|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Benoît Schmutz (Ecole Polytechnique and CREST); Modibo Sidibé (Duke University and CREST); Elie Vidal-Naquet (Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | Workers' propensity to migrate to another local labor market varies a lot by occupation. We use the model developed by ? to quantify the impact of mobility costs and search frictions on this mobility gap. We estimate the model on a matched employer-employee panel dataset describing labor market transitions within and between the 30 largest French cities for two groups at both ends of the occupational spectrum and find that: (i) mobility costs are very comparable in the two groups, so they are three times higher for blue-collar workers relative to their respective expected income; (ii) Depending on employment status, spatial frictions are between 1.5 and 3.5 times higher for blue-collar workers; (iii) Moving subsidies have little (and possibly negative) impact on the mobility gap, contrary to policies targeting spatial frictions. |
| Keywords: | mobility costs, spatial frictions, migration, local labor markets, occupation |
| JEL: | J61 J64 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2031&r=all |
| By: | Cervero, Robert |
| Abstract: | Under the right conditions -- serious traffic congestion, a permissive regulatory environment, and frequent and reliable transit services -- rail transit investments can powerfully shape cities and regions. Rail transit’s city‐shaping powers are due to market forces and policy interventions. By enhancing accessibility (the ability of those living, working, or shopping rail near stops to quickly reach desired destinations) rail services increase the value and desirability of properties in and around stations. Market pressures by themselves rarely produce transit oriented development. To leverage private investments in and around stations, pro‐activism and a certain amount of risk‐taking on the part of local governments are often needed. This report includes case studies from several cities, along with a policy lessons summary. Land value impacts and value capture opportunities are described. |
| Keywords: | Engineering |
| Date: | 2020–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt71v7m90b&r=all |
| By: | Doug Gollin; Paul Blanchard; Martina Kirchberger |
| Abstract: | Frictions affecting human mobility have been identified as important potential sources of the spatial gaps in wages and living standards that characterize many low-income countries. However, little direct data has been available to characterize mobility. Many surveys and censuses provide only limited information and focus on longer-term migration decisions. In this paper, we use a novel data source that provides highly detailed location data on more than one million devices across three large African countries for an entire year. This allows us to examine high-frequency mobility patterns for a subset of high-quality observations for whom we can determine home locations confidently. We link our users with spatial data on population density and nationally representative micro-survey data to characterize this non-random sample. This allows us to document how representative the home locations of our users are and how smartphone users differ from other individuals. We then propose a number of metrics to measure high-frequency mobility. Our rich data allow us to characterize mobility at various spatial and temporal scales. We find that users are remarkably mobile in terms of the fraction of days seen at least 10km away from their home location, and the average distance for non-home location pings. Individuals residing in low-density locations are well linked to high-density locations. A significant fraction of visitors to the largest cities comes from non-urban areas. Finally, we examine how sensitive travel is to distance. We find that across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales our estimates are in line with previous gravity estimates in the literature. |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2020-18&r=all |
| By: | Cóndor Richard |
| Abstract: | Shared-appreciation mortgage (SAM) contracts, which display payments indexed to a local house price, have been proposed as an alternative to alleviate the costs of recessions. Using a heterogeneous agent model with two types of agents (Borrowers and Savers), uninsurable idiosyncratic income risk, and calibrated to the US, this paper studies the effects, on both macroeconomic variables and welfare, of introducing such contracts. I find that equilibrium default rates, house price volatility, and welfare losses of both Borrowers and Savers following an unexpected negative shock on aggregate income, are smaller. Also, while this policy benefits Savers, only Borrowers with moderate/low mortgage and housing wealth levels are better-off (61% of Borrowers under the main calibration). Finally, if Borrowers are less patient, the fraction that benefits may never be above 50%. |
| Keywords: | Mortgage design;Heterogeneous agents;Housing policy |
| JEL: | G00 C61 E44 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2020-11&r=all |
| By: | Ehrlich, Maximilian V.; Overman, Henry G. |
| Abstract: | Spatial disparities in income levels and worklessness in the European Union are profound, persistent and may be widening. We describe disparities across metropolitan regions and discuss theories and empirical evidence that help us understand what causes these disparities. Increases in the productivity benefits of cities, the clustering of highly educated workers and increases in their wage premium all play a role. Europe has a long-standing tradition of using capital subsidies, enterprise zones, transport investments and other place-based policies to address these disparities. The evidence suggests these policies may have partially offset increasing disparities but are not sufficient to fully offset the economic forces at work. |
| JEL: | J1 R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2020–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:105168&r=all |
| By: | Mathias Hoffmann; Lilia Ruslanova |
| Abstract: | U.S. state-level banking deregulation during the 1980’s mitigated the impact of the China trade shock (CTS) on local economies (states and commuting zones) a decade later, in the 1990s. Local economies, where local banking markets opened up earlier, were also effectively financially more integrated by the 1990’s and saw smaller declines in house prices, wages, and income following the CTS. We explain this pattern in a theoretical model that emphasizes the stabilizing effect of financial integration on demand for housing and on housing prices: faced with an adverse shock to their region’s terms-of-trade (i.e. the CTS), households in more open states can more easily access credit to smooth consumption. This stabilizes consumer demand for housing, keeps the relative price of housing up, stabilizes wages in the non-tradable sector and thus facilitates the sectoral reallocation of labor away from import-exposed manufacturing towards the housing sector. This in turn stabilizes income and consumption. We corroborate these predictions of our model in state- and commuting zone level data. Then, using granular bank-county-level data, we show that household consumption smoothing in response to the CTS was easier in financially open areas, because geographically diversified banks were more elastic in their lending response to household’s increased demand for credit. Our findings highlight the importance of household access to finance in the adjustment to asymmetric terms-of-trade shocks in monetary unions. |
| Keywords: | Banking deregulation, China trade shock, sectoral reallocation, house prices, consumer access to finance |
| JEL: | F16 F41 G18 G21 J20 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:365&r=all |
| By: | Reza Mousavi; Bin Gu |
| Abstract: | On April 16th, The White House launched "Opening up America Again" (OuAA) campaign while many U.S. counties had stay-at-home orders in place. We created a panel data set of 1,563 U.S. counties to study the impact of U.S. counties' stay-at-home orders on community mobility before and after The White House's campaign to reopen the country. Our results suggest that before the OuAA campaign stay-at-home orders were effective in decreasing time spent at retail & recreation places and in increasing time spent at home. These stay-at-home orders were less effective in more conservative counties. We further find that the OuAA campaign significantly increased time spent at retail & recreation places and decreased time spent at home particularly in conservative counties. However, in conservative counties with stay-at-home orders in place, OuAA campaign was less effective when compared to conservative counties without stay-at-home orders. These findings signal promising news for local (county and state) authorities. That is, even when the federal government is reopening the country, the local authorities that enforced stay-at-home restrictions were to some extent effective. |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2009.14097&r=all |
| By: | Neil Murray; Heike Link |
| Abstract: | We estimate the marginal costs of road renewals as part of a social marginal cost scheme for road user charging. Within an analytical approach that mirrors the relationship between road deterioration, traffic load and road renewal, we use an accelerated failure time model for road pavement with the purpose to derive the effect from traffic increase on the length of road renewal cycles. Based on a comprehensive dataset for German motorways we fit a Weibull duration model with covariates such as traffic load from heavy vehicles as well as various control variables and derive the road deterioration elasticity with respect to heavy traffic. Similar to available studies for Sweden we find a deterioration elasticity below one, implying that Newbery’s (1985) fundamental theorem does not hold for the German motorway network. The shape parameter of the Weibull function indicates that there is an ageing or weathering effect, and higher traffic loads are not the sole factor impacting on shorter pavement lifetimes. Our estimations yield a marginal renewal cost, which makes up approximately 40% of the average renewal cost. It implies that road user charges based on marginal costs will not yield a sufficient revenue to cover total costs. |
| Keywords: | Duration model, accelerated failure time model, fundamental theorem, marginal cost, road transport |
| JEL: | R42 R48 C41 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1898&r=all |
| By: | Joan Monràs |
| Abstract: | How does the US labor market absorb low-skilled immigration? I address this question using the 1995 Mexican Peso Crisis, an exogenous push factor that raised Mexican migration to the US. In the short run, high-immigration locations see their low-skilled labor force increase and native low-skilled wages decrease, with an implied inverse local labor demand elasticity of at least -.7. Mexican immigration also leads to an increase in the relative price of rentals. Internal relocation dissipates this shock spatially. In the long run, the only lasting consequences are a) lower wages and employment rates for low-skilled natives who entered the labor force in high-immigration years, and b) lower housing prices in high-immigrant locations, since Mexican immigrant workers disproportionately enter the construction sector and lower construction costs. I use a quantitative dynamic spatial equilibrium many-region model to obtain the counterfactual local wage evolution absent the immigration shock, to study the role of local technology adoption in generating wage dynamics, to analyze the role of unilateral state level immigrant restrictive laws, and to study the role of housing markets |
| Keywords: | International and internal migration, local shocks, local labor demand elasticity, local housing markets. |
| JEL: | F22 J20 J30 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1745&r=all |
| By: | Kremer, Anna |
| Abstract: | People are emotional about places. I study the effect of regional identity (\at home") on internal migration ows in Germany between 1995 and 2017. Regional identity is proxied by measuring how NUTS3 regions were historically affiliated in the former patchwork of Germany. When controlling for the in uence of distance, culture (mea- sured by dialects) and regional characteristics, I confirm that regional identity drives migration patterns additionally. Employing the separation effect by the German wall affirms that not only earlier migration or family bonds determine movements instead of regional identity. |
| Keywords: | Internal migration,Regional identity,Historical belonging,Gravity model,Germany,Binnenmigration,Regionale Identität,Historische Zugehörigkeit,Heimat,Gravitationsmodell,Deutschland |
| JEL: | R R23 Z10 J61 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tudcep:0520&r=all |
| By: | Waetjen, David PhD; Shilling, Fraser PhD |
| Abstract: | There are two official sources of data on traffic incidents in California: 1) the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), intended to include incidents leading to injury or death; and 2) the California Highway Patrol (CHP) data on Caltrans’ Performance Measurement System, PeMS. Traffic safety researchers rely heavily on the post-processed SWITRS database, which provides only some crucial information about crashes. In 2015, the Road Ecology Center at UC Davis developed a third method to collect all incident data that appear on the CHP real-time incident-reporting web-site (https://cad.chp.ca.gov/). These data are assembled into a database called CHIPS, for California Highway Incident Processing System. Analyses indicate that the number of incidents recorded in a given period are similar in CHIPS and SWITRS but lower in PeMS. Also, many SWITRS records (e.g., 36% in 2018), but no CHIPS records, lack or have inaccurate location information on incidents. Through case studies, the research group examined three ways that CHIPS can be used to support data and policy analysis. This report proposes future pathways for creating a more integrated system for collecting and analyzing crashes. |
| Keywords: | Engineering, There are two official sources of data on traffic incidents in California: 1) the Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS), intended to include incidents leading to injury or death, and 2) the California Highway Patrol (CHP) data on Caltrans’ Performance Measurement System, PeMS. Traffic safety researchers rely heavily on the post-processed SWITRS database, which provides only some crucial information about crashes. In 2015, the Road Ecology Center at UC Davis developed a third method to collect all incident data that appear on the CHP real-time incident-reporting web-site (https://cad.chp.ca.gov/). These data are assembled into a database called CHIPS, for California Highway Incident Processing System. Analyses indicate that the number of incidents recorded in a given period are similar in CHIPS and SWITRS but lower in PeMS. Also, many SWITRS records (e.g., 36% in 2018), but no CHIPS records, lack or have inaccurate location information on incidents. Through case studies, the research group examined three ways that CHIPS can be used to support data and policy analysis. This report proposes future pathways for creating a more integrated system for collecting and analyzing crashes. |
| Date: | 2020–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt07t6b5xj&r=all |
| By: | Eren, Ozkan (University of California, Riverside); Lovenheim, Michael (Cornell University); Mocan, Naci (Louisiana State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the first analysis in the literature of the effect of test-based grade retention on adult criminal convictions. We exploit math and English test cutoffs for promotion to ninth grade in Louisiana using administrative data on all public K-12 students combined with administrative data on all criminal convictions in the state. Our preferred model uses the promotion discontinuity as an instrument for grade retention, and we find that being retained in eighth grade has large long-run effects on the likelihood of being convicted of a crime by age 25 and on the number of criminal convictions by age 25. Effects are largest for violent crimes: the likelihood of being convicted increases by 1.05 percentage points, or 58.44%, when students are retained in eighth grade. Our data allow an examination of mechanisms, and we show that the effects are likely driven by declines in high school peer quality and educational investments that result in lower non-cognitive skill acquisition. We find little effect on juvenile crime. Using the method proposed by Angrist and Rokkanen (2015), we also estimate effects of grade retention away from the promotion cutoff and show that our results are generalizable to a larger group of low- performing students. Our estimates indicate that eighth grade test-based promotion cutoffs lead to nontrivial private and social costs in terms of higher levels of long-run criminal convictions that are important to consider in the development and use of these policies. |
| Keywords: | grade retention, crime, grade promotion policies, regression discontinuity, education, discontinuity high school, middle school |
| JEL: | I2 K4 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13770&r=all |
| By: | Pierluigi Bologna (Bank of Italy); Wanda Cornacchia (Bank of Italy); Maddalena Galardo (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal effect of a mortgage supply expansion on house prices by using an exogenous change in prudential regulation: the abolition in 2006 of a banks' maturity transformation limit. After the repeal of the prudential rule, credit increased only for the banks that were previously constrained by the regulation, while it remained unchanged for the other banks. Such differential response rules out demand-based explanations and fully identify the rule abolition as an exogenous shock that we exploit as an instrument for mortgage supply expansion. We estimate the elasticity of house price growth to new mortgage credit to be close to 5 percent. Our results also show that the effect of a mortgage supply expansion on house prices significantly differs across municipalities' and borrowers' characteristics. |
| Keywords: | prudential policy, credit supply, house prices, financial constraints |
| JEL: | G21 G28 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1294_20&r=all |
| By: | Dodson, Jago; Li, Tiebei; Taylor, Elizabeth; Goldie, Xavier; Huang, Donna |
| Abstract: | This study investigated the impacts commuting costs have on accessing employment for low income workers who are renting their home. Policy makers have concerns that housing market pressures may limit where low income workers can afford to live, and may result in low-income workers living in locations remote from employment concentrations, leading to weaker worker-job matching, less efficient labour markets and workers being excluded from employment opportunities. |
| Date: | 2020–09–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:7n5hw&r=all |
| By: | Verhaeghe, Pieter-Paul; Van der Bracht, Koen |
| Abstract: | Correspondence tests have been used by scholars and civil rights organizations to measure ethnic discrimination. In contrast to research testing covering a whole market through many discrimination tests, litigation testing typically targets a single agent, which can only be tested through a very low number of tests per agent. This low number of tests poses serious methodological challenges to disentangle systematic discrimination from random treatment. This study examines from a purely statistical point of view how many discrimination tests per single agent are needed to convincingly proof discrimination. We collected unique longitudinal data about 114 real estate agents, which were tested through 10 repeated pairwise matched correspondence tests. It appears that 10 or more tests are needed per realtor to detect discrimination with a high degree of certainty. The required number of tests per agent depends on the pattern of discrimination among the agent under study, the expected non-response rate and the desired degree of certainty. |
| Keywords: | discrimination,discrimination tests,mid-p-value,longitudinal study,housing market,enforcement testing |
| JEL: | J70 J78 R38 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:678&r=all |
| By: | Pauline Givord (Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques); Milena Suarez (INSEE-CREST) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new method that goes beyond the measurement of average value-added of schools by measuring whether schools mitigate or intensify grades dispersion among initially similar students. In practice, school value-added is estimated at different levels of final achieve- ments’ distribution by quantile regressions with school specific fixed effects. This method is applied using exhaustive data of the 2015 French high-school diploma and controlling for initial achievements and socio-economic background. Results suggest that almost one-sixth of the high schools significantly reduce, or on the contrary increase, the dispersion in final grades which were expected given the initial characteristics of their intake. |
| Keywords: | school value-added |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1dniduq06u8se8q5enfvnorti9&r=all |
| By: | Oreopoulos, Philip (University of Toronto) |
| Abstract: | This article takes stock of where the field of behavioral science applied to education policy seems to be at, which avenues seem promising and which ones seem like dead ends. I present a curated set of studies rather than an exhaustive literature review, categorizing interventions by whether they nudge (keep options intact) or "shove" (restrict choice), and whether they apply a high or low touch (whether they use face-to-face interaction or not). Many recent attempts to test large-scale low touch nudges find precisely estimated null effects, suggesting we should not expect letters, text messages, and online exercises to serve as panaceas for addressing education policy's key challenges. Programs that impose more choice-limiting structure to a youth's routine, like mandated tutoring, or programs that nudge parents, appear more promising. |
| Keywords: | behavioral economics of education, nudge, shove |
| JEL: | I2 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13718&r=all |
| By: | Andrew Zeitlin |
| Abstract: | Despite widely documented shortfalls of teacher skills and effort, there is little systematic evidence of rates of teacher turnover in low-income countries. I investigate the incidence and consequences of teacher turnover in Rwandan public primary schools over the period from 2016-2019. To do so, I combine the universe of teacher placement records with student enrollment figures and school-average Primary Leaving Exam scores in a nationally representative sample of 259 schools. Results highlight five features of teacher turnover. First, rates of teacher turnover are high: annually, 20 percent of teachers separate from their jobs, of which 11 percent exit from the public-sector teaching workforce. Second, the burden of teacher churn is higher in schools with low learning levels and, perhaps surprisingly, in low pupil-teacher-ratio schools. Third, teacher turnover is concentrated among early-career teachers, male teachers, and those assigned to teach Math. Fourth, replacing teachers quickly after they exit is a challenge; 23 percent of exiting teachers are not replaced the following year. And fifth, teacher turnover is associated with subsequent declines in learning outcomes. On average, the loss of a teacher is associated with a reduction in learning levels of 0.05 standard deviations. In addition to class-size increases, a possible mechanism for these learning outcomes is the prevalence of teachers teaching outside of their areas of subject expertise: in any given year, at least 21 percent of teachers teach in subjects in which they have not been trained. Taken together, these results suggest that the problem of teacher turnover is substantial in magnitude and consequential for learning outcomes in schools. |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2009.13091&r=all |
| By: | Calá, Carla Daniela; Niembro, Andrés; Belmartino, Andrea |
| Abstract: | Spatial location of economic activities is a central aspect for the analysis of a country's productive structure and the design of productive development policies. In developed countries there is a large number of investigations that describe regional specialization profiles within a single country and explain the observed patterns based on different factors, such as the existence of economies of scale, the endowment of natural resources or fiscal incentives. The specialization profile is also typically used as an input to explain the economic performance of the regions in terms of employment growth, productivity or value added (Frenken et al., 2007; Bishop and Gripaios, 2010; van Oort et al., 2015; Cortinovis and van Oort, 2015). Besides, the evolution of regional specialization profiles can be used to illustrate or describe processes of structural change. |
| Keywords: | Especialización de la Producción; Empleo; Distribución Territorial; |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:3296&r=all |
| By: | Boeing, Geoff (Northeastern University) |
| Abstract: | Cities worldwide exhibit a variety of street network patterns and configurations that shape human mobility, equity, health, and livelihoods. This study models and analyzes the street networks of each urban area in the world, using boundaries derived from the Global Human Settlement Layer. Street network data are acquired and modeled using the open-source OSMnx software and OpenStreetMap. In total, this study models over 150 million OpenStreetMap street network nodes and over 300 million edges across 9,000 urban areas in 178 countries. This paper presents the study's reproducible computational workflow, introduces two new open data repositories of processed global street network models and calculated indicators, and reports summary descriptive findings on street network form worldwide. It makes four contributions. First, it reports the methodological advances of using this open-source tool in spatial network modeling and analyses with open big data. Second, it produces an open data repository containing street network models for each of these urban areas, in various file formats, for public reuse. Third, it analyzes these models to produce an open data repository containing dozens of street network form indicators for each urban area. No such global urban street network indicator data set has previously existed. Fourth, it presents an aggregate summary descriptive analysis of global street network form at the scale of the urban area, reporting the first such worldwide results in the literature. |
| Date: | 2020–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:f2dqc&r=all |
| By: | Alexandra Tsvetkova; Simone Grabner; Wessel Vermeulen |
| Abstract: | This paper explores patterns of short-term labour demand weakening in Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) of the United States and the associated regional factors. The paper considers online job vacancy postings in February-June 2020. The data show that in larger MSAs, online job postings contracted more and the recovery was slower compared to smaller MSAs. Non-tradable service occupations, particularly those involving face-to-face interactions, contracted the most. The regression analysis reveals that different metropolitan characteristics were associated with the initial drop (February-April) and the recovery (May-June) in online job posting. The associations of online job postings with regional characteristics also differed between teleworkable (with high feasibility of performing work duties remotely) and non-teleworkable jobs. Cities with higher share of teleworkable employment had more online vacancy announcements during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. |
| JEL: | J23 J21 L16 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–10–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:cfeaaa:2020/06-en&r=all |
| By: | W. Walker Hanlon; Stephan Heblich |
| Abstract: | This article reviews recent literature using insights from history to answer central questions in urban economics. This area of research has seen rapid growth in the past decade, thanks to new technologies that have made available increasingly rich data stretching far back in time. The focus is to review innovative methods to exploit historical information and discuss applications of these data that provide new insights into (i) the long run growth of cities or regional economies and (ii) the spatial organization of economic activities within cities. The review also surveys the growing literature outside urban economics that uses the historical urbanization as a proxy for economic growth, discusses differences between how economic historians and urban economists think about the relationship between urbanization and growth, and considers how these views might be reconciled. |
| JEL: | N7 N9 R00 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27850&r=all |
| By: | Stefanos Georganos; Oscar Brousse; Sébastien Dujardin; Catherine Linard; Daniel Casey; Marco Milliones; Benoit Parmentier; Nicole P M Van Lipzig; Matthias Demuzere; Taïs Grippa; Sabine Vanhuysse; Nicholus Mboga; Verónica Andreo; Robert William B R.W. Snow; Moritz Lennert |
| Abstract: | BACKGROUND: The rapid and often uncontrolled rural-urban migration in Sub-Saharan Africa is transforming urban landscapes expected to provide shelter for more than 50% of Africa's population by 2030. Consequently, the burden of malaria is increasingly affecting the urban population, while socio-economic inequalities within the urban settings are intensified. Few studies, relying mostly on moderate to high resolution datasets and standard predictive variables such as building and vegetation density, have tackled the topic of modeling intra-urban malaria at the city extent. In this research, we investigate the contribution of very-high-resolution satellite-derived land-use, land-cover and population information for modeling the spatial distribution of urban malaria prevalence across large spatial extents. As case studies, we apply our methods to two Sub-Saharan African cities, Kampala and Dar es Salaam. METHODS: Openly accessible land-cover, land-use, population and OpenStreetMap data were employed to spatially model Plasmodium falciparum parasite rate standardized to the age group 2-10 years (PfPR2-10) in the two cities through the use of a Random Forest (RF) regressor. The RF models integrated physical and socio-economic information to predict PfPR2-10 across the urban landscape. Intra-urban population distribution maps were used to adjust the estimates according to the underlying population. RESULTS: The results suggest that the spatial distribution of PfPR2-10 in both cities is diverse and highly variable across the urban fabric. Dense informal settlements exhibit a positive relationship with PfPR2-10 and hotspots of malaria prevalence were found near suitable vector breeding sites such as wetlands, marshes and riparian vegetation. In both cities, there is a clear separation of higher risk in informal settlements and lower risk in the more affluent neighborhoods. Additionally, areas associated with urban agriculture exhibit higher malaria prevalence values. CONCLUSIONS: The outcome of this research highlights that populations living in informal settlements show higher malaria prevalence compared to those in planned residential neighborhoods. This is due to (i) increased human exposure to vectors, (ii) increased vector density and (iii) a reduced capacity to cope with malaria burden. Since informal settlements are rapidly expanding every year and often house large parts of the urban population, this emphasizes the need for systematic and consistent malaria surveys in such areas. Finally, this study demonstrates the importance of remote sensing as an epidemiological tool for mapping urban malaria variations at large spatial extents, and for promoting evidence-based policy making and control efforts. |
| Keywords: | Dar es Salaam; Kampala; Population; Random forest; Remote sensing; Urban malaria |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/312976&r=all |
| By: | Bilach, Thomas J.; Roche, Sean Patrick (Texas State University); Wawro, Gregory J. |
| Abstract: | Objectives: The New York City Police Department’s “Summer All Out” (SAO) initiative was a 90- day, presence-based foot patrol program in a subset of the city’s patrol jurisdictions. Methods: We assessed the effectiveness of SAO initiative in reducing crime and gun violence using a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach. Results: Results indicate the SAO initiative was only associated with significant reductions in specific property offenses, not violent crime rates. Foot patrols did not have a strong, isolating impact on violent street crime in 2014 or 2015. Deployments on foot across expansive geographies also has a weak, negligible influence on open-air shootings. Conclusions: The findings suggest saturating jurisdictions with high-visibility foot patrols has little influence on street-level offending, with no anticipatory or persistent effects. Police departments should exercise caution in deploying foot patrols over large patrol jurisdictions. |
| Date: | 2020–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:ep4fs&r=all |
| By: | McArthur, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Public support for the welfare state is shaped by beliefs about whether recipients are deserving or not. In the case of unemployed people, beliefs about whether they are at fault for their situation or not play a central role in shaping deservingness perceptions. Political actors and lay accounts suggest that living in disadvantaged places can shape attitudes towards welfare recipients. Existing research disagrees on whether higher local unemployment improves attitudes by providing information about the labour market, or worsens them by priming fears of welfare dependency. Thus, this study investigates whether individuals living in areas with higher unemployment benefit claims are more or less likely to believe that the unemployed are responsible for their situation. I innovate using a large sample of longitudinal data from the British Election Study to investigate the role of measuring unemployment benefit claims at multiple spatial scales, and over time. The results provide little evidence of a relationship between local unemployment and beliefs about the causes of unemployment, especially among affluent people. These findings challenge claims that antipathy towards unemployment benefits is shaped by exposure to unemployed people and undermine arguments that spatial segregation by income leads to decreased solidarity with the unemployed. |
| Date: | 2020–09–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:x79fy&r=all |
| By: | Hvidman, Charlotte (Aarhus University); Koch, Alexander K. (Aarhus University); Nafziger, Julia (Aarhus University); Nielsen, Søren Albeck (Aarhus University); Rosholm, Michael (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate two variants of a school-based, intensive learning camp for pupils who are assessed 'not ready' for further education after compulsory school, using a stratified cluster randomized trial involving 15,559 pupils in 264 schools in Denmark. Next to training pupils in Danish and mathematics, the main variant targets non-cognitive skills, while the alternative variant instead uses this time for more training in Danish and math. In the short-run, in the academic areas that are targeted in the camp, we find small positive effects in math and weak evidence for positive effects in Danish. Yet, we find no evidence of lasting effects and we do not find short-run effects on non-targeted areas in math and Danish or on non-cognitive skills. Further, we find no evidence that training of non-cognitive skills affects academic outcomes. These results provide a perspective on recent evidence regarding the effects of training non-cognitive skills in schools - by running such an intervention with older pupils and in a comparatively high-resource school system. |
| Keywords: | randomized trial, remedial education program, non-cognitive skills |
| JEL: | I21 C21 D91 I28 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13771&r=all |
| By: | David Escamilla-Guerrero; Edward Kosack; Zachary Ward |
| Abstract: | The first mass migration of Mexicans to the United States occurred in the early twentieth century: from smaller pre-Revolutionary flows in the 1900s, to hundreds of thousands during the violent 1910s, to the boom of the 1920s, and then the bust and deportations/repatriations of the 1930s. We show that despite these large shifts, the rate of economic assimilation was remarkably similar across arrival cohorts. We find that the average Mexican immigrant held a lower-paying job than US-born whites near arrival and further fell behind in the following decade. However, Mexican assimilation was not uniquely slow since we also find that the average Italian immigrant fell behind at a similar rate. Yet, conditional on geography, human capital, and initial earning score, Mexicans had a slower growth rate than both US-born whites and Italians. We argue that Mexican-specific structural barriers help to explain why Mexican progress was slower than other groups and why different Mexican arrival cohorts had limited variation in outcomes despite the large shocks to migration. |
| Keywords: | assimilation, immigration, Mexico, mobility, mob violence |
| JEL: | J15 J61 J62 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2020–10–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_183&r=all |
| By: | Honorata Bogusz (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw and Labfam); Szymon Winnicki (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Piotr Wójcik (Faculty of Economic Sciences, Data Science Lab WNE UW, University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | This article investigates the causes of spatially uneven migration from Warsaw to its suburban boroughs. The method is based on the gravity model of migration extended by additional measures of possible pulling factors. We report a novel approach to modelling suburbanisation: several linear and non-linear predictive models are estimated and explainable AI methods are used to interpret the shape of relationships between the dependent variable and the most important regressors. It is confirmed that migrants choose boroughs of better amenities and of smaller distance to Warsaw city center. |
| Keywords: | suburbanisation, gravity model of migration, machine learning models, explainable artificial intelligence |
| JEL: | R23 P25 C14 C51 C52 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2020-34&r=all |
| By: | Kashnitsky, Ilya (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute) |
| Abstract: | This thesis explores the role of demographic change in the evolution of inequalities in population age structures across regions of Europe. It strives to increase our understanding of the demographic processes that shape regional population age structures, and how these processes are interrelated with regional economic development. The analysis is focused on changing relative differences over time, i.e. convergence or divergence. The focus on convergence or divergence in population age structures is a relevant subject interesting not just to the demographers, who are anyways obsessed with population dynamics. The study period, which spans from the beginning of 2003 to end of 2012, happens to be uniquely interesting because it includes major shifts both in economies and population age structures. First, in 2004 happened the biggest enlargement of European Union that largely affected economic prospects of the newly admitted countries of Central and Eastern Europe and radically reshaped the intra-European migration landscape. Second, Europe was heavily and unevenly stricken by the economic crisis of 2008-2009, which affected all domains of people's lives including behaviours directly related to demographic events. Finally, the second part of the study period was marked with the accelerated graying of relatively large baby-boom generation cohorts that started to leave the working age in 2010s changing the population age compositions faster than ever before. |
| Date: | 2020–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:6m4kg&r=all |
| By: | Cho, Seung Jin; Lee, Jun Yeong; Winters, John |
| Abstract: | We examine effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment losses across metropolitan area status and population size. Non-metropolitan and metropolitan areas of all sizes experienced significant employment losses, but the impacts are much larger in large metropolitan areas. Employment losses manifest as increased unemployment, labor force withdrawal, and temporary absence from work. We examine the role of individual and local area characteristics in explaining differing employment losses across metropolitan status and size. The local COVID-19 infection rate is a major driver of differences across MSA size. Industry mix and employment density also matter. The pandemic significantly altered urban economic activity. |
| Date: | 2020–07–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202007070700001109&r=all |
| By: | Duncan, Kevin Davey |
| Abstract: | This dissertation includes three chapters that cover broad topics in economics. The first chapter explores how the US Government's Capital Purchase Program, a large capital injection to local and regional banks through a stock purchase agreement, impacted local establishment dynamics such as entry, exit, employment expansion, and employment contraction following the 2008 Financial Crisis. The Capital Purchase Program dispersed over \$200 billion dollars to banks hoping to prevent failure and ease tightened lending conditions. I estimate the direct effects of a county having a bank receive Capital Purchase Program funds on local business dynamics in the seven years following treatment, as well as spillover effects as entrepreneurs and business in neighboring regions travel to gain access to credit. Estimates show the CPP had no effect on establishment entry and exit, nor employment expansion and contraction. This paper establishes that the business-lending aims of the CPP were not realized in the communities and regions that received funds, and casts further doubt on meaningful pass through of CPP funds to desirable local economic activity.The second chapter develops a joint hypothesis centered Wald test over fixed effects in large N small T panel data models with symmetric serial correlation within cross sectional observations. The enables joint hypothesis tests over inconsistently estimated fixed effects, such as the traditional varying intercept model as well as models with individual specific slope coefficients. I establish two different set of assumptions where feasible tests exist. The first assumption requires that individual errors follow a stationary $\ARp$ process. Under this assumption all second and fourth cross product moments can be consistently estimated while allowing for individual specific hypothesis and covariates to vary across individuals and time with individual specific slopes. The second feasible test requires individuals to have coefficient slopes that are shared among all individuals in a known grouping structure under the null. This set of assumptions enables estimation of a completely unconstrained variance-covariance matrix and higher cross product moments for individuals. Examples of these tests arise in wanting to establish latent panel structure, such as unobserved grouping of individuals, wanting to compare different models of teacher or firm value added against each other, or testing whether or not fixed effects can be approximated by Mundlak-Chamberlain devices.Finally, the third paper estimates how messages displaced on Dynamic Message Boards, large signs either adjacent to or displayed above roads, impact near to sign accidents. In this research, I look at the traffic-related messages such as ``drive sober,'' ``x deaths on roads this year,'' and ``click it or ticket,'' displayed on major highways, on reported near-to-sign traffic accidents. This provides estimates of the impact of different types of nudges on road safety behavior. To estimate the causal effect of these nudges, we build a new high-frequency panel data set using the information on the time and location of messages, crashes, overall traffic levels, and weather conditions using the data of the state of Vermont over a three year time period. I estimate models that control for endogeneity of displayed messages, or allow for spillover effects from neighboring messages. |
| Date: | 2020–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202001010800009129&r=all |
| By: | Florent Dubois (EconomiX - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Christophe Muller (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we contend that local segregation should be an essential component of the analyzes of the determination of socio-ethnic income gaps. For this, we adopt a thorough distribution decomposition approach, as a general preliminary descriptive step to prospective specific structural analyses. Focusing on the contemporary White/African gap in South Africa, we first complete Mincer wage equations with an Isolation index that reflects the level of segregation in the local area where individuals dwell. Second, we decompose the income gap distribution into detailed composition and structure components. Third, we explore the heterogeneity of segregation effects on wage gaps along three theoretical lines: racial preferences, labor market segmentation, and networks links. Segregation is found to be the main contributor of the structure effect, ahead of education and experience, and to make a sizable contribution to the composition effect. Moreover, segregation is harmful at the bottom of the African income distribution, notably in relation to local informal job-search networks, while it is beneficial at the top of the White income distribution. Only minor influences of racial preferences and labor market segmentation are found. Specific subpopulations are identified that suffer and benefit most from segregation, including for the former, little educated workers in agriculture and mining, often female, immersed in their personal networks. Finally, minimum wage policies are found likely to attenuate most segregation's noxious mechanisms. |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02944720&r=all |
| By: | Kehinde F. Ajayi; Willa H. Friedman; Adrienne M. Lucas |
| Abstract: | Students often make school choice decisions with inadequate information. We present results from delivering information to randomly selected students (and some randomly selected parents) across 900 junior high schools in Ghana, a country with universal secondary school choice. We provided guidance on application strategies and reported the selectivity and exit exam performance of secondary schools, information students and parents prioritized. We find that despite information changing the characteristics of schools to which students applied and students gaining admission to higher value-added schools, they were not more likely to matriculate on time or at all. Information was not the only constraint. |
| JEL: | D84 I21 I24 I25 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27887&r=all |
| By: | Merrick Wang; Robert Johnston |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the differences in poverty in high wealth communities and low wealth communities. We first discuss methods of measuring poverty and analyze the causes of individual poverty and poverty in the Bay Area. Three cases are considered regarding relative poverty. The first two cases involve neighborhoods in the Bay Area while the third case evaluates two neighborhoods within the city of San Jose, CA. We find that low wealth communities have more crime, more teen births, and more cost-burdened renters because of high concentrations of temporary and seasonal workers, extensive regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, minimum wage laws, and limited housing supply. In the conclusion, we review past attempts to alleviate the effects of poverty and give suggestions on how future policy can be influenced to eventually create a future free of poverty. |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2010.01335&r=all |
| By: | CONTE KEIVABU, Risto |
| Abstract: | Research highlighted a negative effect of extreme temperature on school performance, especially for ethnic minorities and low status students. This article inquires how SES and gender moderate the effect of temperature on test scores. The focus on gender differences is granted by recent experimental studies that exposed a positive effect of temperature on girl’s test scores. In this research, I use the Italian administrative dataset INVALSI combined with measures of temperature on the test day at the provincial level based on the ERA-5 Land database. The results highlight a negative effect of temperatures below 10°C and no effect of temperatures above 30°C on math test scores, although heterogeneity across gender. Females benefit from higher temperature but males do not. Temperature shocks and school year exposure confirm the pattern. Conversely, no SES differences are observed. |
| Date: | 2020–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:whtf5&r=all |
| By: | Matteo Tubiana (University of Bergamo); Ernest Miguelez (GREThA UMR CNRS 5113 - Université de Bordeaux); Rosina Morneo (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | Innovation rarely happens through the actions of a single person. Innovators source their ideas while interacting with their peers, at different levels and with different intensities. In this paper, we exploit a dataset of disambiguated inventors in European cities to assess the influence of their interactions with co-workers, organizations’ colleagues, and geographically co-located peers, to understand if the different levels of interaction influence their productivity. Following inventors’ productivity over time and adding a large number of fixed effects to control for unobserved heterogeneity, we uncover critical facts, such as the importance of city knowledge stocks for inventors’ productivity, with firm knowledge stocks and network knowledge stocks being of smaller importance. However, when the complexity and quality of knowledge is accounted for, the picture changes upside down and closer interactions (individuals’ co-workers and firms’ colleagues) become way more important. |
| Keywords: | Inventors, Productivity, Stock of knowledge, Interactions. JEL classification: O18, O31, O33, O52, R12. |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aqr:wpaper:202005&r=all |
| By: | Kim, Donghyuk |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how economic spillovers and political values affect strategies and welfare of governments bidding for firms. Government competition and firm location choice are modeled as a variant of a first-price scoring auction in which governments compete for firms that have unobserved geographic preferences. Within-metro economic spillovers generate freeriding motives, implying that metro-level coordination can improve joint expected welfare of individual governments. However, presence of political values can steer governments away from coordination such as ceasefire on incentive provision. Reduced-form evidence suggests that political values increase with the intensity of within-metro competition and that governments freeride when economic values spill over. Measures of economic spillovers are informative of the size of political values; back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that total political values for 112 firms that relocated within Kansas City amount to over $89 million. |
| Date: | 2020–09–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202009280700001111&r=all |
| By: | Bilen, Eren; Matros, Alexander |
| Abstract: | We present evidence of cheating that took place in online examinations during COVID-19 lockdowns and propose two solutions with and without a camera for the cheating problem based on the experience accumulated by online chess communities over the past two decades. The best implementable solution is a uniform online exam policy where a camera capturing each student’s computer screen and room is a requirement. We recommend avoiding grading on a curve and giving students less time but simpler questions on tests. |
| Keywords: | education, cheating, online examinations, online chess |
| JEL: | A2 I20 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:103185&r=all |
| By: | Artz, Georgeanne M.; Kim, Younjun; Orazem, Peter F.; Han, Peter J. |
| Abstract: | Using data on a sample of small Iowa towns consistently collected over two decades, we investigate how agglomeration economies, social capital, human capital, local fiscal policy, and natural amenities affect new firm entry. We find that human capital and agglomeration are more conducive to new firm entry than are natural amenities, local fiscal policy, or social capital. The impact of local fiscal policy is too small to overcome the locational disadvantages from insufficient endowment of human capital and agglomeration. A rural development approach that encourages firm entry in rural towns with the largest endowments of human capital and market agglomeration would be more successful than trying to raise firm entry in every town. |
| Date: | 2020–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202001010800001765&r=all |
| By: | Eduardo Lora (Center for International Development at Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | Using panel data for workers who change jobs, changes in several labor outcomes after inter-city migration are estimated by comparing workers in similar circumstances who move to a new city –the treatment group—with those who stay in the same city –the control group. After matching the two groups using Mahalanobis distances over a wide range of covariates, the methodology of “difference-in-difference treatment effects on the treated” is used to estimate changes after migration. On average, migrants experience income gains but their dedication to formal employment becomes shorter. Income changes are very heterogenous, with low-wage workers and those formerly employed by small firms experiencing larger and more sustained gains. The propensity to migrate by groups of sex, age, wage level, initial dedication, initial firm size and size of city of origin is significantly and directly correlated with the expected cumulative income gains of migration, and inversely with the uncertainty of such gains. |
| Keywords: | matched employer-employee panel data, diff-in-diff treatment effects, migration risks, migration determinants, Colombia |
| JEL: | J31 J61 J81 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cid:wpfacu:128a&r=all |
| By: | Chai, Huajun; Rodier, Caroline; Song, Jeffery; Zhang, Michael |
| Abstract: | Parking has long been an urban planning challenge. Providing parking in city centers is land-intensive and expensive. Moreover, drivers searching for scarce parking can increase congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Use of automated vehicles to drop off and pick up travelers could reduce the demand for parking, which could reduce VMT and associated emissions and allow urban spaces currently used for parking to be converted to more beneficial uses. However, automated vehicles could also have negative consequences. They could generate empty vehicle travel and more cross-traffic movements due to drop-offs and pick-ups which could increase congestion, VMT, and GHG emissions. Researchers at the University of California, Davis modeled the travel effects of changes in drop-off and pick-up activity and parking supply that might be triggered by widespread automated vehicle use in San Francisco’s city center. A primary goal of this research was to determine an optimal level of automated vehicle adoption that minimizes negative consequences. The researchers also modeled methods to control these negative consequences, including expanding drop-off and pick-up zones and imposing auto pricing policies to curb demand. This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications. View the NCST Project Webpage |
| Keywords: | Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Autonomous vehicles, Central business districts, City planning, Curb side parking, Exhaust gases, Parking demand, Traffic models, Travel behavior, Vehicle miles of travel |
| Date: | 2020–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsdav:qt03c3c2d4&r=all |
| By: | Fetter, T. Robert; Usmani, Faraz |
| Abstract: | The shale gas revolution in the United States induced an unprecedented commodity boom across northwestern India. Leveraging population-based discontinuities in the contemporaneous roll-out of India's national rural electrification scheme, we show that access to electricity increased total employment and nonagricultural employment in villages affected by this exogenous economic shock, but had no impact on labor markets elsewhere. This combination of two natural experiments highlights how complementary economic conditions drive heterogeneity in the labor-market impacts of rural electrification. It also helps explain the large variation in the reported impacts of such resource-intensive infrastructure investments globally. |
| Keywords: | rural electrification,heterogeneous impacts,labor markets,productive use,economic development,regression discontinuity,India |
| JEL: | H54 O13 O15 O18 Q40 Q56 R23 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:864&r=all |
| By: | Murat, Marina; Bonacini, Luca |
| Abstract: | School closures during the 2020 pandemic forced countries to rapidly adopt distance learning, with uncertain effects on education inequalities. Using PISA 2018 data from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, we find that students unable to learn remotely, because of a lack of ICT resources or of a quiet place to study, experience significant cognitive losses that, everything else equal, range from 70 percent of a school year in the United Kingdom to 50 percent in Italy. Similar results are found by considering days of absence from school. In the longer run, students who cannot learn remotely are more likely to end their education early and repeat grades, especially in Spain, Germany and Italy. The distribution of cognitive losses is linked to countries' educational systems; hence, policies aiming to enhance e-learning by focusing on disadvantaged students and schools should be designed accordingly. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19,educational economics,inequality,PISA,human capital |
| JEL: | I21 I24 H52 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:679&r=all |
| By: | Francisco Benita; Vittorio Bil\`o; Barnab\'e Monnot; Georgios Piliouras; Cosimo Vinci |
| Abstract: | We investigate traffic routing both from the perspective of real world data as well as theory. First, we reveal through data analytics a natural but previously uncaptured regularity of real world routing behavior. Agents only consider, in their strategy sets, paths whose free-flow costs (informally their lengths) are within a small multiplicative $(1+\theta)$ constant of the optimal free-flow cost path connecting their source and destination where $\theta\geq0$. In the case of Singapore, $\theta=1$ is a good estimate of agents' route (pre)selection mechanism. In contrast, in Pigou networks the ratio of the free-flow costs of the routes and thus $\theta$ is infinite, so although such worst case networks are mathematically simple they correspond to artificial routing scenarios with little resemblance to real world conditions, opening the possibility of proving much stronger Price of Anarchy guarantees by explicitly studying their dependency on $\theta$. We provide an exhaustive analysis of this question by providing provably tight bounds on PoA($\theta$) for arbitrary classes of cost functions both in the case of general congestion/routing games as well as in the special case of path-disjoint networks. For example, in the case of the standard Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) cost model, $c_e(x)= a_e x^4+b_e$ and more generally quartic cost functions, the standard PoA bound for $\theta=\infty$ is $2.1505$ (Roughgarden, 2003) and it is tight both for general networks as well as path-disjoint and even parallel-edge networks. In comparison, in the case of $\theta=1$, the PoA in the case of general networks is only $1.6994$, whereas for path-disjoint/parallel-edge networks is even smaller ($1.3652$), showing that both the route geometries as captured by the parameter $\theta$ as well as the network topology have significant effects on PoA (Figure 1). |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2009.12871&r=all |
| By: | Afridi, Farzana (Indian Statistical Institute); Dhillon, Amrita (King's College London); Sharma, Swati (Indian Statistical Institute) |
| Abstract: | We use high frequency worker level productivity data from garment manufacturing units in India to study the effects of caste-based social networks on individual and group productivity when workers are complements in the production function but wages are paid at the individual level. Using exogenous variation in production line composition for almost 35,000 worker-days, we find that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of own caste workers in the line increases daily individual productivity by about 10 percentage points. The lowest performing worker increases her effort by more than 15 percentage points when the production line has a more homogeneous caste composition. Production externalities that impose financial costs due to worker's poor performance on co-workers within her social network can explain our findings. Our results suggest that even in the absence of explicit group-based financial incentives, social networks can be leveraged to improve both worker and group productivity. |
| Keywords: | caste, social networks, labor productivity, assembly lines, India |
| JEL: | Y40 Z13 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13711&r=all |
| By: | Lodefalk, Magnus; Sjöholm, Fredrik; Tang, Aili |
| Abstract: | We examine if international trade improves labor market integration of immigrants in Sweden. Immigrants participate substantially less than natives in the labor market. However, trading with a foreign country is expected to increase the demand for immigrants from that country. By hiring immigrants, a firm may access foreign knowledge and networks needed to overcome information frictions in trade. Using granular longitudinal matched employer–employee data and an instrumental variable approach, we estimate the causal effects of a firm’s bilateral trade on employment and wages of immigrants from that country. We find a positive, yet heterogeneous, effect of trade on immigrant employment but no effect on immigrant wages. |
| Keywords: | Export,Import,Immigrants,Employment,Wages |
| JEL: | F16 F22 J21 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:659&r=all |
| By: | Niembro, Andrés; Calá, Carla Daniela |
| Abstract: | In this article, we present a first exploratory analysis of the regional economic impact that COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures adopted in Argentina could have had during the last weeks of March and the month of April, the period of greatest economic impact, when restrictions were mainly raised at the sectoral level, without taking into account any regional criteria. To this end, we built an index of territorial economic impact by COVID-19 (ITEI-COVID), which takes into account, on the one hand, the regional production structure in terms of formal private employment, and on the other hand, the operational level of each sector. Results show that the regional impact of COVID-19 on private economic activity in Argentina was highly heterogeneous and that these unequal effects were largely related to the degree of productive diversity or the type of regional specialization. All these results are relatively stable and robust when comparing different geographical units of analysis, when changing the period chosen to define the private production structure, or when considering the informality and self-employment in addition to formal salaried employment. |
| Keywords: | Economía Regional; Impacto Económico; Aislamiento Social; Análisis Provincial; COVID-19; |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nmp:nuland:3376&r=all |
| By: | Stone, Wendy; Rowley, Steven; James, Amity; Parkinson, Sharon; Spinney, Angela; reynolds, margaret; Levin, Iris; Huang, Donna |
| Abstract: | This report delivers a comprehensive account of the diverse housing circumstances of Australians at mid-life. |
| Date: | 2020–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:czgfn&r=all |
| By: | Stone, Wendy; Rowley, Steven; Parkinson, Sharon; James, Amity; Spinney, Angela; Huang, Donna |
| Abstract: | This report explores the housing constraints facing diverse populations of lower income Australians. |
| Date: | 2020–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:tsfmg&r=all |
| By: | Tealde, Emiliano |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between ambient light and criminal activity. A Becker-style crime model is developed where it is shown that in areas with less public lighting a sudden increase in ambient light produces a higher reduction in crime. The Daylight Saving Time, the natural experiment used, induces a sharp increase in natural light during crime-intense hours. Using geolocated data on crime and public lighting for the city of Montevideo in Uruguay, regression discontinuity estimates identify a strong and statistically significant decrease in robbery of 17-percent. The decrease is larger in poorly lit areas. Computing the level of public lighting at which DST has no effect on crime reduction, we identify the minimum level of public lighting that an area should target. |
| Keywords: | DST,property crime,public lighting,heterogeneous effects |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:663&r=all |