposes to car users an expense as a way to internalize the costs generated to society by them. At the same time, this policy generates revenues for investment in the city's transport system. This work aims to estimate the demand of different transport modes in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area and simulate how the demand would respond to an implementation of a congestion charge for cars, in a specific area of the city. For this, we use a mixed multinomial logit model, based on Origin-Destination Research. As the variable dependent on the modal choice for commuting, we consider six different modes of transport: walking and cycling (1), buses (2), car (3), subway and train (4), taxi (5) and motorcycle (6). As explanatory variables, we use cost and time travel, besides socioeconomic characteristics of the individuals. We simulate the congestion price policy imposing an additional fee to car journeys intended to or that pass through the restricted area. Our results suggest that an urban toll would have a positive impact on reducing the number of car commuters (each $1 fee would reduce in 6.18% the demand for car commuters), increasing the number of trips in other modes, especially public transport (2.18% for buses and 1.16% for subway and train), and non-motorized transport (walking and cycling, 2.53%). As an additional benefit to public budget, the congestion charging generates revenues for the city to invest in transport infrastructure. |
| Keywords: | Congestion Charging; Urban Toll; Mixed Logit; Urban Travel Demand; São Paulo Metropolitan Area. |
| JEL: | R41 D49 C35 |
| Date: | 2016–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2016wpecon35&r=ure |
| By: | Anna Carnegie; Michelle Norris |
| Abstract: | Culture-led regeneration has long been recognised as a mechanism of re-branding declining urban areas by providing cultural infrastructure, such as museums, galleries and theatres. Whilst often lauded for its potential to economically regenerate cities, the model has shown to have a less positive impact on marginalised households and neighbourhoods. This article explores the utilisation of culture-led regeneration in three disadvantaged Irish social housing estates and finds that it did generate benefits, but not the economic ones predicted by the main authors in this field. Rather its benefits were primarily social – it helped to combat stigmatisation, build local capacity and improve community cohesion. Levels of community participation in cultural activities were very strong in two of the case study neighbourhoods, but much weaker in the third less generously resourced neighbourhood, which raises questions about the levels of investment needed to ensure success and the long-term sustainability of these programmes. |
| Keywords: | Social housing; Culture; Community development; Regeneration |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rru:oapubs:10197/7929&r=ure |
| By: | Jan Cornelius Peters |
| Abstract: | It is well known that wages in large cities are higher than elsewhere. There is only little empirical evidence on the mechanisms behind this phenomena. One channel, that is discussed in the literature, is learning. Provided that individuals learn by interacting with one another, an urban wage growth premium arises if a large labor market increases the speed of interactions between individuals (Glaeser, 1999). To analyze dynamic agglomeration benefits and the importance of learning effects, this paper makes use of a micro econometric framework described by Combes and Gobillon (2015), extents the work by De la Roca and Puga (2013) and, in contrast to previous papers, provides a consistent estimate of the elasticity between wages and the size of the labor market where experience was acquired. The analyzed wages refer to new employment relationships. They indicate how firms value working experience depending on the location where it was acquired. By including fixed effects and further control variables at both, the individual as well as the regional level, endogeneity is reduced. The paper also analyzes whether the value of experience depends not only on the size of the labor market where experience was acquired, but also on the size of the labor market where it is used. The analysis bases on a 5 percent sample of the Integrated Employment Biographies (IEB) of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and contains detailed information on the employment biographies from 1975 onwards for a sample of about 350,000 individuals with at least one new employment relationship in Germany between 2005 and 2011. The results indicate that experience acquired in large local labor markets has in fact a significantly higher valued than experience acquired in small labor markets. The elasticity has a fixed component and a component that depends on the size of the labor market where experience is used. The fixed component (about 0.07) points out, that experience acquired in large labor markets is in all regions valued higher than experience acquired in small labor markets. This supports the interpretation that workers learn more by working in large than in small labor markets, and that at least part of the accumulated knowledge are transferable to other regions. The second component suggests that the value of experience increases additionally with the size of the labor market where experience is used. One reasonable explanation is a combination of learning and matching effects. Since jobs in large labor markets are more specialized than jobs elsewhere, workers that worked in a large labor market accumulated knowledge that refers to the ?core task? of a job. The wage premium for this knowledge is supposed to be larger in large labor markets, since it is more likely there than in a smaller labor market, that a firm demands this specific knowledge. Moreover, workers moving from a large to a small labor market may lose since the new job contains a wider range of tasks. |
| Keywords: | Agglomeration economies; Learning; Urban wage growth premium; Transition to employment |
| JEL: | R23 J31 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p615&r=ure |
| By: | Haisken-DeNew, John P. (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Hasan, Syed (Australian National University); Jha, Nikhil (University of Melbourne); Sinning, Mathias (Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | The Australian Government launched the My School website in 2010 to provide standardised information about the quality of schools to the Australian public. This paper combines data from this website with home sales data for the state of Victoria to estimate the effect of the publication of school quality information on property prices. We use a difference-in-difference approach to estimate the causal effect of the release of information about high-quality and low-quality schools relative to medium-quality schools in the neighborhood and find that the release of information about high-quality schools increases property prices by 3.6 percent, whereas the release of information about low-quality schools has no significant effect. The findings indicate that many buyers are unaware of the relevance of school quality information and that real estate agents pursue a strategy of disclosing information about high-quality schools to increase the sales price. Results from a survey of Victorian real estate agents provide evidence in favor of this strategy. |
| Keywords: | school quality, housing markets, information asymmetry, public policy evaluation, difference-in-difference estimation |
| JEL: | D82 D84 I24 R31 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10434&r=ure |
| By: | Cheung, Ron (Department of Economics, Oberlin College); Whitaker, Stephan (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Wetherell, Daniel (EIG Services, Inc.) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of earthquakes on residential property values using sales data from Oklahoma from 2006 to 2014. Before 2010, Oklahoma had only a couple of earthquakes per year that were strong enough to be felt by residents. Since 2010, seismic activity has increased, bring potentially damaging quakes several times each year and perceptible quakes every few days. Using hedonic models, we estimate that prices decline by 3 to 4 percent after a home has experienced a moderate earthquake measuring 4 or 5 on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. Prices can decline up to 9.8 percent after a potentially damaging earthquake with intensity above 6. The correlations between measures of low intensity (MMI 3) quakes and prices are smaller and vary between specifications. Our findings are consistent with the experience of an earthquake revealing a new disamenity and risk which is then capitalized into house values. |
| Keywords: | Earthquakes; house prices; hedonic price analysis; wastewater disposal; |
| JEL: | Q51 Q53 R31 |
| Date: | 2016–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1631&r=ure |
| By: | Tsvetkova, Alexandra; Partridge, Mark; Betz, Michael |
| Abstract: | Economic development policies often revolve around supporting small businesses and new firm creation as they are locally grown and likely can be more influenced by state and local policy. Two prominent strands of current research—the regional economic growth and small business/entrepreneurship literatures—elucidate the importance of small, young firms for regional economic performance and the crucial role urban-rural proximity plays in the distribution of growth across space. Keeping these two research traditions in mind, we study the effects of self-employment on job growth in US counties. Our goal is to estimate the net employment spillovers from changes in self-employment (SE) and to compare them to spillovers from changes in wage and salary employment (WS). We ask the following research questions: Do exogenous net changes (shocks) in SE spur larger or smaller changes in employment than do equal changes in WS employment and do these effects vary across the rural-urban hierarchy? The answers to these questions are of paramount importance in devising economic development strategy across urban and rural settings. We use a differencing strategy and an exogenous measure of SE and WS employment shocks to estimate net multiplier effects and to investigate their relationship with proximity to differing-sized urban centers. The analysis uses US county-level data spanning the 2001-2013 period. The results suggest that marginal effects from self-employment are consistently larger than from paid employment, particularly in metropolitan counties. Given the dominant share of paid employment, however, the magnitude of economic impact is greater from wage and salary employment. Distance from urban centers generally offers protection that promotes SE growth but hinders WS employment growth. In an austere fiscal environment, spending a dollar to stimulate SE is likely to have greater returns as opposed to stimulating WS employment if the costs of creating one SE and one WS job are comparable. |
| Keywords: | self-employment; wage and salary employment; exogenous demand shocks; employment growth; job creation; regional economic growth |
| JEL: | O1 O51 R11 |
| Date: | 2016–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75777&r=ure |
| By: | Jingjing Liu; Peter Nijkamp |
| Abstract: | Along with the globalization and information-economic epoch, international knowledge spillover plays an important role in regional development, and the regional innovation system becomes more and more open-ended. As a nexus of the destination and the outside world, inbound tourism brings various economic and social resources for the development of the host region, which may also contribute to a higher level of cognitive proximity and absorptive capability as well as to greater product variety and manifold consumption externalities. Much research has addressed the influence of innovation on the tourism industry development, but only a few studies have focused on the impact of tourism on innovation. This study focusses on the influence of inbound tourism on a regional innovation system. The aims of this research are to: (1) interpret the mechanism of how inbound tourism impacts regional innovation; (2) inquire the external influence factors of the performance of inbound tourism; (3) explore the different characteristics of these effects when considering different types of innovation; (4) revisit the Tourism-Led Growth (TLG) hypothesis, and consider whether innovation can be a new vehicle to explain the influence of inbound tourism on spatial economic development. The influence of inbound tourism on innovation will provide a new perspective for analyzing the long term impact of tourism development. Furthermore, it may also be a meaningful complement to studies on the relationship between immigration, culture diversity and innovation, especially in the context of developing regions. Our study is organized as follows. First, the theoretical framework and the related hypotheses on the interaction between inbound tourism and regional innovation are presented. The network structure and diverse demands approaches as well as the effect of the regional absorptive capacity are considered and highlighted. Next, data from 30 Chinese Mainland provinces (Tibet being excluded, because part of the important indicators are unavailable) for the years 2003-2012 are used for the empirical analysis. The data come from the Chinese Patent Statistical Yearbook, the Chinese Statistical Yearbook, and the China Economic & Industry Data Database. From a methodical perspective, an entropy method and a perpetual inventory method were undertaken to measure the key variables. Next, a descriptive analysis was used to reach a preliminary idea on the above relationship. As to the existence of spatial autocorrelation, spatial panel data analysis was conducted to test these hypotheses. The study finds that inbound tourism is a driving force for a regional innovation system in China and can bring a new life to regional economic development. Firstly, inbound tourism appears to have a direct and indirect impact on regional innovation, while absorptive capacity has a significant mediating effect in this relationship. Secondly, the impact of inbound tourism on regional innovation capacity tends to be stronger in the wealthier and more international-oriented provinces. Thirdly, the effect of inbound tourism on technological innovation is mostly weaker than that of social innovation. Fourthly, this study supports the TLG hypothesis with regional innovation as the mediating variable. |
| Keywords: | Inbound tourism; regional innovation; absorptive capability; spatial panel data analysis; China. |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p600&r=ure |
| By: | Chitta Pathak |
| Abstract: | In 2015, the Central Government of India has added a new dimension to Urbanization and Urban development policy and has introduced the concept of Smart Cities. At the beginning the concept was not elaborated. Does it mean inclusive development of the selected cities? Could they correct the spatial and structural imbalance of urban development in India? The government took almost a year to define such smart cities and has identified about 100 such smart cities for integrated urban development. To start with only twenty such cities would be taken up for planning and development in 2016 Independent India has inherited a spatially and structurally imbalanced urban development dominated by the large cities (metropolises, mega cities, etc) with deficiency of small and medium size towns. To achieve balanced urban development the government introduced the concept of integrated development of small and medium size towns (in 1974) and to re-orient the rural-urban migration away from the large size cities. The policy has continued even now but had limited success in urban development. In 1980s, the Urbanization Commission has (1986) suggested the development of selected urban areas having potential for development but still the large size cities have grown unabatingly and migration towards the metro cities continued. Because of weak economic base the small & medium size towns could not keep pace with the urbanization process. The latest Population Census of India (2011) has analyzed the urbanization pattern in India. It shows that India has achieved the level of urbanization (31.16%) with annual growth rate of 2.76 percent. There are 7,935 urban areas with 377.1 million urban population and 466 cities having population more than hundred thousand (1, 00,000). The urbanization pattern in India has been supported by the development of tertiary sector of the economy rather than backed by commensurate economic growth. In 2011, about ten megacities have dominated the urban structure accounting for more than 20% of urban population while the share of the small & medium size towns remain low. The urban growth has shifted spatially from the metro cities (mega cities) to the peri-urban areas with rapid horizontal expansion of the metropolitan areas (urban fringes). Whether this urbanization trend could be regulated is an open question. The role of smart cities in urban development has been examined in the context of their sustainability, inclusive growth and aspiration of the citizen. |
| Keywords: | Yes |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p986&r=ure |
| By: | Bastian Heider; Martin T.W. Rosenfeld; Albrecht Kauffmann |
| Abstract: | Public sector activities are often neglected in economic approaches to analyze the driving forces of urban growth and changes in urban hierarchies. One crucial aspect of public sector activities is the institutional status of cities as regional capital. The paper is reporting on a quasi natural experiment on East German county towns. Since 1990, cities in East Germany have shown remarkable differences in their population development. During the same period many towns have lost their former status as county seat due to several administrative reforms. Using a Difference-In-Difference approach we compare the population development of former county capitals to cities successfully holding a capital status over the observed period. The estimation results show a statistically significant and economically relevant positive effect of holding a county capital status on annual population change. We further observe that the difference in population developments is increasing over time. Our results are not only of empirical interest but contribute to the general literature, explaining urban hierarchies and should be considered by policymakers for future policy measures stimulating urban economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Urban Economic Growth; Centrality; Institutions; Public Sector; East Germany; Post-socialist Cities; Capital Cities; County Towns; County Government Reform |
| JEL: | R1 R5 P2 H1 H7 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p308&r=ure |
| By: | Duccio Piovani; Vassilis Zachariadis; Michael Batty |
| Abstract: | Newly available data on the spatial distribution of retail activities in cities makes it possible to build models formalized at the level of the single retailer. Current models tackle consumer location choices at an aggregate level and the opportunity new data offers for modeling at the retail unit level lacks a theoretical framework. The model we present here helps to address these issues. It is a particular case of the Cross-Nested Logit model, based on random utility theory built with the idea of quantifying the role of floor space and agglomeration in retail location choice. We test this model on the city of London: the results are consistent with a super linear scaling of a retailer's attractiveness with its floor space, and with an agglomeration effect approximated as the total retail floorspace within a $325m$ radius from each shop. |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:1612.06441&r=ure |
| By: | David Loschiavo (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Does regional income inequality affect a household’s likelihood of being indebted? This question is addressed by using survey data on Italian households. The analysis shows that inequality in the regional income distribution has a negative effect on the probability of being indebted. In addition, richer households living in regions with greater income inequality have a greater likelihood of being indebted than similarly rich households residing in regions with low income inequality (and vice versa for poorer households). The study suggests that supply factors are more important than demand factors in explaining this result. These findings are consistent with the latest survey-based evidence drawn from US data which suggests that banks may use local income inequality and a household’s position in the income distribution to make inferences about an applicant’s underlying default risk. These results hold after controlling for socio-demographic differences, different types of debt, unobserved household heterogeneity using panel data and a number of robustness checks. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, household debt, credit rationing, Great Recession, regional data |
| JEL: | D14 D63 G01 G21 R10 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1095_16&r=ure |
| By: | Raj Chetty; Nathaniel Hendren |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal effect of each county in the U.S. on children's earnings and other outcomes in adulthood using a fixed effects model that is identified by analyzing families who move across counties with children of different ages. Using these estimates, we (a) quantify how much places matter for upward mobility, (b) construct predictions of the causal effect of growing up in each county that can be used to guide families seeking to move to opportunity, and (c) characterize which types of areas produce better outcomes. For children growing up in low-income families, each year of childhood exposure to a one standard deviation (SD) better county increases income in adulthood by 0.5%. Hence, growing up in a one SD better county from birth increases a child's income by approximately 10%. There is substantial local area variation in children's outcomes: for example, growing up in the western suburbs of Chicago (DuPage county) would increase a given child's earnings by 30% relative to growing up in Cook county. Counties with less concentrated poverty, less income inequality, better schools, a larger share of two-parent families, and lower crime rates tend to produce greater upward mobility. Boys' outcomes vary more across areas than girls, and boys have especially poor outcomes in highly segregated areas. One-fifth of the black-white earnings gap can be explained by differences in the counties in which black and white children grow up. Areas that generate better outcomes tend to have higher house prices, but our approach uncovers many “opportunity bargains” – places that generate good outcomes but are not very expensive. |
| JEL: | H0 J0 R0 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23002&r=ure |
| By: | Martin, Hal (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Oduro, Isaac (Case Western Reserve University); Richter, Francisca (Case Western Reserve University); Urban, Apirl Hirsh (Case Western Reserve University); Whitaker, Stephan (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | Using the results of a comprehensive in-person survey of properties in Cleveland, Ohio, we fit predictive models of vacancy and property conditions. We draw predictor variables from administrative data that is available in most jurisdictions such as deed recordings, tax assessor’s property characteristics, and foreclosure filings. Using logistic regression and machine learning methods, we are able to make reasonably accurate out-of-sample predictions. Our findings indicate that housing professionals could use administrative data and predictive models to identify distressed properties between surveys or among nonsurveyed properties in an area subject to a random sample survey. |
| Keywords: | Vacancy; distressed properties; machine learning; predictive models; property surveys; |
| JEL: | C25 C53 R31 |
| Date: | 2016–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1637&r=ure |
| By: | Moshe Justman (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne; and Department of Economics, Ben Gurion University of the Negev) |
| Abstract: | The use of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and related randomization strategies to eliminate selection biases in establishing causality is a key element of the “modern experimentalist paradigm” (MEP). Yet, its emphasis on precisely identifying causal factors often limits its capacity to provide an evidence base for policy. We illustrate this through a detailed look at Project STAR, an extensively analyzed, well-funded, large-scale, rigorous RCT commissioned by the Tennessee legislature to help it decide whether to mandate statewide class-size reductions (CSR) from kindergarten to the third grade. Project STAR randomly assigned students to classes of different size and compared test results across these classes, to obtain an unbiased answer to the research question, “Does reducing class size improve test scores?” However, this shed little light on whether reducing class size was a good use of increased education financing. Analyses of Project STAR ignored general equilibrium effects of CSR on both the demand for teachers and the value of test scores. Moreover, its emphasis on estimating average class-size effects in a particular setting diverted attention from their heterogeneity, and the need to understand how class size affects learning, and how its effect is moderated by circumstances. Rather than considering the full chain of evidence necessary for shaping class-size policy, Project STAR concentrated its effort on maximizing the accuracy of a single link in that chain; internal validity trumped policy relevance. |
| Keywords: | Class size, Project STAR, randomized controlled trials, field experiments, internal validity, external validity, modern experimentalist paradigm |
| JEL: | C54 I28 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2016n37&r=ure |
| By: | Yingxia Pu; Ying Ge |
| Abstract: | With the development of global economy and rapid process of urbanization, migration has become one of the key forces in population redistribution and has important implications for socio-economic development in a region. As we all know, population migration flows between different regions are related to not only the origin- and destination-specific characteristics, but also to the migration flows to and from neighborhoods. Intuitively, changes in the characteristics of a single region will impact both inflows and outflows to and from other regions. In order to explore the spatial interaction mechanism driving the increasing population migration in China since the open door policy, this paper builds the spatial OD model of interprovincial migration flows based on the sixth national population census data and related social-economic data. The findings are as follows: (1) Migration flows show significant autocorrelation effects among origin and destination regions, which means that the migration behavior of migrants in some region is influenced by that of migrants in other places. The positive effects indicate the outflows from an origin or the inflows to a destination tend to cluster in a similar way. Simultaneously, the negative effects suggest the flows from the neighborhood of an origin to the neighborhood of a destination tend to disperse in a dissimilar way. (2) Multilateral effects of the regional economic and social factors through the spatial network system lead to the clustering migration flows across interrelated regions. Distance decay effect plays the most influential force in shaping the patterns of migration flows among all the factors and the negative spillover effect further aggravates the friction of distance. As for destinations, the influence of wage level and migration stocks is beyond the GDP and the positive spillover effects of these factors enhance the attraction of neighborhood regions. The spillover effects of unemployment rate and college enrollment of higher education are significantly negative while destination population is not significant. As for origins, population and migration stocks lead to positive spillover effects on the neighborhoods while the effects of other factors are negative. (3) Changes in the regional characteristics will potentially lead to a series of events to the whole migration system, and the flows to and from the center of oscillation and its neighborhoods vibrate greatly compared with other regions. The simulation results of 5% GDP increase in Jiangsu province indicate that the outflows to other regions decrease while the inflows from all others increase to some different extent. Comparatively, the influence on the flows to and from the regions neighboring Jiangsu is significant while that of remote regions is much less, which cannot be explained by the traditional gravity model. |
| Keywords: | population migration flows; network autocorrelation; multilateral effects; spatial OD model; spatial mechanism analysis; China |
| JEL: | C13 C15 C31 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p423&r=ure |
| By: | Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi (Columbia University Graduate School of Business); Vasco M. Carvalho (University of Cambridge); Makoto Nirei (Ministry of Finance of Japan); Yukiko U. Saito (Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)) |
| Abstract: | Exploiting the exogenous and regional nature of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, this paper provides a systematic quantification of the role of input-output linkages as a mechanism for the propagation and amplification of shocks. We document that the disruption caused by the earthquake and its aftermaths propagated upstream and downstream supply chains, affecting the direct and indirect suppliers and customers of disaster-stricken firms. We then use our empirical findings to obtain an estimate for the overall macroeconomic impact of the shock by taking these propagation effects into account. We find that the propagation of the shock over input-output linkages can account for a 1.2 percentage point decline in Japan’s gross output in the year following the earthquake. We interpret these findings in the context of a general equilibrium model that takes the firm-to-firm linkages into account explicitly. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2017-01&r=ure |
| By: | Kenneth Gillingham; Anders Munk-Nielsen |
| Abstract: | The consumer price responsiveness of driving demand is central to the welfare consequences of fuel price changes. This study uses rich data covering the entire population of vehicles and consumers in Denmark to find a medium-run price elasticity of driving of -0.30. We uncover an important feature of driving demand: two small groups of much more responsive households that make up the lower and upper tails of the work distance distribution. The first group lives close to work in urban areas. The second group lives outside of major urban areas and has the longest commutes. Access to public transport appears to be the force behind the existence of the tails, enabling the switch away from driving. We find that a fuel price increase of 1 DKK/liter implies an average deadweight loss of 0.66 DKK/liter, but there is considerable heterogeneity and the tails bear a larger share of the loss. |
| JEL: | Q4 Q5 R2 R4 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22937&r=ure |
| By: | Verbrugge, Randal (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Gallin, Joshua H. (Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides estimates of the net depreciation rate for rental housing using a unique confidential data set from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that covers over 30,000 rental units from 1998 to 2009. Our data and econometric approach allow us to add to the literature in three main ways. First, we can control for unobserved quality (including cohort effects) by allowing for unit-specific fixed effects. Our results suggest that estimates of the depreciation rate for rental housing that ignore unobserved heterogeneity suffer from omitted-variable bias and potentially from selection bias, and that these biases can be large. Second, we use a dummy-variable approach to estimate aging effects, thereby avoiding ad hoc assumptions about functional form. We find that rent for a typical housing unit at first falls rapidly with age, flattens, and then begins to rise with age for older units. This nonmonotonic pattern is a feature of many other studies of both age–rent and age–price profiles for housing, and it seems likely that the upward-sloped portion of such profiles is the result of unobserved improvements and changes in style. We show that the upward slopes of our estimated profiles are only partially eliminated when we attempt to control for major improvements by excluding housing units that see very large jumps in rent. Third, we present estimates of age–rent profiles separately for different types of structures and for different regions of the country. |
| Keywords: | housing depreciation; rental housing; housing economics; |
| JEL: | E21 E31 R31 |
| Date: | 2016–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1630&r=ure |
| By: | Calá, Carla Daniela |
| Abstract: | We analyse the determinants of firm dynamics in developing countries using Argentina as an illustrative case. We explain firm entry and exit at the regional level, distinguishing three groups of manufacturing activities: low, medium and high tech. We find that both region -and sector- specific determinants explain firm dynamics, but the impact is not homogeneous across sectors. In particular, for low tech industries, there is a need for explanatory variables that proxy for the specificities of developing economies (poverty, informal economy and idle capacity). We also find evidence of a core-periphery pattern according to which agglomeration economies and previous entries/exits have different effects in core and peripheral regions. These results are relevant for policy makers in developing countries, who should take into account not only the specificities of such economies, but also the regional heterogeneity both in terms of the level of development and industrial composition within the country. |
| Keywords: | Dinámica Empresarial; Creación de Empresas; Cese de Actividad; Relación Centro-Periferia; Modelo de Panel; Argentina; |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:2587&r=ure |
| By: | Mauro Caminati |
| Abstract: | This paper complements the Cournot collaboration game outlined in Goyal and Joshi (2003, sect. 4), with the hypothesis that pairwise R&D alliance is constrained by knowledge distance. Potential asymmetry of distance between two knowledge sets is formalized through a quasi-metric in knowldge space. If the knowledge constraints to collaboration are weak enough, the paper replicates the result by Goyal and Joshi (2003, sect. 4), that a ?firm is either isolated, or is connected to every other ?firm in the industry. If absoprtion of ideas from one?s potential partner requires sufficiently high knowledge proximity, the stable R&D networks in Cournot oligopoly are shown to display the clustering property, that is characteristic of real-world industry networks, and of social networks more generally. |
| Keywords: | Cournot collaboration game, directed knowledge distance, R&D networks, degree assortativity, clustering |
| JEL: | D85 L13 O30 |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:737&r=ure |
| By: | Guillermo Jopen Sánchez (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) |
| Abstract: | This research article applies an analysis of efficiency in the process of educational outcomes (or "educational efficiency") on Peruvian elementary schools. It evaluates whether there are significant differences in efficiency analysis if educational outcome is considered unidimensional (only considered the educational achievement) or multidimensional (also includes access and retention in the education system). Furthermore, this document investigates the causes of these differences, and their relationship with characteristics of the demand for educational services. For that purpose, parametric and nonparametric methods are used to identify educational efficiency levels, and the Tobit methodology to estimate the effects of non-discretionary factors. The research points toward the conclusion that Peruvian elementary schools have heterogeneous levels of efficiency. Main aspects that explain this heterogeneity are school experience in generating educational outcomes, the prevalence of students with preschool education, and socioeconomic status of their households. |
| Keywords: | Analysis of Education, Education and Inequality, Parametric and Nonparametric Methods, Government Policy |
| JEL: | I21 I24 C14 I28 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:apc:wpaper:2016-077&r=ure |
| By: | Andrea Morescalchi |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the spatial connotations of job search methods of unemployed people, and in particular whether search methods lead to local vis-Ã -vis non-local jobs. The data set used is the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), a longitudinal survey collecting yearly interviews for about 10,000-15,000 individuals. Information on the current labour market spell at the time of interview and on all previous spells back to one year before is used to construct unemployment duration data. Unemployment spells are defined as a series of monthly episodes ending up in a transition to job or out of labour force, or right-censored. For any unemployment spell recorded at the time of interview, the individual is asked to report on the search methods used in the last four weeks. A total of five methods can be selected, namely whether he/she (a) applied directly to an employer (DAE); (b) studied or replied to advertisements (ADS); (c) contacted a private employment agency or Job Centre (EA); (d) asked friends or contacts (SOCNET); (e) took steps to start own business (SEMP). Exits to job are decomposed between exits to local and to non-local jobs (Munch et al., 2006; Battu et al., 2008; Monchuk et al., 2014). Exits to non-local jobs are defined as exits associated to a residential move in a distant area occurring between 12 months before and 12 after the entry into job. Long-range moves are defined as moves between any of the 434 Local Authority Districts (LAD) in the UK. Exits to local jobs are defined residually as exits associated either to no move or to within-LAD move. All spells starting after September 1995 and until 2009 are used in the analysis. The resulting sample consists of 1,611 unemployment spells: 137 (8.5%) end with exit to non-local job, 908 (56.4%) with exit to local job, 244 (15.1%) with exit out of the labour force, and 322 (20%) are right censored. In order to identify search methods conducive to local or non-local employment, an unemployment duration model with competing risks is estimated. The three possible unemployment exits are modeled against the probability of remaining unemployed. Following Monchuk et al. (2014) and Morescalchi (2015), hazards are treated as intrinsically discrete by employing a multinomial logit model with data organized in person-month form (Allison, 1982). A large set of control variables is included to account for individual and household characteristics, and for macro-economic effects at the national, regional and local level. Results show that SOCNET and ADS have positive significant impact on exit rates to local employment, while DAE has positive significant impact on exit rates to non-local employment. EA and SEMP have no effect on any exit to job. The present results provide a novel perspective to assess the outcome of the job search process. Since geographic mobility can importantly compensate for regional shocks and it is considered as one of the ways to promote full employment in Europe, as set out at the ?Lisbon Strategy? (European Commission, 2001), the present evidence appears of interest. |
| Keywords: | job search; search methods; regional labour markets; mobility |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p307&r=ure |
| By: | Brian G. Knight; Nathan M. Schiff |
| Abstract: | Public universities in the United States typically charge much higher tuition to non-residents. Perhaps due, at least in part, to these differences in tuition, roughly 75 percent of students nationwide attend in-state institutions. While distinguishing between residents and non-residents is consistent with welfare maximization by state governments, it may lead to economic inefficiencies from a national perspective, with potential welfare gains associated with reducing the gap between in-state and out-of-state tuition. We first formalize this idea in a simple model. While a social planner maximizing national welfare does not distinguish between residents and non-residents, state governments set higher tuition for non-residents. The welfare gains from reducing this tuition gap can be characterized by a sufficient statistic relating out-of-state enrollment to the tuition gap. We then estimate this sufficient statistic via a border discontinuity design using data on the geographic distribution of student residences by institution. |
| JEL: | D7 H7 I2 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22996&r=ure |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser |
| Abstract: | Why are real estate bubbles so common? Can these bubbles actually do some good? Real estate booms have regularly occurred throughout the world leaving painful busts and financial crises in their wake. This paper suggests that real estate is a natural investment for more passive debt investors, including banks, because real estate’s flexibility makes it better collateral than specifically built production facilities. Passive capital’s preference for real estate will be particularly strong when agency problems bedevil equity investments. Consequently, passive capital may flow disproportionately into real estate and the errors of passive capital can generate real estate bubbles. The preference of banks for more fungible real estate assets can also explain why real estate is so often the source of financial crises. In principle, real estate bubbles can be welfare enhancing, if cities would otherwise be too small either because of agglomeration economies or building restrictions. But given reasonable parameter values, the large welfare cost of any financial crisis associated with a real estate bubble is likely to be much higher than the modest benefits of extra building. The benefits of real estate bubbles are welfare “triangles” while the costs of widespread default are welfare “rectangles,” which is why bubbles rarely appear to be benign events. |
| JEL: | G15 R10 R30 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22997&r=ure |
| By: | Alexander Razen; Stefan Lang; Judith Santer |
| Abstract: | Multiplicative random effects allow for cluster-specific scaling of covariate effects. In many applications with spatial clustering, however, the random effects additionally show some geographical pattern, which usually can not sufficiently be captured with existing estimation techniques. Relying on Markov random fields, we present a fully Bayesian inference procedure for spatially correlated scaling factors. The estimation is based on highly efficient Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms and is smoothly incorporated into the framework of distributional regression. We run a comprehensive simulation study for different response distributions to examine the statistical properties of our approach. We also compare our results to those of a general estimation procedure for independent random scaling factors. Furthermore, we apply the method to German real estate data and show that exploiting the spatial correlation of the scaling factors further improves the performance of the model. |
| Keywords: | distributional regression, iteratively weighted least squares proposals, MCMC, multiplicative random effects, spatial smoothing, structured additive predictors |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2016-33&r=ure |
| By: | Juan Moreno-Cruz; M. Scott Taylor |
| Abstract: | This paper sets out a simple spatial model of energy exploitation to ask how the location and productivity of energy resources affects the distribution of economic activity across geographic space. By combining elements from energy economics and economic geography we link the productivity of energy resources to the incentives for economic activity to agglomerate. We find a novel scaling law links the productivity of energy resources to population sizes, while rivers and roads effectively magnify productivity. We show how our theory's predictions concerning a single core, aggregate to predictions over regional landscapes and city size distributions at the country level. |
| JEL: | N0 Q0 R0 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22964&r=ure |
| By: | Sefa Awaworyi Churchill; Ahmed Salim Nuhu |
| Abstract: | This study attempts to explain the effects of ethnic and linguistic diversity on educational attainment. We argue that cross-section differences in ethnic and linguistic fractionalization can explain a substantial part of the cross-country differences in educational attainment levels. Using a data on 86 countries, we uncover new evidence on the relationship between fractionalization and educational attainment. We find that fractionalization lower educational attainment. This finding is consistent across various measures of educational attainment, and is robust to several sensitivity checks. We explore several potential mechanisms which could explain the observed negative effects of ethnic and linguistic diversity including ethnic diversity’s effect on social capital, discrimination, public goods, conflicts, and institutional quality, among others. |
| Keywords: | ethnic diversity; educational attainment; schooling; fractionalization |
| JEL: | J15 O5 H52 I21 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2016-04&r=ure |
| By: | Egidio Farina (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | Does the race of a politician have an impact on the incidence of crime? I answer this question by focusing on large US cities, where active participation in the political life of the African-American candidates has undergone a strong upsurge since 1965. In order to deal with the endogeneity of black candidates to city characteristics, a regression discontinuity is used, exploiting the multi-racial elections decided by a narrow margin of victory. The results show that the number of motor vehicles stolen increases considerably the year after the election of an African-American candidate. I investigate, as a possible channel of influence, how police employment responds to the election of a black mayor, finding a negative effect the year after the electoral race. |
| Keywords: | African-American mayor; close elections; regression discontinuity; crime |
| JEL: | D72 H70 J15 |
| Date: | 2017–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sus:susewp:0217&r=ure |
| By: | Paulino Montes-Solla; Andres Faina; Jesus Lopez-Rodriguez |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the different factors that explain the pattern of economic growth in Spain along the last two decades, where has stood out the rapid growth of per capita income, capital accumulation and creation of employment. However, the most important structural phenomenon of the strong growth of the Spanish economy, especially in the decade from 1998-2007, was the limited growth in terms of output per worker and total factor productivity (TFP), which in combination with wage increases has led to a loss of competitiveness. An extended Solow growth model was estimated with panel data for the Spanish regions to measure the contribution of different factors of production (with special interest in the stock of private and human capital, as well as the gap of transport infrastructure capital) to the productivity of labour and the temporal evolution of TFP over the period 1989-2010. The results of our analysis provide strong evidence of stagnation in productivity throughout most of the period under study. The large investments and the strong growth in capital stocks were practically absorbed by an intense process of job creation. As a consequence, the capital/labour ratio and labour productivity levels remained almost constant whereas total factor productivity (TFP) decreased over the period of analysis. Therefore unlike other European countries, Spain did not experience a phenomenon of capital deepening with an increase in productivity. The intense GDP pc growth in Spain was of a rather "extensive" type, mainly based on a capital widening process. |
| Keywords: | Regional Development; Infrastructures; Capital Widening; Productivity stagnation; TFP |
| JEL: | R10 R11 R12 R13 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p983&r=ure |
| By: | Anja Prummer (Queen Mary University of London); Jan-Peter Siedlarek (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line with integration patterns of various ethnic and religious groups. |
| Keywords: | Cultural transmission, Leadership, Immigrants, Labor market outcomes, Social influence, Networks |
| JEL: | J15 Z10 D02 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp806&r=ure |
| By: | Christian Bergholz (University of Kassel); Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | We analyze data from a survey among local council members in 59 German municipali-ties. We ask council members whether their home municipality should cooperate with neigh-boring municipalities in the provision of public services like childcare or road maintenance. Their answers are clearly driven by office-related self-interest. Council members who have more political power and thus have more power to lose if their home municipality cooperates are more likely oppose inter-municipal cooperation. This interpretation receives further backing by the fact that delegates’ support for inter-municipal cooperation increases in the population size of their home municipality but decreases in the size of its neighbors. |
| Keywords: | inter-municipal cooperation, politicians, survey, Germany, public choice |
| JEL: | H77 D72 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201647&r=ure |
| By: | Filipe Batista e Silva (European Commission – JRC); Hugo Poelman (European Commission – DG REGIO) |
| Abstract: | Urban Atlas 2012 is a powerful geographical dataset that describes land use/land cover at high spatial resolution for nearly 700 European Functional Urban Areas of more than 50,000 inhabitants in 31 European countries (EU28 + EFTA). The objective of the work described in this report was to enrich the Urban Atlas dataset by including estimates of residential population at the vector polygon level. The estimation was done by downscaling, or disaggregating, census population reported at country-specific geometries (source geometry) to the Urban Atlas land use/land cover polygons (target geometry). The downscaling method can be described as a ‘smart’ areal interpolation which combined land use/land cover information from Urban Atlas, building densities from the European Settlement Map and census data. For numerous Functional Urban Areas for which population data was previously only available at coarse resolution (e.g. municipality, or 1 Km2 grid cells), these newly released estimates represent a significant increase in spatial resolution, enabling diverse fine scale analyses for the whole Urban Atlas dataset. With the free-of-charge distribution of this dataset through the European Copernicus Land Monitoring Services website, the number of potential users and applications of the Urban Atlas dataset can further increase. Detailed maps of population density are very important for the study and characterisation of urban areas, and are essential inputs for urban and infrastructure planning and management, disaster risk assessment and mitigation, social policies, and analysis of quality of life and well-being. This work will further expand the knowledge base of JRC’s LUISA territorial modelling platform which is used to assess regional and local impacts of European trends, policies and investments. |
| Keywords: | Population, Urban Atlas, Downscaling, Disaggregation, Age-groups, Functional Urban Areas, Mapping, High-resolution, Europe |
| JEL: | J11 Q56 R10 R14 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc103756&r=ure |
| By: | Emanuela Marrocu; Silvia Balia; Rinaldo Brau |
| Abstract: | Free patient mobility among autonomous providers has been often considered an effective stimulus for enhancing healthcare. However, some jurisdictions may underperform due to the existence of economies of scale and spatial spillovers. Where regions assume the costs of providing care to residents, this could challenge the sustainability of regional budgets in a decentralised National Health Service (NHS) and put at risk universalism and equity of health care. We use a ten years (2001-2010) panel of Italian data on hospital discharges to assess the determinants of inter-regional mobility and to distinguish between factors related with policies pursued by the regional health authorities from extra-regional (neighbouring regions or national-level) factors. Data on hospital discharges are merged with a set of variables on salient features of hospital care services in each Regional Health System (RHS) and with information on demographic and economic characteristics of Italian regions. We analyse bilateral Origin-to-Destination (OD) flows between any two regions by means of a gravity regression model that includes a rich set of push and pull factors. Compared to previous studies, mainly performed on cross-section samples, the longitudinal dimension of the data enables us to estimate a nonlinear conditionally correlated random effects dynamic model that accounts for region-pair-specific unobservable heterogeneity. Moreover, we address the issue of cross-regional dependence arising from the existence of regional spillovers by applying recent advances in spatial econometrics (Elhorst, 2014; Vega and Elhorst, 2015). The model is estimated for total inter-regional patient flows and for specific types of hospital admission, namely surgery, medicine and cancers. Finally, the estimation results are used to analyse specific what-if scenarios relevant to the health authorities for the national and sub-national management of services. Our main results suggest that, beside regional population and income, local supply factors such as hospital capacity and technology endowment, clinical specialization and performance indicators are important drivers of patient mobility. Moreover, geography matters and spatial proximity plays a relevant role in reinforcing inter-regional mobility patterns. Our econometric analysis has also detected a mildly explosive dynamics in inter-regional patient mobility over time. This result, coupled with the significant role played by factors not directly controlled by regional policy-makers and RHS managers (e.g. population, GDP per capita and spatial spillovers), might induce a polarisation between the group of the richest, most populated and best performing regions, which are increasingly capable of attracting more patients, and the group of the weakest regions, with growing patient outflows and severe financial and organizational problems. These considerations call for a thorough assessment of the long-run sustainability of the current decentralised NHS. RHS budget autonomy could not be entirely consistent with free patient choice. This opens a more general discussion on whether and to what extent the health financing system would require the introduction of appropriate equalising compensation schemes aimed at neutralising the financial consequences of mobility and, eventually, at guaranteeing universalism and equity in healthcare. |
| Keywords: | regional health systems; hospital admissions; gravity model; nonlinear gravity panel model; spatial spillovers |
| JEL: | C23 I18 H75 R23 R50 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p127&r=ure |
| By: | Tumen, Semih (Central Bank of Turkey) |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that the structure (i.e., size and composition) of the informal search network is a crucial determinant of the career decisions of young workers. Building on the search-theoretic career choice and job mobility model proposed by Neal (1999), I compare the consequences of career advice by one's weak ties versus that by strong ties. The main result is that receiving help from weak ties is associated with early career and job settlements, while the strong ties are more likely to lead to amplified mobility and generate mismatch. Given a network size, I find a strongly positive correlation between the fraction of weak ties among one's informal connections and the likelihood of settling on a stable career path early in the life course. I also find that the sign of this correlation persists, while the magnitude gets smaller as the network size increases. I conclude that the strength-of-weak-ties hypothesis can shed light on the complexity of job mobility patterns among young workers. The model can explain why it takes much longer for blacks – whose informal networks are documented to consist of strong ties – to locate a stable career path than their white counterparts. It also predicts that young workers from closed and segregated neighborhoods tend to spend more time before they find suitable careers. |
| Keywords: | job mobility, career choice, search, strength of weak ties, social networks |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10401&r=ure |
| By: | Caruso, Raul; Carlo, Bellavite Pellegrini; Marco, Di Domizio |
| Abstract: | This paper empirically investigates the impact of diversity in wage levels of players on seasonal performances of teams in the top Italian soccer league, namely the Serie A . We explore the payroll of 32 professional football teams in the Italian Serie A to compute three measures of diversity and concentration in wage levels, namely the Gini, the Shannon and the Simpson indexes from season 2007/08 to 2015/16. We use the percentage of points achieved by teams as dependent variable, and then we employ panel data techniques estimating random and fixed effect models. We find that only the Simpson index is significantly associated with sport performance. In particular, it appears that sport performance improves as diversity in payroll decreases. |
| Keywords: | diversity in wage level, inequality, payroll and sport performance, Italian serie A |
| JEL: | L83 M52 Z1 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75644&r=ure |
| By: | Yeong Kim; Jae-Won Shin; Hwa-Soo Kim |
| Abstract: | Recently, the Republic of Korea has been concentrated on the Regeneration Project and Industrial Structure Advancement Project to activate the declining industrial complex. The main reason for such efforts is that the role of the industrial complex is crucial to the economic growth. The industrial complexes, which were created in the 1970s-1980s, have deteriorated with the aging of infrastructure and plant facilities. Therefore, the industrial complexes, which cannot keep up with the rapidly changing flow, and the companies, which were driven out of business, are increasing under the influence of the lower economic growth. As a consequence, many companies moved to the newly created industrial complex, causing the increase in vacant stores at existing industrial complexes. To solve such problems, Government and local governments try to recover the function of industrial complexes and revitalize local economy through the rearrangement of the deteriorated industrial complexes. As part of such attempt, ?Regeneration Project? has been promoted since 2009 and 18 industrial complexes have been chosen as regeneration project districts until recently. Therefore, the Jinju Sangpyeong Industrial Complex, which is the target of this study, was determined as a regeneration project zone in 2014 with a view to promoting regeneration projects, which can alter the facilities of inappropriate-use into the culture service facilities, to lead the new growth engine industry in conjunction with the innovative urban development and established urban areas, going beyond the simple factory transference or the maintenance of the urban district. The Jinju Sangpyeong Industrial Complex was created in 1981 as an industrial complex. It was the industrial complex, which had played a central role in the development of the western Gyeongnam. But it began to deteriorate due to the increase in the facility location of the inappropriate use and factory closures under the influence of the economic downturn. In addition, this industrial complex became located in the built-up area with the expansion of the city. Due to this problem, citizens are appealing for the solution to the inconvenience and their complaints are increasing. Therefore, it is judged that regeneration project is truly required. In this regard, this study attempts to draw the order of priority regarding the factors of the regeneration project from the perspectives of laborers by evaluating detailed factors for the execution of the regeneration project with the target of laborers, who can grasp the characteristics of the Jinju Sangpyeong Industrial Complex, where the regeneration project has been performed. As analytic methods, The PCSI model, and the Revised-IPA matrix, based on the Kano model through the questionnaire surveys, were applied to identify the effect of detailed factors in the regeneration project of the industrial complex. It attempted to draw the order of priority and the effect of the detailed factors, necessary for the regeneration project through the PCSI model and the Revised-IPA matrix based on the Kano model. |
| Keywords: | Industrial Complex; Regeneration Project; PCSI model; Revised-IPA matrix |
| JEL: | O18 R10 R11 R30 R34 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p113&r=ure |
| By: | Agnieszka Kopańska (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | The aim of the paper is to analyze how limits in revenue and spending autonomy of sub-sovereign governments influence these governments’ decisions. The analysis is focused on Polish towns current spending for schools in years 2002-2013. It presents that revenue autonomy increases towns spending, however the results are different for various categories of expenditure. The expenses were disaggregated for spending for teachers and other schools’ recourses. The first category is the most important in schools’ budget and in Poland is strongly (but not completely) determined by central regulations. The second category is more decentralized. It is presented that less decentralized spendings are unified among towns and are higher in more revenue’ autonomous towns, the spending autonomy doesn’t influence them. In case of more decentralized tasks, differences among municipalities are important, expenditure is influenced by spending autonomy, not by revenue autonomy. These results show that less autonomous tasks crowd out others. |
| Keywords: | partial decentralization, spending and revenue autonomy, local government spending policy |
| JEL: | H72 H75 H77 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2016-38&r=ure |
| By: | Andreas P. Cornett; Nils Karl Sørensen |
| Abstract: | The purpose of the current paper is to analyze the impact of regional potentials on the process of growth. How are different types of regions (e.g. medium sized [city] regions, rural regions, urban regions or metropolitan and high-tech cluster regions) affected by improved performance, and to what extent can differences be explained by ex-ante difference in income? Based on data from the regional innovation scoreboard (RIS) is this issue addressed relative to the income level, previous growth performance and convergence. In the first part of the paper, the innovation performance of the regions is modelled relative to the income level and the underlying influencing factors are identified. Hereby, we are able to identify strengthens and weaknesses of the innovation structure in different regions. In addition the issues of returns to scale will be considered. In the second part of the paper the innovation performance is related to the process of convergence and divergence. Earlier research has shown that although convergence is present at aggregated European Union level a much more diversified picture is revealed at the disaggregated level. Here it is frequently observed that the more wealthy and central regions move away from the other regions. One of the results is that the economic crisis has reinforced not only intraregional divergence within countries but also the traditional divide between the stronger Northwest European countries and the South and East of Europe. Finally, the paper discusses and evaluates the impact of different types of innovation performance and the level of income on the perspectives of economic growth for different types of regions. A number of scenarios a sketched for the perspectives of the regions depending on endogenous as well as external factor endowment and dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Innovation- regional income differences - economic growth ? concentration - convergence & divergence |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R58 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p97&r=ure |
| By: | Wyatt J. Brooks; Joseph P. Kaboski; Yao Amber Li |
| Abstract: | Industrial clusters are promoted by policy and generally viewed as good for growth and development, but both clusters and policies may also enable non-competitive behavior. This paper studies the presence of non-competitive pricing in geographic industrial clusters. We develop, validate, and apply a novel test for collusive behavior. We derive the test from the solution to a partial cartel of perfectly colluding firms in an industry. Outside of a cartel, a firm's markup depends on its market share, but in the cartel, markups across firms converge and depend instead on the total market share of the cartel. Empirically, we validate the test using plants with common owners, and then test for collusion using data from Chinese manufacturing firms (1999-2009). We find strong evidence for non-competitive pricing within a subset of industrial clusters, and we find the level of non-competitive pricing is about four times higher in Chinese special economic zones than outside those zones. |
| JEL: | L11 O1 O25 R11 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22947&r=ure |
| By: | Andersson, Fredrik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Heyman, Fredrik (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Norbäck, Pehr-Johan (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Persson, Lars (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies document a 30-year decline in various measures of entrepreneurship in the United States. In contrast, using detailed Swedish employer-employee data over the period 1990–2013, we find no decline in Swedish entrepreneurial activity. Aggregate net job creation is greatest among the youngest firms in the Swedish business sector. Moreover, most of the net job creation by young firms takes place in the expanding service sector. We argue that a key explanation for the high entrepreneurial activity in the Swedish business sector during the last two decades stems from economic reforms in the 1990s that mitigated several hurdles to entrepreneurship. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship; Job dynamics; Matched employer-employee data; Industrial structure and structural change |
| JEL: | J23 K23 L26 L51 |
| Date: | 2016–12–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1147&r=ure |
| By: | Luis Ignacio Lozano-Espitia; Juan Manuel Julio-Román |
| Abstract: | This paper provides evidence on the positive role of fiscal decentralization on regional economic growth in Colombia since the promulgation of the Political Constitution of 1991. The empirical strategy involved the choice of a suitable estimator for the panel data approach, the Augmented Mean Group Estimator, which allows adding unobserved determinants suggested by literature to traditional long term explanatory factors. The strategy was complemented with exercises that helped us to support the results coming from (i) cross-section models for different periods and various control variables, (ii) test on the complementarity hypothesis between public goods provided by different jurisdictions (spillover effects), and (iii) an assessment of unconditional convergence in regional income differences. Classification JEL: O40, H77, C33 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:865i&r=ure |
| By: | Jeffrey Zax |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses regional inequality in contemporary urban China by predicting earningss for individual workers in multiple provinces, comparing the province of maximum predicted earnings to the province of residence and assessing the predicted gains from relocation. The paper performs the same comparison for the U.S. in 1940 to provide an informal baseline comparison. Workers predicted relatively similar earningss in each of the nine U.S. Census divisions. Fewer than 10% of them predicted maximum earnings in divisions other than their home division that exceeded their predicted home division earnings by more than 20%. In contrast, 45% of Chinese urban workers in 1988 predicted maximum earnings in provinces outside their home province that exceeded their predicted home province earningss by more than 50%. The same was true of 54% of Chinese urban workers in 1995, 74% in 2002 and 57% in 2008. If all Chinese urban workers received the maximum of their predicted earningss across all provinces, rather than their predicted earnings in their home province, average earningss would approximately double, interpersonal inequality would decline by 40-50% and inter-provincial inequality would vanish. In all years, predicted earnings in Guangdong province have generally been greater than in any other province. The implicit value of the right to live in Guangdong was at least 26% of earnings in 1988 and 41% in 1995. It declined to about 7% of earnings in 2002 and 2008, but only because predicted earnings in Beijing and Shanghai had risen. The gaps between predicted earnings in Guangdong and other provinces in those years was similar to those in earlier years. |
| Keywords: | Inequality; Returns to human capital; Migration; Law of one price |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J61 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p693&r=ure |
| By: | Yoshihiro Tamai (Kanagawa University); Chihiro Shimizu (Nihon University and National University of Singapore); Kiyohiko G. Nishimura (University of Tokyo and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of aging population on property (land) prices. A theory of very long run portfolio choice is developed for a transition economy from young and growing to rapidly aging population and applied to estimate property price inflation in Japanese municipal markets. The results are stunning. The simulation results in which income factors are assumed to be fixed at the 2005- 2010 growth level suggest that the average residential property price (land price) in the Japanese municipalities may decrease as much as 19 percent from the present to 2020, 24 percent to 2030, and 32 percent to 2040. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfi:fseres:cf404&r=ure |
| By: | Colussi, Tommaso (IZA); Romano, Livio (Confindustria) |
| Abstract: | This work analyzes the extent to which local social networks affect workers' labor market outcomes and firms' economic performance. By exploiting variations in firms' ownership generated by takeovers, we find that belonging to the same community of origin as the new employer significantly increases an employee's job retention probability. Finally, we show that the share of local employees retained after the takeover is negatively associated with the probability of closure of the acquiring firm. |
| Keywords: | takeovers, local social networks, social capital, firm behavior |
| JEL: | D22 J24 J63 J7 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10418&r=ure |
| By: | Bloch, Francis (Université Paris 1 and Paris School of Economics); Dutta, Bhaskar (University of Warwick and Ashoka University); Robin, Stéphane (Université de Lyon); Zhu, Min (Beijing Normal University) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the formation of partnerships in social networks. Agents randomly request favors and turn to their neighbors to form a partnership. If favors are costly, agents have an incentive to delay the formation of the partnership. In that case, for any initial social network, the unique Markov Perfect equilibrium results in the formation of the maximum number of partnerships when players become infinitely patient. If favors provide benefits, agents rush to form partnerships at the cost of disconnecting other agents and the only perfect initial networks for which the maximum number of partnerships are formed are the complete and complete bipartite networks. The theoretical model is tested in the lab. Subjects generally play according to their equilibrium strategy and the efficient outcome is obtained over 78% of the times. Decisions are affected by the complexity of the network. Two behavioral rules are observed during the experiment: subjects accept the formation of the partnership too often and reject partnership offers when one of their neighbors is only connected to them. |
| Keywords: | social networks ; partnerships ; matchings in networks ; non-stationary networks ; laboratory experiments JEL classification numbers: D85 ; C78 ; C91 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wcreta:27&r=ure |
| By: | Yamada, Gustavo (Universidad del Pacifico); Lavado, Pablo (Universidad del Pacifico); Montenegro, Guadalupe (Group for the Analysis od Development (GRADE)) |
| Abstract: | This document investigates the effect that the delivery of XO laptops in Peru has had on teachers' pedagogical practices and students' use of time in the home based on information from a randomized control trial. The results show that the delivery of XO laptops reduces the probability that teachers will use a student-centered method with cooperative characteristics between 6 and 13 pp while this type of pedagogical practice has a positive impact on student performance in the area of language (between 1.5 and 2sd). We found two contrary effects in the home. XO laptops reduce the probability that a student will do homework at home by 4 pp despite the fact that doing so increases language performance 4 standard deviations. Additionally, XO laptops increase the probability of watching television by 8 pp although said activity reduces performance 2 sd. XO laptops also reduce the probability that students will perform household chores between 9 and 40 pp while said activity increases language performance between 0.2 and 1.6 standard deviations for language. We did not find effects on language and the majority of results refer to students in fourth grade of primary. The variety and overlapping of effects may explain the null effect of the program for the sample of 2nd to 6th grade of primary and the negative effect for fourth of primary. |
| Keywords: | education, technology, teacher, teaching methods, pedagogical practices, academic performance, laptop, OLPC, time, activities, household |
| JEL: | C13 C93 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10432&r=ure |
| By: | Jin Guo; Yingzhi Xu |
| Abstract: | Benefit from the advantage of externalities, urban agglomerations are playing more and more important roles in regional economic development. However, present literature failed to distinguish the differences between urban agglomerations? pecuniary externality and technology externality. In this paper, we took Chinese five national key construction urban agglomerations as cases to make more comprehensive empirical studies of these two types externalities? manifestations, mechanisms and key factors. The results indicated that (a) urban agglomerations? pecuniary externality manifested as inter-urban capital allocation while its technology externality manifested as inter-urban technology spillover. Currently, (b) the key factor for Chinese five national key construction urban agglomerations? pecuniary externality was market size, that meant to pursue larger market size was one main motivation in forming Chinese urban agglomerations, but the inter-urban capital allocation did not show a trend of shifting to cities with higher labor productivity. (c) The key factor for Chinese five national key construction urban agglomerations? technical externality was economical density, that meant to pursue higher economical density was another main motivation in forming Chinese urban agglomerations, but both cities? own research and development activities and the spread from other cities? failed to improve urban agglomerations? technological levels. Besides, (d) there was no evidences suggested diversification or specialization of industrial structure had relations with urban agglomerations? pecuniary externality or technology externality. The regressions of dummy variables indicated that (e) there were no significant differences in pecuniary externality between Chinese five national key construction urban agglomerations? core cities and surrounding cities, but their technology externality presented complex differences. |
| Keywords: | urban agglomeration; pecuniary externality; technology externality; agglomerate motivation |
| JEL: | O47 R1 R3 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p64&r=ure |
| By: | H. Spencer Banzhaf; Taha Kasim |
| Abstract: | Analyses of polities to reduce gasoline consumption have focused on two effects, a compositional effect on the fuel economy of the automotive fleet and a utilization effect on how much people drive. However, the literature has missed a third effect: a matching effect, in which high-utilization households are matched to fuel-efficient vehicles in equilibrium. We show that higher gas prices should lead to stronger assortative matching. Empirical estimates using US micro-level data are consistent with this hypothesis. We find the effect of a gas tax through the matching effect is larger than the compositional effect, with a $1 tax saving 1.7% of gas consumption. |
| JEL: | Q4 Q5 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22983&r=ure |
| By: | Gaurav Datt; Martin Ravallion; Rinku Murgai |
| Abstract: | Longstanding development issues are revisited in the light of our newly-constructed dataset of poverty measures for India spanning 60 years, including 20 years since reforms began in earnest in 1991. We find a downward trend in poverty measures since 1970, with an acceleration post-1991, despite rising inequality. Faster poverty decline came with both higher growth and a more pro-poor pattern of growth. Post-1991 data suggest stronger inter-sectoral linkages: urban consumption growth brought gains to the rural as well as the urban poor and the primary-secondary-tertiary composition of growth has ceased to matter as all three sectors contributed to poverty reduction. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, inequality, Kuznets, economic growth, urbanization |
| JEL: | I32 O15 O40 |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:2016-09&r=ure |
| By: | von Graevenitz, Kathrine |
| Abstract: | This article reports a complete two stage hedonic analysis for road noise. For the estimation of the hedonic price function I develop a spatial research design which simultaneously reduces the risk of omitted variable bias and the risk of measurement error in the noise measure. The preference parameters are identified following the approach developed in Bajari and Benkard (2005) by using a simple functional form for utility. Preferences are very heterogeneous and observable demographic characteristics explain 30 percent of the variation in taste for quiet. Results are used to discuss willingness to pay for noise reductions from two policy measures. |
| Keywords: | hedonic method,traffic noise,preferences,measurement error |
| JEL: | Q51 Q53 R23 R41 D12 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:16087&r=ure |
| By: | Milene Simone Tessarin; Paulo César Morceiro, André Luis Squarize Chagas |
| Abstract: | The innovation in industry occurs due to direct investment of the firm, motivated by economic interests, as profit, market share, economies of scope, etc. However, same these decisions can be influenced by indirect shocks occurring in closest industry, as an innovation in automobile industry motivating changes in its chain production. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the peer effects on the innovation indicators in Brazilian manufacturing industry. For this, we proposed a new way to measure the proximity of the industries. We consider the typical goods produced by an industry in the main subsector and in other sub-sectors. These sub-sectors are considered neighbors because they use the same technological and production bases. The sectorial proximity was building through a detailed “sectorial diversification matrix” of firms producing goods in one or more subsector (of a total 103 subsectors of the Brazilian manufacturing) in 2013. Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) provided the data from a specific request, special to this work. The data composed a W-matrix relating one by one sector. As an innovation proxy, we considered the number of engineers employed divided by the total number of 2 employees in each subsector. This indicator is a proxy recognized of the innovative efforts of companies, because innovation and technological intensity are related to technical staff' skills. To test the peer effects hypothesis we considered the Moran's I test, and we used the LM and the LM robust tests to choose a best econometric model that confirms the sectorial spatial dependence. The results suggest the existence of strong sectorial peer effects among subsectors with the same technological level (low and medium-low, and high and medium-high). Moreover, there is a weak neighborhood effect between subsectors of different technological levels. Therefore, the technological level of a sector is a good indicator of their relations of sectorial neighborhood. These results can be useful for policymakers assign public policies focused on subsectors generating greater spillovers effects on the production and innovation structure. We think this work is a contribution to the use of spatial econometric analysis beyond the geographical neighborhood. It also sheds light on a fertile research agenda, which is currently absent in the industrial organization literature. |
| Keywords: | Sectoral neighborhood; Innovation; Spatial econometrics |
| JEL: | C23 O3 L14 |
| Date: | 2016–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spa:wpaper:2016wpecon37&r=ure |
| By: | Piva, Mariacristina (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Tani, Massimiliano (University of New South Wales); Vivarelli, Marco (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate the productivity impact of business visits, relative to traditional drivers of productivity enhancement, namely capital formation and R&D. To carry out the analysis, we combine unique and novel data on business visits sourced from the U.S. National Business Travel Association with OECD data on R&D and capital formation. The resulting unbalanced panel covers on average 16 sectors per year in 10 countries during the period 1998-2011 (2,262 observations). Our results suggest that mobility through business visits is an effective mechanism to improve productivity. The estimated effect is about half as large as investing in R&D, supporting viewing business visits as a form of long-term investment rather than pure consumption expenditure. In a nutshell, our outcomes support the need to recognize the private and social value of business mobility. |
| Keywords: | business visits, labour mobility, knowledge, R&D, productivity |
| JEL: | O33 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10421&r=ure |
| By: | Fischer, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Karlsson, Martin (University of Duisburg-Essen); Nilsson, Therese (Lund University); Schwarz, Nina (University of Duisburg-Essen) |
| Abstract: | This paper evaluates the impact on earnings, pensions, and other labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. The reforms extended the compulsory years of schooling from 6 to 7 years and the annual term length from 34.5/36.5 to 39 weeks per year. Gradually introduced over the 1930-1950 period in more than 2,500 school districts, the extensions generated large exogenous variation in educational attainment at different points in primary school while the overall school system and curricula remained unchanged. The reforms thus constitute an ideal quasi-experimental setting for analyzing the long-run causal impact of compulsory education keeping other school characteristics fixed. With a majority of students receiving only primary schooling, both reforms affected large shares of the population and consequently had large impacts on educational attainment at the compulsory level. We find striking differences in impact between the two reforms, and between males and females. Estimated returns to compulsory schooling are robustly positive only for females, who experience a small increase in early career earnings (~ 2%) when exposed to a 7th year of schooling, and large and persistent increases in earnings (~ 4 – 5%) when exposed to an extended school year. The effects are driven by the extensive margin, in particular increased employment in the public sector. |
| Keywords: | educational reforms, compulsory schooling, term length, returns to education |
| JEL: | J24 J31 I28 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10430&r=ure |
| By: | Tödtling, Franz; Sinozic, Tanja; Auer, Alexander |
| Abstract: | The health sector and medical technologies are of an increasing importance in society and for regional and national economies. Much like other life sciences industries, the medical devices sector relies upon specific factors and knowledge processes that shape and support its innovation capabilities and competitiveness. Previous studies have shown that growth and innovation in this sector depend on specific local factors and conditions as well as on markets and knowledge-interdependencies at higher spatial scales. There is still a research gap on the detailed nature of these driving factors and relationships, however. In this research, we have investigated these issues for the Vienna medical devices cluster that is part of the wider life sciences sector in this region. The main aims of the study were to generate insights into how different economic, knowledge- and policy conditions, and their spatial scales, interact to support and hinder development of the medical devices industry in Vienna, and to draw policy conclusions based on these findings. (authors' abstract) |
| Date: | 2016–06–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus009:5199&r=ure |
| By: | Marina Van Geenhuizen |
| Abstract: | Industrial competence is increasingly dispersed across the globe, urging technology-based firms in Europe to establish international knowledge relationships at larger distances. This paper examines changing patterns of international knowledge relationships and the influence of capability factors of university spin-off firms on building such relationships, using a sample of 105 of such firms. The paper addresses the debate on capabilities among young high-tech ventures in developing an adequate internationalization network, in which opinions are contrasting, like concerning an easy globalization (born-global model) versus a reluctant and step-wise approach. In early patterns, 62 per cent of the sampled firms employed knowledge relationships abroad. The main capability factors affecting these early relationships tend to be PhD education in the founding team, participation in training, and the capability to innovate on a practical and modestly innovative level responding to market demand. The subsequent changes in relationships have led to a high overall internationalization level of 82 per cent five years later, but also reveal diverse trends on the individual level of firms, namely, no change for half of the spin-offs but an increase of spatial reach for only one third. With the aim to explore spatial internationalization patterns and changes herein, we apply logistic regression analysis. Important factors affecting both early and later international networks tend to be entrepreneurial orientation, regarding industry sector and market, while later relationships tend to be path-dependent, i.e. mainly influenced by the previous pattern. |
| Keywords: | University spin-off firms; Knowledge relationships; Spatial reach; Capability factors |
| JEL: | D8 L21 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p405&r=ure |
| By: | Qu, Zhaopeng (Nanjing University, and IZA Bonn); Zhao, Zhong (School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University) |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the levels and changes in wage inequality among Chinese rural-urban migrants during 2002-2007. Using data from two waves of national household surveys, we find that wage inequality among migrants decreased significantly between 2002 and 2007. Our analysis on the wage distribution further shows that the high-wage migrants experienced slower wage growth than middle-and low-wage migrants - a primary cause of declining inequality of migrants. By using distributional decomposition methods based on quantile regression, we find that the overall between-group effect dominates in the whole wage distribution, which means that the change in returns to the characteristics (education, experience and other employment characteristics) plays a key role, but on the upper tails of the wage distribution, the within-group effect (residual effect) dominates, implying that the unobservable factors or institutional barriers do not favour the migrants at the top tail of the wage distribution. We also study wage differential between migrants and urban natives, and find that though the wage gap is narrowed, the gap at the upper wage distribution is becoming bigger. Overall, the results suggest that there exists a strong "glass ceiling" for migrants in the urban labour market. |
| Keywords: | rural to urban migrants, wage inequality, quantile decomposition, China |
| JEL: | O15 J30 J45 J61 |
| Date: | 2016–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2016069&r=ure |
| By: | Dario Sansone (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields in the US. It quantifies the impact of high-school teachers’ gender, beliefs and behavior on students’ beliefs about girls’ abilities in math and science. Furthermore, it shows that such beliefs affect female students’ decision to take advanced math and science classes in high school, as well as their intentions to choose a STEM major once freshman in college. |
| Date: | 2016–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:165&r=ure |
| By: | Valentina, Rotondi; Luca, Stanca; Miriam, Tomasuolo; |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the role played by the smartphone for the quality of social interactions and subjective well-being. We argue that the intrusiveness of the smartphone reduces the quality of face-to-face interactions and their positive impact on well-being. We test this hypothesis in a large and representative sample of Italian individuals. We find that time spent with friends is worth less, in terms of subjective well-being, for individuals who use the smartphone. This finding is robust to the use of alternative empirical specifications or instrumental variables to deal with possible endogeneity. In addition, consistent with the hypothesis that the smartphone undermines the quality of face-to-face interactions, the positive association between time spent with friends and satisfaction with friends is less strong for individuals who use the smartphone. |
| Keywords: | Smartphone, Social interactions, Subjective well-being |
| JEL: | A12 I31 O33 |
| Date: | 2016–12–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:357&r=ure |
| By: | Richard White (University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | Abstract Toronto is known for having been a prosperous and successful city in the decades after the Second World War, and the postwar period has come to be seen as something of a Golden Age for the city. While acknowledging the problems inherent in this sort of characterization, this study seeks to uncover what role Toronto’s postwar municipal finances played in making the city the success that it was. It presents the historical context, briefly explaining the formation of Metropolitan Toronto and the emergence of Ontario’s welfare state. The main body of the study analyses the annual reports of both Toronto’s and Metropolitan Toronto’s Commissioners of Finance, and highlights trends and features: the shift from hard to soft services, the impact of the welfare state, increases in provincial funding, and the importance of debt financing. The author shows that although Toronto, as an overall urban system, was fiscally healthy in this Golden Age, several of the circumstances that made it so were beginning to unravel by the mid-1970s. The study concludes by suggesting what this history might teach us about Toronto’s municipal finances today. |
| Keywords: | Toronto, Metropolitan Toronto, property tax, welfare state, public debt, Toronto, Greater Toronto Area |
| JEL: | H76 H31 R31 |
| Date: | 2016–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mfg:wpaper:29&r=ure |
| By: | Paul Cheshire; Jemma Mouland; Steve Gibbons |
| Abstract: | Abstract Recent research has been increasingly showing that it is not the houses or the neighbourhoods in which people live that make them sick or poor: rather it is their personal characteristics. Still this does not mean that interventions aimed at occupants of social housing may not be effective in improving health. The structure of social housing provision in Britain means that there are many large social landlords. Landlords have particular access to their tenants and this paper presents the results of an Randomised Control Trial designed to evaluate the impacts of simple health interventions on the health of poorer residents over 50 living in 5 inner London boroughs. The study was carried out between February 2013- May 2015. Participants were randomly divided into three groups: a control group (n= 186), a group receiving additional signposting to health services (n= 172); and a group receiving intensive support from a dedicated health and wellbeing support worker (n= 174). The intervention period was 18 months. The main outcomes measured were self-reported health and wellbeing ratings and NHS usage. Randomisation was computer-generated and participants and assessors were blinded to the allocation. Perhaps the single most important finding was that the initial base line health evaluation revealed 25 (4.5%) of the total sample as having such severe health problems that significant and immediate intervention was required. This set of people was taken out of the trail and directed to treatment. In purely scientific terms this is unfortunate since it means that all intervention effects are likely underestimated since these were people whose health was critical. On the other hand it shows that the simplest possible intervention to a targeted group (older and poorer people), just an individual health status assessment, can produce significant health improvements. For the 95% staying in the trial significant effects were found for planned hospital usage, with the intensive intervention group?s usage reducing by 39% in comparison to control group?s increase of 11% (p= 0.004). Significant effects were also found for nights in hospital where the signposting intervention?s usage decreased (35%) significantly in comparison to the control group?s increased usage (13%) (p= 0.022). The intensive intervention group?s usage in fact reduced more (62%) but variance was high (20.198), affecting significance. Substantive effects were identified for emergency GP usage, where group 3 reduced their usage by 15%, a substantive difference (p= 0.055) to group 2?s 181% increase. *The study was initiated and funded by Family Mosaic |
| Keywords: | Randomised Control Trail; Neighbourhood Effects; Health interventions |
| JEL: | I18 C93 R29 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p808&r=ure |
| By: | Kahanec, Martin (Central European University, and IZA Bonn); Zimmermann, Klaus F. (UNU-MERIT, and Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper summarises key results from our research about post-enlargement mobility in the EU. We clarify its scope, composition and effects; labour market situation of mobile workers; the role of labour mobility as a vehicle of economic stabilisation; as well as brain circulation and return migration. We also outline a policy agenda for a labour mobility model for a vibrant EU, enabling Europe to cope with labour market imbalances and asymmetric economic shocks, and providing for a more prosperous, cohesive and equal EU. |
| Keywords: | EU enlargement, free movement of workers, labour mobility, migration policy, business cycle, stabilisation |
| JEL: | O15 J15 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2016–11–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2016066&r=ure |
| By: | Stefano Aragona |
| Abstract: | Objectives The issues of happiness and well-being of the citizens are central in the work of urban planners and land planners . This is the purpose of their existence in the modern city , as considered , for example by Franco Pure from the sixteenth century. The same Athens? Charta drawn up in the 30s of ' 900 was created with these objectives. For several decades the market has taken more and more space, because the policy has pull back itself and has left to the economy the decisive role in the planning, and therefore also in social choices. The paper aims to highlight the socially and spatially devastating outcomes, also environmentally, of those choices. Then it suggests urban policies that, instead, can be effective and not only efficient ones Methods, techniques, modes of inquiry, data sources Following the phenomenological philosophy, the paper carries out quantitative and qualitative analysis is of some concrete cases, differentiated by size and location. Eg. in Rome while there are 50,000 people (of a total population of 2,880,000 inhabitants approx) with housing needs, 110,000 housing unities are empty. It is clear that there is a disequilibrium either social that physical. But there is also a qualitative study, using tools such as eg. the Fair and Equitable Wellbeing and (BES) proposed by ISTAT-CNEL alongside those suggested by the Charter of Quality by AUDIs (Association of Urban Disused Areas) since 2007. These two instruments put emphasis on the need to confront the issues addressed in a multidisciplinary way, so with a multicriteria, ?integrated?, approach. In a broader perspective that goes back to '"human ecology". School of thought that has the two cosentin philosophers, ie Bernardino Telesio (with the "Philosophy of Nature") and his disciple Thomas Campanella (the author of "The City of the Sun"), as fathers in the modern age and then the various thinkers of Anglo-Saxon origin as H.D. Thoreau, W. Whitman, then I.L. McHarg, P. Soleri etc. the latest references. References that are the basis of the goals of the EU strategies. These are declared and evident, as example, in "Smart City" (2007) where it is said that the goal is ?to buold local Communities, inclusive and sustainable, either materially and socially. An important element of the study is the time, because the land use decisions have consequences often do not revealed immediately. This means test the effects in the short, medium, and long period. Conclusions The paper, having highlighted the gaps and inconsistencies of the actual philosophy of action, essentially based on the market, thanks to the mention of "best pratices" proposes a different path. Highlighting the benefits and conditions necessary to ensure that the policy, and therefore the planning of territories and cities, goes back to being effective and therefore useful: that is to be the art of managing the polis for its citizens, its cum-cives |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p829&r=ure |
| By: | Pia Wassmann |
| Abstract: | The abolishment of passport and any other type of border controls at the German-Polish and German-Czech border in December 2007 provoked public concerns that open border would increase cross-border crime. Despite these widespread concerns, there is still little research on whether the public fears were justified. The paper evaluates the extent to which the implementation of the Schengen Agreement in Poland and the Czech Republic in 2007 affected crime rates in German regions bordering these two countries. Effects are identified by regression-adjusted difference-in-difference estimation on matched samples that allows evaluating the Schengen effects in a causal way. Preliminary results show that no significant Schengen effect can be observed for the most common types of criminal offense. This indicates that crime patterns did not change after the implementation of the Schengen Agreement in a statistically significant way. These findings suggest that in contrast to public concerns, border regions have not experienced an increase in crime as a result of Schengen. In light of the current discussion on the future of the Schengen zone and borderless Europe, this is quite an important, indicatory result. |
| Keywords: | Crime Rates; Border Regions; Schengen Agreement; Open Borders |
| JEL: | R10 R20 F60 J60 K40 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p539&r=ure |
| By: | Lothar Grall (Justus Liebig University Giessen) |
| Abstract: | This paper suggests differential parental investment as a theoretical link between geographical conditions and comparative economic development, possibly accounting for the reversal of fortune in the process of development with respect to land productivity. The paper develops an evolutionary growth theory that builds on the trade-off between the quantity and quality of offspring. It advances the hypothesis that individuals living in a society characterized by adverse geographical conditions alter the evolutionary optimal allocation of resources from offspring quantity to offspring quality. Higher parental investment in offspring leads to a lower population density but a higher rate of technological progress in the (initially latent) manufacturing sector. Thus, adverse geographical conditions have a negative impact on economic development in the Malthusian epoch but a positive impact on the timing of the Industrial Revolution. The pattern of parental investment captures the very essence of human capi al formation in preindustrial times. It is a slow-changing biological or cultural trait and can therefore be seen as a good candidate for a long-term transmission channel of initial geographical conditions on comparative economic development. |
| Keywords: | Comparative Economic Development, Geographical Conditions, Human Evolution, Industrial Revolution, Parental Investment, Reversal of Fortune. |
| JEL: | O11 I12 J13 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:201646&r=ure |
| By: | Konstantinos Eleftheriou; Nickolas J. Michelacakis; Vassilios G. Papavassiliou |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to revise and correct the results obtained in Beladi et al. [Beladi, H., Chakrabarti, A., Marjit, S., 2010. Cross-border merger, vertical structure, and spatial competition. Economics Letters 109, 112-114]. Specifically, we prove that the Nash equilibrium locations of the downstream firms are the same in the pre-merger free-trade case as they are following a cross-border upstream merger. |
| Keywords: | Price-discrimination; Spatial-competition; Firm-location; Cross-border merger |
| JEL: | L13 L42 D43 R32 F10 F12 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rru:oapubs:10197/8114&r=ure |
| By: | Jorge Ferreira; Alexandre Alves; Emilie Caldeira |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we tested the hypothesis that policy makers? choices concerning health spent at the local level are spatially correlated and electorally oriented. We check the influence of a set of demographic, electoral and economic determinants of public health activity. We performed a spatial panel data analysis encompassing 399 municipalities in the period from 2005 to 2012, estimating six models, namely: all years, all years controlling by election type, non-electoral years, electoral years, central-elections years and local-elections years. Our contribution to the literature lies in three findings. Firstly, we show that health spent is driven for (global and local) positive spatial autocorrelation, and it is persistent, which means that independent of electoral calendar, there exists spatial effects in the allocation of spent. The parametric estimation that best fitted with data was Spatial Error Model Estimation (SEM), and the lambda value for all models were the same (0.099), indicating that the spatial correlation affects both electoral and non-electoral year?s expenditures, in central and local elections. In other words, we found a positive spillover effect in the public health spent at the local level. Exogenous effects (normative power of the law when it comes to minimum values of health spent in the municipalities) and correlated effects (the role of local health infrastructure, particularly in local-election years) help to understand the channels of this spatial dependence. A second issue is that elections are strong enough to change the allocation pattern in local governments, probably as a political strategy to seduce voters. Health spent seems to have a politically motivated component, stronger to local elections (considering incumbent?s reelection and/or his goal of electing the supported successor), but still significant in central elections. Considering that less than 5% of Brazilian tax burden is in the local level, the relevance of central elections is probably tied to grants access. The last point is the difference between central and local-elections effects. The main channels to explain the per capita health expenditure level in municipalities, according to all Models, are demographic issues related to aged people (positive effect) and young people (negative effect). Moreover, in election-years the positive aged people effect increases and the negative young people effect smooths. Another important issue is that population density variable changes from a negative effect (in all years and non-electoral years? models) to a positive effect in election-years models. This suggests that the more a municipality is dense populated, the more efficient will be the campaign spent to seduce voters, and one effective instrument to do that is by increasing public health expenditure in elections years. |
| Keywords: | Health expenditure. Local Expenditures. Elections. Spatial econometrics. |
| JEL: | H72 H75 I18 C31 C33 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p933&r=ure |
| By: | Lavado, Pablo (Universidad del Pacifico); Cueto, Santiago (GRADE); Yamada, Gustavo (Universidad del Pacifico); Wensjoe, Micaela (Group for the Analysis od Development (GRADE)) |
| Abstract: | Fe y Alegria is an organization working in many developing countries as a public-private partnership. This study estimates the effect of one Fe y Alegria school in Peru on mathematics and reading comprehension among second grade primary pupils, between 2007 and 2012. The identification strategy is based on the fact that for this school Fe y Alegría conducted a lottery to determine which students would be accepted onto first grade. We could prepare our estimates only for one school where records for several years were available. The results show that this Fe y Alegria school generated substantial score gains for lottery winners, equivalent to 0.4 standard deviations. We also found that this effect has been increasing over time. In reading comprehension the effect was 0.17 s.d. in 2007 and 1.02 s.d. in 2012. In math, the effect was 0.29 s.d. in 2007 and 1.2 in 2012. These are promising results in a country where overall student achievement in standardized tests has been low, and where discussions on under what conditions may public partnerships result in better educational outcomes. |
| Keywords: | education, public-private partnerships, quality education, Fe y Alegría, math performance, private school, reading comprehension performance |
| JEL: | C13 C33 C93 I21 I22 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10431&r=ure |
| By: | Matsumura, Toshihiro; Yamagishi, Atsushi |
| Abstract: | We investigate public infrastructure investment that reduces production costs in oligopoly markets. The government decides on its public investment based on cost/benefit analysis that estimates the benefit as a reduction in production costs. In the short run, equilibrium investment falls short of the social optimum level (i.e. underinvestment) because it neglects the welfare gain of the subsequent production expansion. In the long run, equilibrium investment may exceed the social optimum level (i.e. overinvestment), depending on the demand and cost functions. This simple cost/benefit measure is thus conservative in the short run, but may not be from the long-run viewpoint. |
| Keywords: | cost-reducing public investment, free entry market, excessive investment |
| JEL: | D61 H54 L13 |
| Date: | 2016–09–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75625&r=ure |
| By: | Anastasiia Konstantynova; Tine Lehmann |
| Abstract: | In recent decades? industrial clusters and agglomerations were recognized as drivers of regional and often national economic growth and competitiveness. Based on this cluster policy has been widely used to spur economic change, especially on the sub-national level. The public support to cluster development was widely done following the observed examples in the United States aiming to follow their success stories. Most commonly applied cluster policy approach composed of cluster mapping, establishment of institutions (labelled as cluster initiative/ association) in respective clusters through public-private support of these institutions´ and companies´ activities. However, the implementation of blue-printed cluster policy did not always lead to positive paths of cluster development due to the negligence of country / region specific institutional frameworks. This paper fills this void, by exploring selected cases of cluster associations and how their activities are influenced by different sets of institutional framework conditions. Information and communication technologies (ICT) clusters and their associations in European Union (EU) and Non-EU countries are taken as cases for the analysis. |
| Keywords: | clusters; cluster policy; cluster association; institutions; ICT |
| JEL: | R11 R58 O18 M21 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p722&r=ure |
| By: | Gustafsson, Björn Anders (University of Gothenburg); Mac Innes, Hanna (University of Gothenburg); Österberg, Torun (University of Gothenburg) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses how age at immigration to Sweden and getting a first foothold in the labor market is related. We estimate hazard rate models using registry data on all persons who arrived in each of the years 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002. The results show that the number of years taken to get a foothold in the Swedish labor market increases rapidly by age among immigrants from middle- and low-income countries aged 40 +. Most individuals who are born in middle- or low-income countries who immigrate after age 50 never get a foothold in the Swedish labor market. |
| Keywords: | immigrants, Sweden, age, labor market |
| JEL: | C41 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10423&r=ure |
| By: | Ger Post; Lotte Geertsen |
| Abstract: | Organizations want to have access to each other?s resources and so they establish different forms of collaboration strategies (Podolny & Page, 1998). Knowledge sharing and also collaboration are dependent on an organizations? social network and the proximity within this network. A central element in the theory of clustering is the idea that physical clustering of businesses within specialized sectors is a source for regional economic growth (Porter, 1998). The spatial proximity of companies and institutions within related industries create a specific setting in which learning, knowledge sharing and mutual competition are encouraged (Raaijmakers, 2012). Additionally, active participation within the innovation eco system of a Science & Technology park provides actors access to knowledge, facilities and complementary contacts and network structures (Post, 2009). Collective ideation helps an organization to improve the positioning within the technological field and economic market (Alexy et al., 2013), especially within an innovation ecosystem because actors are dependent on each other's behavior (Pisano & Teece, 2007) to be successful in innovation. This research focuses on the question how to design the collective ideation process in particular to foster interactions within the context of a science & technology parks? this research is based 16 semi-structured interviews, conducted at all development stages (idea, startup, grow and mature) of Dutch science & technology parks with stakeholders from different perspectives, based on the triple-helix structure (government, industry, research). The study describes how multiple stakeholders benefit from collective ideation, what mechanisms and tools used in practice and also descibes prerequisites and limitations of collective ideation, This research contributes to consisting literature in three different ways. First, this research builds on theory on how to produce ideas as it offers an structural overview of the process and of the underexplored process-based facilitators (benefits, boundaries, strategies, mechanisms, deliverables) in the process of collective ideation (Harvey, 2014). This research can add a new collaboration method which can be a standard tool in the competitive toolbox of the organization (Alexy et al., 2013). Second, this research provides a new template of collective ideation and a new design of the creative process at the group (Harvey, 2014) and how this can be embedded in strategy (Alexy et al., 2013). Next to that, as relationships strongly depend on knowledge brokering within a network, this research extends understanding in the stickiness of knowledge (Zahra & Nambisan, 2011). It adds new insights on how these networks can be governed successfully (Alexy et al., 2013). Third, the concept of collective ideation is empirically tested at Science and Technology parks which provides a new framework that will help platforms to become more successful (Gawer & Cusumano, 2014). In other words, this research contributes on how to organize innovative activity and open innovation (Alexy et al., 2013; Chesbrough, 2003; Dahlander & Gann, 2010; Laursen & Salter, 2006). |
| Keywords: | Ideation; proximity; collaboration; cluster; science and technologiy park |
| JEL: | O31 O32 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa16p846&r=ure |
| By: | Dmitrii Dubrov (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Alexander Tatarko (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of the place of living (rural or urban) and its socio-cultural context in determining the parent-adolescent child value similarity. We interviewed representatives of two generations: parents and adolescent children from 90 families in Moscow and 62 families in villages (n=304 people). Our findings indicate the influence of the socio-cultural context on the transmission of values. Conservation values are primarily transmitted from parents to children in more traditional, rural contexts. Openness to change, Self-Enhancement and Self-Transcendence values are transmitted from parents to children mainly in urban contexts. The perceived psychological closeness between parents and adolescents (adolescent perception) predicts value transmission in urban and rural contexts. All values of adolescents are more similar to the values of peers than parents, in both urban and rural contexts. |
| Keywords: | individual values, intergenerational transmission of values, value similarity, socialization, parents, adolescents |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:68psy2016&r=ure |
| By: | Gehrsitz, Markus; Ungerer, Martin |
| Abstract: | Millions of refugees made their way to Europe between 2014 and 2015, with over one million arriving in Germany alone. Yet, little is known about the impact of this inflow on labor markets, crime, and voting behavior. This article uses administrative data on refugee allocation and provides an evaluation of the short-run consequences of the refugee inflow. Our identification strategy exploits that a scramble for accommodation determined the assignment of refugees to German counties resulting in exogeneous variations in the number of refugees per county even within states. Our estimates suggest that migrants have not displaced native workers but have themselves struggled to find gainful employment. We find very small increases in crime in particular with respect to drug offenses and fare-dodging. Our analysis further suggests that counties which experience a larger influx see neither more nor less support for the main anti-immigrant party than counties which experience small migrant inflows. |
| Keywords: | Immigration,Refugees,Unemployment,Crime,Voting |
| JEL: | J6 J15 K4 D72 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:16086&r=ure |
| By: | Borooah, Vani; Knox, Colin |
| Abstract: | Northern Ireland is now a post-conflict society but one of the legacies of the ‘troubles’ is an education system which is defined by religion. A parallel system of schools continues to exist where Catholics largely attend ‘maintained’ schools and Protestants ‘controlled’ or state schools. While segregation along religious grounds is the most obvious fault line in Northern Ireland schools, more insidious problems of access and performance inequalities exist which has been overshadowed by efforts to improve community relations between children and promote integrated education. This paper uses school leavers’ data to examine the nature of inequality in schools and consider an alternative policy option for tackling inequality and segregation, respectively. |
| Keywords: | Schools Inequality Segregation Northern Ireland |
| JEL: | I24 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75728&r=ure |
| By: | Hinrichs, Peter (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland) |
| Abstract: | A number of states have recently prohibited the use of affirmative action in admissions to public universities statewide. A growing body of research suggests that these affirmative action bans reduce minority enrollment at selective colleges while leaving overall minority college enrollment rates unchanged. The effect of these bans on racial segregation across colleges has not yet been estimated directly and is theoretically ambiguous due to a U-shaped relationship between minority enrollment and college selectivity. This paper uses variation in the timing of affirmative action bans across states to estimate their effects on racial segregation, as measured by exposure and dissimilarity indexes. The results suggest that affirmative action bans have in some cases increased segregation across colleges but in others cases may have actually reduced it. In particular, early affirmative action bans in states with highly selective public universities appear to be associated with more segregation, whereas other affirmative action bans appear to be associated with less segregation. |
| Keywords: | affirmative action; college admissions; higher education; segregation; |
| JEL: | I24 I28 J15 |
| Date: | 2016–12–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwp:1636&r=ure |