|
on Urban and Real Estate Economics |
| By: | Egle Jakucionyte (Bank of Lithuania, Vilnius University); Swapnil Singh (Bank of Lithuania, Kaunas University of Technology) |
| Abstract: | Using the universe of mortgage applications data and detailed credit performance data, we document that since the early 1990s there was a significant decline in the share of mortgages with co-borrowers. Although the decline was an almost universal phenomenon across different regions of the US, the rate of the decline showed significant spatial heterogeneity and in turn had implications for regional differences in economic activity. We show that the presence of a co-borrower reduces the mortgage default probability by more than 50 percent for both prime and subprime loans and those regions that had a lower co-borrower share prior to the crisis experienced higher mortgage default rates over the period 2007-2010. Higher default rates created spillovers on economic activity during the Great Recession: a lower co-borrower share at the regional level was also related to persistently lower house price growth, refinancing growth and mortgage credit growth. These results imply that the decrease in the share of mortgages with co-borrowers made the US mortgage market more vulnerable to the financial crisis and contributed to the divergence in economic outcomes across different regions. |
| Keywords: | Residential mortgages, Foreclosure, Non-banks Lending |
| JEL: | G21 G51 R21 |
| Date: | 2020–08–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lie:wpaper:78&r=all |
| By: | Morgan Ubeda (Université de Lyon, Université Lumière Lyon 2, GATE UMR 5824, F-69130 Ecully FRANCE) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of transportation networks on spatial inequality within metropolitan areas. It uses a spatial equilibrium model featuring nonhomotheticities and worker heterogeneity, allowing to capture rich patterns of workers sorting on commuting costs and amenities. The model is calibrated for the Paris urban area. Counterfactual simulations study the effects of a) the Regional Express Rail and b) restricting car use in the city center. Despite a strong contribution to suburbanization and reducing welfare inequality, the public transport network plays no role in reducing income segregation. The effects of banning cars depends critically on the response of residential amenities in the city. If it is low enough, it reduces income disparities between Paris and its suburbs at the cost of a substantial welfare loss. If it is high enough, the policy creates welfare gains but steepens the income gradient. |
| Keywords: | commuting, amenities, income sorting, stratification |
| JEL: | R13 R14 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gat:wpaper:2038&r=all |
| By: | Neumann, Uwe; Schaffner, Sandra |
| Abstract: | Credit default is a dramatic consequence of disadvantageous private financial decisions. Using regression methods which eliminate spatial autocorrelation at the level of 1 km2 grids and further identification problems, we observe considerable and reinforcing residential segregation between households facing payment difficulty and more solvent households. Two findings give reasons for concern. First, data from North Rhine-Westphalia reveals that a high local risk of credit default coincides with a lower share of children taking the highest German secondary school track (Gymnasium). Since birth rates are currently high in these (inner city) areas, the outlook on educational attainment for many pupils is bleak. Second, hedonic price estimations using microdata on housing offers find that local agglomeration of households facing credit default provokes significant (detrimental) neighbourhood effects on housing markets. Segregation is thus unlikely to diminish, which implies increased efforts should be made to overcome unfavourable neighbourhood effects in various fields of policy, especially education. |
| Keywords: | segregation,credit default,financial literacy,spatial autocorrelation,hedonic price analysis |
| JEL: | R23 R21 G51 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:875&r=all |
| By: | Price V. Fishback; Jessica LaVoice; Allison Shertzer; Randall Walsh |
| Abstract: | During the late 1930s, the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC) created a series of maps designed to summarize spatial variation in the riskiness of mortgage lending in different neighborhoods. The HOLC maps, in conjunction with contemporaneous maps produced by the Federal Housing Agency (FHA), are at the center of debates regarding the long-run impacts of government-imposed redlining, particularly because black households were concentrated in the highest risk zones on these maps. This concentration, combined with the fact that these formerly redlined neighborhoods largely remain economically distressed today, suggest racial bias in the construction of the maps has had important effects over the long run. Using newly digitized data for ten major northern cities, we assess the maps for the importance of this channel in explaining the prevalence of black residents in redlined neighborhoods. We find that racial bias in the construction of the HOLC maps can explain at most a small fraction of the observed concentration of black households in redlined zones. Instead, our results suggest that the majority of black households were redlined because decades of disadvantage and discrimination had already pushed them in to the core of economically distressed neighborhoods prior to the government’s direct involvement in mortgage markets. As a result, the HOLC maps are best viewed as providing clear evidence of how decades of unequal treatment effectively limited where black households lived in the 1930s rather than reflecting racial bias in the construction of the maps themselves. We argue that the systemized treatment of neighborhood risk vis-à-vis mortgage lending that was adopted by HOLC and the FHA may have played a central role in locking these patterns of inequality in place. |
| JEL: | J15 N9 R28 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28146&r=all |
| By: | Bluhm, Richard; Polonik, Pascal; Hemes, Kyle; Sanford, Luke; Benz, Susanne; Levy, Morgan C.; Ricke, Katharine; Burney, Jennifer |
| Abstract: | Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States often experience higher-than-average exposures to air pollution. However, the relative contribution of embedded institutional biases to these disparities can be difficult to disentangle from physical environmental drivers, socioeconomic status, and cultural or other factors that are correlated with exposures under status quo conditions. Over the spring and summer of 2020, rapid and sweeping COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders around the world created large perturbations to local and regional economic activity that resulted in observable changes in air pollution concentrations, compositions, and distributions. Here, we use the pandemic-related emergency order and subsequent economic slowdown to causally estimate pollution exposure disparities in California. Using both public ground-based sensor data and a citizen-science network of monitors for respirable particulate matter (PM2.5), along with satellite records of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), we show that the initial sheltering-in-place period produced disproportionate air pollution reduction benefits for Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, and low- income communities. By linking these pollution data with weather, geographic, socioeconomic, and mobility data in difference-in-differences models, we demonstrate that these disparate pollution reductions cannot be explained by environmental conditions, geography, income, or local economic activity and are instead driven by non-local activity. This study thus provides causally-identified evidence of systemic racial and ethnic bias in pollution control under business-as-usual conditions. |
| Date: | 2020–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:e86mh&r=all |
| By: | Fanny Alivon (Université de la Réunion); Manon Garrouste (Université de Lille, Lem-CNRS); Rachel Guillain (Université de Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, LEDi) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we study the effect on academic achievement of the overlap between urban and education placed-based policies in France. The identification challenge comes from two potential bias due to individual location choices and school choices. To analyze causal effects, we propose to use regression discontinuities at the boundaries of treated zones. We use very precise geocoded data at the neighborhood, school, and individual levels in the Paris municipality to investigate the net effect of each type of programs, as well as potential interaction effects. Preliminary results suggest that the net effect on academic achievement of urban policies is negative and that there is no advantage of benefiting from both types of programs. |
| Keywords: | Place-based policies, Education policies, Regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | I24 I28 R28 C21 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2019-06-ccr&r=all |
| By: | Lukas Althoff; Fabian Eckert; Sharat Ganapati; Conor Walsh |
| Abstract: | The large cities in the US are the most expensive places to live. Paradoxically, this cost is disproportionately paid by workers who could work remotely, and live anywhere. The greater potential for remote work in large cities is mostly accounted for by their specialization in skill- and information-intensive service industries. We highlight that this specialization makes these cities vulnerable to remote work shocks. When high-skill workers begin to work from home or leave the city altogether, they withdraw spending from local consumer service industries that rely heavily on their demand. As a result, low-skill service workers in big cities bore most of the recent pandemic’s economic impact. |
| Keywords: | remote work, high-skill services, technological change |
| JEL: | O33 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8734&r=all |
| By: | Enrico Berkes; Olivier Deschenes; Ruben Gaetani; Jeffrey Lin; Christopher Severen |
| Abstract: | Does social distancing harm innovation? We estimate the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)—policies that restrict interactions in an attempt to slow the spread of disease—on local invention. We construct a panel of issued patents and NPIs adopted by 50 large US cities during the 1918 flu pandemic. Difference-in-differences estimates show that cities adopting longer NPIs did not experience a decline in patenting during the pandemic relative to short-NPI cities, and recorded higher patenting afterward. Rather than reduce local invention by restricting localized knowledge spillovers, NPIs adopted during the pandemic may have better preserved other inventive factors. |
| JEL: | N92 O31 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28152&r=all |
| By: | Clémence Tricaud (CREST, Ecole Polytechnique) |
| Abstract: | While central governments encourage intermunicipal cooperation to achieve economies of scale, municipalities are generally reluctant to integrate. This paper provides new evidence on the costs of integration by assessing the causal impact of integration on municipalities resisting cooperation. Exploiting a 2010 reform in France that forced non-integrated municipalities to enter an intermunicipal community, I show that the loss of autonomy over urban planning plays a key role in explaining their opposition. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, I find that municipalities forced to integrate experienced a 12.2 percent increase in the number of building permits delivered. Additional results suggest that municipalities were resisting further urban development to avoid congestion rather than to exclude minorities or prevent housing prices to fall. Exploring the impact of integration on fiscal revenues and public services, I find that, while congestion costs appear key in understanding urban municipalities’ resistance, rural municipalities’ opposition seems mainly driven by the loss of access to local public services. Overall, these results shed new light on the tension between the potential aggregate benefits sought by governments and local negative externalities driving municipalities’ opposition. |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2019-12-ccr&r=all |
| By: | Laverty, Anthony; Aldred, Rachel; Goodman, Anna |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact on road traffic injuries of introducing low traffic neighbourhoods in Waltham Forest, London. Using Stats19 police data 2012-2019, we find a three-fold decline in number of injuries inside low traffic neighbourhoods after implementation, relative to the rest of Waltham Forest and the rest of Outer London. We further estimate that walking, cycling, and driving all became approximately 3-4 times safer per trip. There was no evidence that injury numbers changed on boundary roads. Our findings suggest that low traffic neighbourhoods reduce injury risks across all modes inside the neighbourhood, without negative impacts at the boundary. |
| Date: | 2020–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:46p3w&r=all |
| By: | John C. Haltiwanger; Mark J. Kutzbach; Giordano E. Palloni; Henry Pollakowski; Matthew Staiger; Daniel Weinberg |
| Abstract: | We combine national administrative data on earnings and participation in subsidized housing to study how the demolition of 160 public housing projects—funded by the HOPE VI program—affected the adult labor market outcomes for 18,500 children. Our empirical strategy compares children exposed to the program to children drawn from thousands of non-demolished projects, adjusting for observable differences using a flexible estimator that combines features of matching and regression. We find that children who resided in HOPE VI projects earn 14% more at age 26 relative to children in comparable non-HOPE VI projects. These earnings gains are strongest for demolitions in large cities, particularly in neighborhoods with higher pre-demolition poverty rates and lower pre-demolition job accessibility. There is no evidence that the labor market gains are driven by improvements in household or neighborhood environments that promote human capital development in children. Rather, subsequent improvements in job accessibility represent a likely pathway for the results. |
| JEL: | I38 J13 J31 J62 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28157&r=all |
| By: | Lorenzo Neri (University of St Andrews); Elisabetta Pasini (Alma Economics) |
| Abstract: | A 2010 education reform gave English schools the option to become academies, autonomous but state-funded schools. Academies can opt for two different models of governance by choosing to remain standalone schools or join an academy chain. We investigate whether the governance model affects student achievement, exploiting administrative records on primary school-age students and using a grandfathering instrument for attending a converted school. We find that students in academy chains have higher end-of-primary school test scores. Effects are stronger for disadvantaged students. Survey data suggest that chains favor management changes, whereas standalone academies make changes related to educational practices. |
| Keywords: | autonomous schools, school governance, school performance |
| JEL: | I20 I21 I28 |
| Date: | 2020–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:wpecon:2010&r=all |
| By: | Huang, Donna; Gilbert, Catherine; Rowley, Steven; Gurran, Nicole; Leishman, Chris; Mouritz, Mike; Raynor, Katrina; Cornell, Christen |
| Abstract: | This research examined the barriers and challenges within the housing system for delivering housing supply that is more diverse in terms of size and built form; tenure; development model; and affordability level. |
| Date: | 2020–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:k49pd&r=all |
| By: | Simone Balestra; Aurélien Sallin; Stefan C. Wolter |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how exposure to students identified as gifted (IQ ≥ 130) affects achievement in secondary school, enrollment in post-compulsory education, and occupational choices. By using student-level administrative data on achievement combined with psychological examination records, we study the causal impact of gifted students on their classmates in unprecedented detail. We find a positive and significant effect of the exposure to gifted students on school achievement in both math and language. The impact of gifted students is, however, highly heterogeneous along three dimensions. First, we observe the strongest effects among male students and high achievers. Second, we show that male students benefit from the presence of gifted peers in all subjects regardless of their gender, whereas female students seem to benefit primarily from the presence of female gifted students. Third, we find that gifted students diagnosed with emotional or behavioral disorders have zero-to-negative effects on their classmates’ performance, a detrimental effect more pronounced for female students. Finally, exposure to gifted students in school has consequences that extend beyond the classroom: it increases the likelihood of choosing a selective academic track as well as occupations in STEM fields. |
| Keywords: | gifted students, peer quality, gender, math, peer effects |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8793&r=all |
| By: | Francesco Agostinelli (University of Pennsylvania); Matthias Doepke (Northwestern University); Giuseppe Sorrenti (University of Amsterdam); Fabrizio Zilibotti (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | What are the effects of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s education? Online education is an imperfect substitute for in-person learning, particularly for children from low-income families. Peer effects also change: schools allow children from different socio-economic backgrounds to mix together, and this effect is lost when schools are closed. Another factor is the response of parents, some of whom compensate for the changed environment through their own efforts, while others are unable to do so. We examine the interaction of these factors with the aid of a structural model of skill formation. We find that school closures have a large and persistent effect on educational outcomes that is highly unequal. High school students from poor neighborhoods suffer a learning loss of 0.4 standard deviations, whereas children from rich neighborhoods remain unscathed. The channels operating through schools, peers, and parents all contribute to growing educational inequality during the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, skill acquisition, peer effects, parenting, parenting style, neighborhood effects, pandemic |
| JEL: | I24 J13 J24 R20 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2020-084&r=all |
| By: | Amanda Y. Agan; Sonja B. Starr |
| Abstract: | Using a large field experiment, we show that racial composition of employer neighborhoods predicts employment discrimination patterns in a direction suggesting in-group bias. Our data also show racial disparities in the geographic distribution of job postings. Simulations illustrate how these patterns combine to shape disparities. When jobs are located far from Black neighborhoods, Black applicants are doubly disadvantaged: discrimination patterns disfavor them, and they have fewer nearby opportunities. Finally, building on prior work on Ban-the-Box laws, we show that employers in less Black neighborhoods appear much likelier to stereotype Black applicants as potentially criminal when they lack criminal record information. |
| JEL: | J23 J71 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28153&r=all |
| By: | Sebastian Doerr |
| Abstract: | I establish that US public firms holding real estate have persistently lower levels of productivity than non-holders. Rising real estate values relax collateral constraints for companies that own real estate and allow them to expand production. Consequently, an increase in house prices reallocates capital and labor towards inefficient firms, with negative consequences for aggregate industry productivity. Industries with a stronger relative increase in real estate values see a significant decline in total factor productivity, and the within-industry covariance between firm size and productivity declines. My results suggest a novel channel through which real estate booms affect productivity and have implications for monetary policy. |
| Keywords: | housing boom, collateral, misallocation, productivity, low interest rates |
| JEL: | D22 D24 O16 O47 R3 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:904&r=all |
| By: | Bernardo S. Buarque; Ronald B. Davies; Ryan M. Hynes; Dieter Franz Kogler |
| Abstract: | Perhaps more than any other product, beer evokes the place it was made. Weißbier and Germany, dubbels and Belgium, and most of all, Guinness and Ireland. Part of what makes these beers so memorable is what sets them apart and gives them their ‘taste of place’. Many studies have tried to place that taste, and due to a lack of detailed data, have relied largely on qualitative methods to do so. We introduce a novel data set of regionalized beer recipes, styles, and ingredients collected from a homebrewing website. We then turn to the methods of evolutionary economic geography to create regional ingredient networks for recipes within a style of beer, and identify which ingredients are most important to certain styles. Along with identifying these keystone ingredients, we calculate a style’s resiliency or reliance on one particular ingredient. We compare this resiliency within similar styles in different regions and across different styles in the same region to isolate the effects of region on ingredient choice. We find that while almost all beer styles have only a handful of key ingredients, some styles are more resilient than others due to readily available substitute ingredients in their region. |
| Keywords: | Beer; Economic geography; Network analysis |
| JEL: | Q10 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:202031&r=all |
| By: | James A. Schmitz |
| Abstract: | U.S. government concerns about great disparities in housing conditions are at least 100 years old. For the first 50 years of this period, U.S. housing crises were widely considered to stem from the failure of the construction industry to adopt new technology -- in particular, factory production methods. The introduction of these methods in many industries had already greatly narrowed the quality of goods consumed by low- and high-income Americans. It was widely known why the industry failed to adopt these methods: Monopolies in traditional construction blocked and sabotaged them. Very little has changed in the last 50 years. The industry still fails to adopt factory methods, with monopolies, like HUD and NAHB, blocking attempts to adopt them. As a result, the productivity record of the construction industry has been horrendous. One thing has changed. Today there is very little discussion of factory-built housing; of the very few that recognize the industry's failure to adopt factory methods, there is no realization that monopolies are blocking the methods. That these monopolies, in particular, HUD and NAHB, can cause so much hardship in our country, and through misinformation and deceit cover it up, seems almost beyond belief. But, unfortunately, it's a history that is not uncommon. There are many other industries where monopolies have inflicted great harm on Americans, like the tobacco industry, yet through misinformation and deceit cover up the great harm. |
| Keywords: | Monopoly; Competition; Inequality; Cournot; Sabotage; Harberger; Thurman Arnold; Henry Simons; Housing; Modular housing; Manufactured homes; Factory-built housing; HUD; NAHB; Nimbyism; Tobacco industry; Fossil fuel industry |
| JEL: | D22 D42 K0 L0 L12 |
| Date: | 2020–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmwp:89160&r=all |
| By: | Carlos Vladimir Rodríguez-Caballero (Mexico Autonomous Institute of Technology (ITAM) and CREATES); J. Eduardo Vera-Valdés (Aalborg University and CREATES) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the relation between air pollution exposure and the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area. We test if short- and long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with a higher number of deaths due to the pandemic. Our results show that long-term exposure to particle matter of ten micrometers and smaller are associated with a higher death toll due to the pandemic. Nonetheless, in the short-term, the effect of air pollution on the number of deaths is less pronounced. Once we control for the short-term commonality among municipalities, contemporaneous air pollution exposure is no longer significant. Moreover, we show that the extracted unobservable common factor is highly correlated to mobility. Thus, our results show that mobility seems to be the main driver behind the number of deaths in the short-term. These results are particularly revealing given that the Metropolitan Area did not experience a decrease in air pollution during COVID- 19 inspired lockdowns. Thus, this paper highlights the importance of implementing policies to reduce mobility and air pollution to mitigate health risks due to the pandemic. Mobility constraints can reduce the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the short-term, while pollution policies can reduce health risks in the long-term. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Pollution, Morbidity, Spreading, Mobility |
| JEL: | Q53 Q28 C21 C23 |
| Date: | 2020–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aah:create:2020-15&r=all |
| By: | Leerkes, Arjen (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, and Erasmus University Rotterdam); Fokkema, Tineke (NIDI, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and University of Groningen); Bening, Jonathan |
| Abstract: | There is considerable contextual variation in crime among immigrants and their native-born descendants, and this study aims to understand that variation better. It examines whether municipal variation in self-reported crimes among Turkish- and Moroccan-Dutch men living in 35 representative Dutch cities (N=911), including the four largest cities, is associated with municipal variation in multicultural attitudes, or 'community multiculturalism', among the native-Dutch (N=2,556). We propose, and test, a mechanism-based theoretical model that links Berry's acculturation theory to general strain theory, social bonding theory, and collective efficacy theory. Evidence is found for a protective effect of community multiculturalism for immigrant crime, which is mostly explained by collective efficacy theory with somewhat weaker evidence for general strain theory and social bonding theory. We discuss implications for the discussion on the (dis)advantages of multiculturalism, and suggest various avenues for further inquiry into immigrants' 'context of reception', and how the acculturation attitudes among established groups affect social cohesion outcomes in multi-ethnic societies. |
| Keywords: | acculturation theory, immigrant crime, context of reception, local-level variation, migration |
| JEL: | K13 I30 Y80 O15 |
| Date: | 2020–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2020055&r=all |
| By: | Dalton, Patricio (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Rüschenpöhler, Julius (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Uras, Burak (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Zia, Bilal |
| Keywords: | Business Growth; Efficiency Gains; Small-scale Enterprises; Peer Knowledge; Self- Learning; Social Learning |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:5c5fc2c6-7cfe-4fa9-b1d1-45512554a07c&r=all |
| By: | Cabral, René; López Cabrera, Jesús Antonio; Padilla Pérez, Ramón |
| Abstract: | This paper examines absolute manufacturing labour productivity convergence across Mexican states and municipalities between 1993 and 2018, using census data and employing spatial econometric techniques. It applies a novel approach (spatial econometrics and disaggregation at the municipal level) to show that there is absolute convergence in manufacturing productivity at both the state and municipal levels. The results show that there are significant productivity spillovers among states and municipalities; that is, high-level productivity states or municipalities have positive impacts on the productivity of neighbouring states or municipalities. The empirical evidence also shows that, on average, it takes a municipality 26.5 years to reduce 50% of the initial productivity gap, while for a state it takes 99.4 years. |
| Keywords: | EMPRESAS MANUFACTURERAS, EMPLEO, PRODUCTIVIDAD DEL TRABAJO, CONVERGENCIA ECONOMICA, MODELOS ECONOMETRICOS, DESARROLLO ECONOMICO, MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES, EMPLOYMENT, LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY, ECONOMIC CONVERGENCE, ECONOMETRIC MODELS, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT |
| Date: | 2020–12–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecr:col031:46492&r=all |
| By: | Corrigan, Eoin; O'Toole, Conor; Slaymaker |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp671&r=all |
| By: | Manuel Bagues; Christopher Roth |
| Abstract: | We study the long-run effects of contact with individuals from other regions on beliefs, preferences and national identity. We combine a natural experiment, the random assignment of male conscripts to different locations throughout Spain, with tailored survey data. Being randomly assigned to complete military service outside of one’s region of residence fosters contact with conscripts from other regions, and increases sympathy towards people from the region of service, measured several decades later. We also observe an increase in identification with Spain for individuals originating from regions with peripheral nationalism. Our evidence suggests that intergroup exposure in early adulthood can have long-lasting effects on individual preferences and national identity. |
| Keywords: | interregional contact, intergroup exposure, beliefs, preference formation, identity |
| JEL: | R23 D91 Z10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8787&r=all |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Education - Access & Equity in Basic Education Education - Education Reform and Management Education - Effective Schools and Teachers Social Development - Community Development and Empowerment Social Development - Social Accountability |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:33807&r=all |
| By: | Cai, Shu; Zimmermann, Klaus F. |
| Abstract: | Previous research has found identity to be relevant for international migration, but has neglected internal mobility as in the case of the Great Chinese Migration. However, the context of the identities of migrants and their adaption in the migration process is likely to be quite different. The gap is closed by examining social assimilation and the effect on the labor market outcomes of migrants in China, the country with the largest record of internal mobility. Using instrumental variable estimation, the study finds that identifying as local residents significantly increases migrants’ hourly wages and reduces hours worked, although their monthly earnings remained barely changed. Further findings suggest that migrants with strong local identity are more likely to use local networks in job search, and to obtain jobs with higher average wages and lower average hours worked per day. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital |
| Date: | 2020–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:ubzefd:308017&r=all |
| By: | Michael B. Devereux; Karine Gente; Changhua Yu |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the impact of fiscal spending shocks in a multi-country model with international production networks. In contrast to standard results suggesting that production network linkages are unimportant for the aggregate response to macro shocks in a closed economy, we show that network structures may place a central role in the international propagation of fiscal shocks, particularly when wages are slow to adjust. The paper first develops a simple general equilibrium multi-country model and derives some analytical results on the response to fiscal spending shocks. We then apply the model to an analysis of fiscal spillovers in the Eurozone, using the calibrated sectoral network structure from the World Input Output Database (WIOD). In a version of the model with sticky wages, we find that fiscal spillovers from Germany and some other large Eurozone countries may be large, and within the range of empirical estimates. More importantly, we find that the Eurozone production network is very important for the international spillovers. In the absence of international production network linkages, spillovers would be only a third as large as predicted by the baseline model. Finally, we explore the diffusion of identified German government spending at the sectoral level, both within and across countries. We find that government expenditures have both significant upstream and downstream effects when these links are measured by the direction of sectoral production linkages. |
| JEL: | E23 E62 F20 F42 H50 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28149&r=all |
| By: | Hanno Kruse (Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, 50923 Köln, Germany); Clemens Kroneberg (of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Cologne, 50923 Köln, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Different lines of research have argued that specific groups, such as boys or ethnic minorities, are more prone to develop an anti-school culture than others, leading to group differences in the social acceptance of high performers. Taking an ecological view, we ask to what extent the school context promotes or prevents the emergence of group-specific oppositional cultures. Theoretically, we argue that group-based oppositional cultures become more likely in schools with low socio-economic resources and in schools where socio-economic differences align with demographic attributes. We test our hypotheses based on data from a large-scale, four-wave network panel survey among more than 3000 students in Germany. Applying stochastic actor-oriented models for the coevolution of networks and behavior, we find that group-based oppositional cultures in which students like high performers less are very rare. However, in line with theoretical expectations, boys tend to evaluate high-performing peers less positively than girls do in schools that are less resourceful. Moreover, ethnic minority boys tend to evaluate high performers less positively than majority boys do in schools where the former tend to come from socio-economically less resourceful families. |
| Keywords: | gender, ethnicity, school performance, social networks, stochastic actor-oriented models |
| JEL: | I24 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:044&r=all |
| By: | Karla Dominguez Gonzalez; Ana Luiza Machado; Bianca Bianchi Alves; Veronica Raffo; Sofia Guerrero; Irene Portabales |
| Keywords: | Transport - Railways Transport Transport - Transport Economics Policy & Planning Gender - Gender and Development Gender - Gender and Transport Social Protections and Labor - Labor Markets Urban Development - Transport in Urban Areas |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:33466&r=all |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Education - Educational Institutions & Facilities Education - Educational Sciences Education - Educational Technology and Distance Education Education - Effective Schools and Teachers Information and Communication Technologies - Information Technology |
| Date: | 2020–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:33479&r=all |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Environment - Adaptation to Climate Change Environment - Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases Environment - Climate Change and Environment Urban Development - National Urban Development Policies & Strategies Urban Development - Urban Environment |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:34335&r=all |
| By: | Aurélie Cassette (LEM - CNRS (UMR 9221) – Université Lille 1); Etienne Farvaque (LEM - CNRS (UMR 9221) – Université Lille 1) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the determinants of the decision for local politicians to go back from a nationally-defined but locally-enforced policy. Once implemented locally, does a reform sticks, or is it washed away as soon as can be? We use the quasi-natural experiment of the changes in the school week schedule in France to provide an answer to this question. Our results are based on a unique, detailed, database of local schoolweek schedules. They indicate that, even though the decentralized policy aims at improving welfare, the costs generated by the reform, as well as local preferences, determines the degree of stickiness of the reform. |
| Keywords: | Decentralization, Reforms, Municipalities, Education |
| JEL: | D78 H70 H73 I29 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2019-03-ccr&r=all |
| By: | World Bank |
| Keywords: | Finance and Financial Sector Development - Public & Municipal Finance Infrastructure Economics and Finance - Private Participation in Infrastructure Urban Development - City Development Strategies Urban Development - Municipal Financial Management Urban Development - Urban Economic Development Urban Development - Urban Governance and Management Urban Development - Urban Services to the Poor |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wboper:33572&r=all |
| By: | Daniele Bondonio (University of Piemonte Orientale) |
| Abstract: | Regional economic development and business incentive programs have a prominent role in the European Union (EU). For evaluating these programs, in recent years, a growing number of studies have exploited either spatial discontinuities, set by boundaries of the targeted areas, or ranking discontinuities, based on EU-fund eligibility indexes or firm-level application scores. In light of this literature, impact evaluations are being increasingly commissioned and designed under an a-priori assumptions that discontinuity designs have superior impact identification properties. This paper argues that in a number of frequently encountered, but often unrecognized, circumstances this assumption does not hold ground. When the running variable has a weak influence on the outcome of the analysis, discontinuity designs are at risk of either unnecessarily reduce external validity or, in the presence small sample sizes, failing to achieve the complete balancing of relevant controls. In this scenario, ensuring the common support for the crucial confounders and adopting statistical matching estimators, often constitute a more viable empirical option. |
| Keywords: | Discontinuity designs, Regional economic development, Business incentives, EU cohesion Policy |
| JEL: | O1 R5 C23 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2019-02-ccr&r=all |
| By: | Monika Banaszewska (Poznań University of Economics and Business); Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel); Aneta Kaczyńska (Poznań University of Economics and Business); Eva Wolfschütz (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at testing whether inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in the field of economic development has a positive impact on local economic performance. We apply marginal structural models to a panel data set covering all Polish municipalities between 2003 and 2013. We use the unemployment rate and own revenues per capita as a proxy for local economic performance. Our results are mixed suggesting, on average, no significant effect of an additional year of IMC on local revenue per capita. At the same time, we observe a positive effect on the unemployment rate. |
| Keywords: | Inter-municipal cooperation, Poland, economic development, marginal structural models |
| JEL: | D72 H77 H80 O10 |
| Date: | 2019–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2019-08-ccr&r=all |
| By: | Kasper Brandt (DERG, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Beatrice K. Mkenda (Department of Economics, University of Dar es Salaam) |
| Abstract: | In January 2016, Tanzania implemented a fee-free secondary school reform. Using variation in district and cohort exposure to the reform, we employ a difference-indifferences strategy to estimate the short-term impacts of the reform. Despite a relatively small drop in user costs, the reform substantially increased enrolment into secondary education. While these enrolment effects were predominantly driven by an increase in public school enrolment, there was also a delayed positive effect on private school enrolment. Districts most exposed to the reform experienced a significant drop in exam scores relative to less-exposed districts, which cannot be explained by academic abilities of new students. These findings are in line with a theoretical school choice model, where fee elimination loosens enrolment constraints, and increased enrolment harms the quality of public education. |
| Keywords: | school fee elimination, learning, secondary School, Tanzania |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2020–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kuderg:2006&r=all |
| By: | Ivan Tilov; Sylvain Weber |
| Abstract: | This article uses a rich panel dataset of 1,741 Swiss households in order to examine the effect of fuel prices on household car travel demand. Elasticities are estimated for different segments of households, based on their socio-economic and psychological characteristics, on the features of their vehicles, as well as on their driving intensity. Our results, which draw on inter-individual comparisons, yield larger medium- to long-run price elasticity of demand for mileage than previous estimations using aggregate data for Switzerland, and show that there is important heterogeneity in price sensitivity across segments of households. Lower-income households, households living in urban areas, drivers in retirement age and drivers with more efficient vehicles are significantly more price-reactive compared to their respective counterparts. Quantile regression models show that within segments defined on the basis of income, location, age and motor efficiency there is further evidence for price heterogeneity. These results reveal that in addition to a gasoline tax, non-price measures could be tailored to several household segments in order to provide supplementary incentives to reduce mileage and/or avoid penalizing some specific groups. |
| Keywords: | car travel demand, fuel prices, elasticities, households' behavior, heterogeneity, panel data, Switzerland. |
| JEL: | Q40 Q41 D12 R41 C21 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irn:wpaper:20-12&r=all |
| By: | Matilde Grácio; Pedro C. Vicente |
| Abstract: | Political accountability requires informed voters and electoral participation. Both have been lagging in many developing countries like Mozambique. We designed and implemented a field experiment during the 2013 municipal elections in that country. We study the impact on political behavior of location-level distribution of a free newspaper and get-out-the-vote text messages aimed at mobilizing voters. As part of our design, we randomly assigned peers to experimental subjects in order to test for peer influence via text messages. Measurement of political outcomes comes from official electoral results at the level of the polling station, and from a range of behavioral and survey-based measures. We find that the distribution of the newspaper increased turnout and voting for the ruling party. The text messages led to higher political participation. When turning to influencing peers, we observe a clear role of male and older individuals, as well as complementarity with the distribution of newspapers. |
| Keywords: | Political behavior, information, peer influence, political economy, field experiment, Africa |
| JEL: | D72 O55 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unl:novafr:wp2009&r=all |
| By: | Shaheen, Susan PhD; Wong, Stephen PhD |
| Abstract: | While the COVID-19 crisis has devastated many public transit and shared mobility services, it has also exposed underlying issues in how these services are provided to society. As ridership drops and revenues decline, many public and private providers may respond by cutting service or reducing vehicle maintenance to save costs. As a result, those who depend on public transit and shared mobility services, particularly those without access to private automobiles, will experience further loss of their mobility. These transportation shifts will be further influenced by changing work-from-home policies (e.g., telework). While uncertainty remains, work-from-home will likely alter public transit and shared mobility needs and patterns, necessitating different services, operation plans, and business structures. |
| Keywords: | Engineering |
| Date: | 2020–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdl:itsrrp:qt9nh6w2gq&r=all |
| By: | Robert W. Fairlie; Alicia Robb; David T. Robinson |
| Abstract: | We use confidential and restricted-access data from the Kauffman Firm Survey and matched administrative data on credit scores to explore racial disparities in access to capital for new business ventures. The novel results on racial inequality in startup financing indicate that black-owned startups start smaller and stay smaller over the entire first eight years of their existence. Black startups face more difficulty in raising external capital, especially external debt. We find that disparities in credit-worthiness constrain black entreprenuers, but perceptions of treatment by banks also hold them back. Black entrepreneurs apply for loans less often than white entrepreneurs largely because they expect to be denied credit, even when they have a good credit history and in settings where strong local banks favor new business development. |
| JEL: | J15 J71 L26 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28154&r=all |
| By: | Roseline T. Karambakuwa; Ronney M. Ncwadi; Weliswa Matekenya; Leward Jeke; Syden Mishi |
| Abstract: | The paper evaluates strategies for developing successful special economic zones and transnational zones for Southern African countries to spur growth and employment. Most special economic zones implemented in Southern Africa have largely failed to bring adequate growth and employment due to numerous constraints. Globally, selected countries have successfully implemented export-oriented industries through such spatial industrial policy. |
| Keywords: | Special Economic Zones, Spatial industrial policy, Growth, best practice, Sustainability, southern Africa |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2020-170&r=all |
| By: | Fernando E. Alvarez; David O. Argente |
| Abstract: | We use three quasi-natural experiments in Mexico and one in Panama to estimate the effects of having the option to pay with cash on Uber rides. The ability to pay in cash affects the demand for rides, which is reflected in large changes in the total number of trips, fares, miles, and number of users after Uber introduced cash payments, particularly in lower-income city blocks. On the other hand, the effects on prices, estimated times of arrival, and competitor pricing are negligible, consistent with the supply of trips being very elastic. Although cash payments naturally increase the fraction of users that pay exclusively with cash, more than half of the users have access to both cards and cash, and alternate between payment methods. We find evidence consistent with cash and card payments being imperfectly substitutable at both the intensive and extensive margins, which magnifies the impact of policies that restrict the availability of payment methods. |
| JEL: | E41 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28145&r=all |
| By: | César Ducruet; Réka Juhász; Dávid Krisztián Nagy; Claudia Steinwender |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of port development on the economy. By using scarce local land intensively, ports put pressure on local land prices and crowd out other forms of economic activity. We use the introduction of containerized shipping -- a technology that substantially increased land requirements at the port -- to estimate the effects of port development. We find an important role for the crowding-out effect both at the local and at the aggregate level. First, we show that the causal effect of the shipping boom caused by containerization on local population is zero -- port development increases city population by making a location more attractive for firms and consumers, but this well-known market access effect is fully offset by the crowding-out mechanism. Second, to measure the aggregate implications, we add endogenous port development to a standard quantitative model of cross-city trade. Through the lens of this model, we estimate that containerization increased aggregate world welfare by 3.95%. However, relative to the positive welfare effects of a trade-cost reduction in standard models, our model implies a sizeable welfare cost associated with the increased land-usage of ports, partly offset by welfare gains from endogenous specialization based on comparative advantage across port- and non-port activities. In terms of the distributional effects, we find that initially poorer countries gained more from containerization as they had a comparative advantage in port development. |
| JEL: | F6 O33 R40 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28148&r=all |
| By: | Charles Raux (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Amandine Chevalier (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Emmanuel Bougna (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Denis Hilton (UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès) |
| Abstract: | The potential of psychological and fiscal framing interventions in motivating environmentally responsible behavior is explored in a context of long distance leisure travel. A series of discrete choice experiments is conducted with 789 participants. Framing conditions like information on CO2 emissions, an injunctive and a descriptive norm, fiscal incentives such as a carbon tax, a bonus-malus and a personal carbon trading scheme are tested while controlling the usual travel price-duration tradeoff. Pricing (including internalization of social cost of CO2 through fiscal incentives) has the expected effect of reducing the choice of travelling and hence CO2 emissions. Providing information on CO2 emissions of each transport alternative significantly reduces preferences for the most emitting modes (air) and favors a less emitting mode (train). Framing the fiscal incentive as personal carbon trading adds a moderate incentive to the price effect in reducing air choice. |
| Keywords: | Transport,CO2 emissions,Discrete choice experiments,Psychological interventions,Bonus-malus,Personal carbon trading,Working Papers du LAET |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03045959&r=all |
| By: | He, Qing; Li, Xiaoyang |
| Abstract: | We investigate the influence of financial and political factors on peer-to-peer (P2P) platform failures in China’s online lending market. Using a competing risk model for platform survival, we show that large platforms, platforms with listed firms as large shareholders, and platforms with better information disclosure were less likely to go bankrupt or run off (platform owners abscond with investor funds). More importantly, failing platforms were much less likely to run off in advance of major political events, but more likely to declare bankruptcy or run off after such events. These effects are more pronounced for politically connected platforms, platforms operating in provinces where local officials have close ties with central government, and in provinces with better local financial conditions. Our study highlights the role of political incentives on government regulatory intervention in platform failures. |
| JEL: | G33 G21 G23 P26 |
| Date: | 2020–12–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bof:bofitp:2020_027&r=all |
| By: | Colin Davis; Ken-ichi Hashimoto; Ken Tabata |
| Abstract: | This paper considers how increasing longevity and declining birth rates affect market entry and endogenous productivity growth in a two-country model of trade. In each country, the demographic transition to an older population induces a contraction in the labor force through a decline in the working-age population. Firm-level investment in process innovation generates productivity growth, and with imperfect knowledge diffusion the country with the larger labor force has a greater share of firms with higher productivity levels. In this framework, population aging reduces a country’s labor supply, share of industry, and relative productivity. If the country with the smaller labor force experiences population aging, knowledge spillovers improve and the rate of productivity growth rises, as the level of market entry falls. Alternatively, population aging in the country with the larger labor force weakens knowledge spillovers and lowers the rate of productivity growth, but has an ambiguous affect on market entry. We show that the effects of population aging may be reversed by extending retirement age, and consider the welfare implications for demographic transition and retirement age extension arising in our framework through a quantitative analysis based on population data for the United States and Western Europe. |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dpr:wpaper:1113&r=all |
| By: | Winters, John V. |
| Abstract: | I use the American Community Survey to examine how college earnings premiums differ across small metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. I document that the West North Central Division (Plains Region) has especially low average college earnings premiums. Controlling for observable MSA characteristics via regression explains some of the difference between the Plains and other regions, but large and important differences remain. The low return to education for small MSAs in the Plains suggests that they will face special challenges building and retaining human capital in the near future. These areas may especially struggle to attract college-educated in-migrants. |
| Date: | 2020–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genstf:202012180800001119&r=all |
| By: | Sandrine Mesplé-Somps and; Björn Nilsson |
| Abstract: | Role models—those individuals who resemble us but have achieved more than us— are thought to impact our aspirations. In this paper, we study the impact of role models on intentions to migrate. Specifically, we implement a randomized controlled trial to show documentaries in rural villages of Mali (Kayes region). These documentaries focus on economic opportunities and show either negative or positive portraits of migrants, or portraits of local people who have successfully set up flourishing businesses without ever considering migration. This paper adds to the larger debate about the efficiency of information provision. We find very few significant impacts, none of which hold when attrition is controlled for using nonparametric Lee bounds. We also implement a treatment heterogeneity analysis using a causal forest algorithm, which aside from confirming our average treatment effects suggests the presence of heterogeneity. It appears that individuals with living conditions that could facilitate migration are less likely to be significantly impacted. The high aspirations to improve living conditions, coupled with a strong feeling of lack of control over the future may help explaining the fact that confrontations with real life experiences do not significantly modify average aspirations to migrate. |
| Keywords: | Mali |
| JEL: | Q |
| Date: | 2020–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:avg:wpaper:en11923&r=all |