{"title":"Does it take extra skills to work in a large city?","authors":"Harm Jan Rouwendal, Sierdjan Koster","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104094","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104094","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores the relationship between job complexity and agglomeration. For this, we assess whether vacancies in larger cities require more skills than vacancies for similar jobs elsewhere. The use of online job vacancy data allows us to empirically analyse the spatial variation in skill requirements within occupations. Results show that jobs in dense areas require extra skills compared to similar jobs in sparsely populated areas. Moreover, we show that jobs in large cities require a more diverse skill set. This indicates that urban jobs are more complex. These findings help explain the productivity premium of cities and spatial inequalities between urban and rural labour markets.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 104094"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143549547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Finn McGuire , Rita Santos , Peter C. Smith , Nicholas Stacey , Ijeoma Edoka , Noemi Kreif
{"title":"Health facility quality peer effects: Are financial incentives necessary?","authors":"Finn McGuire , Rita Santos , Peter C. Smith , Nicholas Stacey , Ijeoma Edoka , Noemi Kreif","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104091","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104091","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper examines peer effects in health facility quality in South Africa. Specifically, we investigate whether health facilities adapt their quality in response to changes in the quality of peer facilities, even in the absence of material incentives for doing so. Using a national census of public primary health facilities, we exploit data on structural and process components of quality, examining how these measures change from 2015 to 2017. We examine facilities strategic interactions using both a spatial econometrics approach and a more traditional quasi-experimental approach exploiting a quality improvement program as a source of exogeneous variation to estimate the response of facilities to changes in the quality of their peers. We find evidence of quality peer effects between primary health care facilities, with a 10-unit increase in average District facility quality causing facilities to increase their quality by 3.6 units. Given the lack of financial incentives, we propose prosocial motivation and reputational concerns as the mechanism inducing facilities to respond to changes in peer quality. This finding is consistent with recent literature which has stressed the role measurement and public reporting can play in improving public service, and particularly health care, provision. Importantly, our findings have significant policy implications suggesting the provision of relative performance information, allowing for peer comparisons, can induce a form of quality yardstick competition and be a credible quality improvement policy which may be considered alongside health financing reforms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 104091"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143609623","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adriano Borges Costa , P. Christopher Zegras , Siqi Zheng
{"title":"Roads, transit and spatial patterns of urbanization in São Paulo: Evidence from the second half of the twentieth century","authors":"Adriano Borges Costa , P. Christopher Zegras , Siqi Zheng","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104092","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104092","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article presents evidence of distinct long-term impacts from road and rail infrastructures on urban outgrowth and densification in São Paulo, Brazil (1947–1997) within a Global South context. Using long-difference ordinary least squares models and an instrumental variable approach, we find that the construction of avenues and arterial roads across urbanized areas drove urban expansion and accounted for forty percent of the outgrowth during this 50-year period. In contrast, rail transit investments fostered vertical neighborhood development responsible for one-third of the increase in floor area ratio, while also promoting land use specialization by attracting commercial buildings to central areas and stimulating residential real estate development in peripheral zones. Our findings align with patterns observed in the Global North, reinforcing the broader relationship between transportation investments and urban form.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"112 ","pages":"Article 104092"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143706529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anthony Lepinteur , Giorgia Menta , Sofie R. Waltl
{"title":"Equal price for equal place? Demand-driven racial discrimination in the housing market","authors":"Anthony Lepinteur , Giorgia Menta , Sofie R. Waltl","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104089","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104089","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We presented participants to an online study in Luxembourg with fictitious real-estate advertisements, tasking them to appraise the described properties. A random subset was also shown sellers’ surnames, strongly framed to signal their origins. All else equal, sellers with sub-Saharan African surnames were systematically offered lower prices — amounting to an appraisal penalty of EUR 20,000. This figure is highly heterogeneous and can amount up to around EUR 58,000 for older and low-educated participants. We provide evidence that the appraisal bias likely passes through onto final sales prices and that it may be largely due to statistical rather than taste-based discrimination.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104089"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143480671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yong Bao , Timothy N. Bond , Ruiting Sun , Xueping Xiong
{"title":"Voluntary retirement savings in China: A spatial ordered probit approach","authors":"Yong Bao , Timothy N. Bond , Ruiting Sun , Xueping Xiong","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104090","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104090","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper employs a spatial ordered probit model to study people’s voluntary retirement savings decisions using survey data collected in 2017 in China, where savings are recorded in a set of discrete ordered categories. To account for spillover effects and cross-sectional correlations, induced by for example omitted factors, we construct spatial connectivity matrices based on age and education for people located in the same province. We estimate the model using a Bayeisan scheme and discuss how to calculate various marginal effects, including those from nonstandard covariates like squared, binary, and multicategorical variables. Our empirical results indicate strong evidence of positive correlation in voluntary retirement savings decisions among high-income and low-income workers in both rural and urban areas. We find that participation in the government-managed basic pension is the strongest predictor of having high voluntary retirement savings, while the effects of income and gender vary across income-area groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104090"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143308693","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Work-from-home and cities: An elementary spatial model","authors":"Jan K. Brueckner","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104086","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104086","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper analyzes the urban impacts of hybrid WFH in the simplest possible model, relying on Leontief utility and production functions and other simplifying assumptions. The analysis shows that introduction of WFH raises both the wage and household land consumption (raising worker utility) while shrinking the size of the business district and reducing business land rent. When WFH requires home work space, the city’s overall spatial size increases, with residential rents rising in the suburbs while falling near the center. The decline in business rent and the rotation of the residential rent contour match empirical evidence showing that WFH reduces office-building values and flattens the residential rent gradient.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104086"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143163040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Administrative areas and regional identity formation: The case of East Germany","authors":"Stefanie Gäbler , Kim Leonie Kellermann","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104088","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104088","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Changing regional administrative structures may have unintended consequences for citizens’ identification with their respective regions. We exploit a historical quasi-experiment to provide novel evidence on the formation of sub-national identities with changing administrative boundaries. During the German Reunification in 1990, federal states in East Germany were re-established. Some counties were located at the intersection of former GDR districts and historical federal states, creating uncertainty about their future state affiliation. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that in counties with initially unclear state affiliation, voter turnout in state elections after 1990 decreases by up to 2.5 percentage points. Turnout in national and local elections does not show significant difference. We argue that the uncertainty about their regional affiliation diminished citizens’ political engagement by undermining their identification with the federal state level.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104088"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143163037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Leases over real property","authors":"Dylan R. Clarke","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104087","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104087","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper develops a model in which housing incurs a property damage for which the tenant must sue in order to be made whole. The model is analyzed under both market rents and rent control regimes, as well as for tenants with limited wealth, bilateral (tenant) investment, coinsurance, and rent abatement. The model facilitates the evaluation of several policies, such as rent control, landlord–tenant laws, income redistribution, tenant’s insurance, and rent abatement. The model makes several predictions which are consistent with empirical findings in housing economics, such as why the poor occupy housing of worse condition and how laws shifting liability onto the landlord increase the quality of housing for poor tenants as well as increase rent prices. It also nests classic hypotheses, such as the Calabresi’s efficiency of strict liability rules and the least cost avoider, in addition to clarifications on Friedman’s prediction that rent control decreases investment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104087"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143163033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Santiago Acerenza , Nestor Gandelman , Daniel Misail
{"title":"Neighborhood impacts on human capital accumulation of adolescents and young adults in Montevideo","authors":"Santiago Acerenza , Nestor Gandelman , Daniel Misail","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104085","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2025.104085","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores the causal impacts of the neighborhood of residence on education outcomes for adolescents and young adults (15–24 years old) in Montevideo. We analyze educational trends from 1992 to 2019, revealing persistence and pronounced geographical segmentation between the affluent southeast and the more disadvantaged outskirts of the city. We model the neighborhood effects through the neighborhood average education level. We estimate their causal impact using a control function for addressing selection on unobservables. We find statistically significant results of a relatively large magnitude. We address heterogeneity of the effects and find that neighborhood effects are stronger for boys than girls, that family income buffers neighborhood effects, and that household education level and neighborhood education level are complements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104085"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143163039","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ethnicity and health at work during the COVID-19","authors":"Joan Madia , Francesco Moscone , Catia Nicodemo","doi":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2024.104083","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2024.104083","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores how health-work-related illnesses and injuries have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic for different ethnic groups and by gender. We find that not all groups were affected in the same way. While almost all men in all ethnic groups were on average less likely to work during the pandemic period, women were more likely to work. We also find that Mixed Ethnic and Pakistani women who reported a higher probability of working in the reference week had a higher risk of illness/injuries at work. Meanwhile, White men and Other ethnic groups with a reduced probability of working during the pandemic had a lower risk of illness/injuries at work. Long-term illness varied by ethnicity and gender, with men experiencing a reduction and women an increase in physical and mental health issues. This research provides valuable insights into the multifaceted impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health and work patterns of different ethnic groups and gender. Understanding and identifying these disparities is crucial for formulating targeted policies aimed at mitigating adverse effects and promoting equitable outcomes in regional studies and urban economics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48196,"journal":{"name":"Regional Science and Urban Economics","volume":"111 ","pages":"Article 104083"},"PeriodicalIF":3.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143163041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}