The Impact of Housing Vouchers on Mobility and Neighborhood Attributes

This article examines the effect of receiving a housing voucher on the mobility and neighborhood attributes of low‐income households. Housing policy has shifted toward vouchers in lieu of public housing projects to allow households to move away from high‐poverty areas. We use administrative records collected from an experiment to examine this issue. We find that households moved immediately after receiving the subsidy but did not relocate to lower poverty neighborhoods until several quarters later. Our findings suggest that recipients initially lease in nearby units to secure the subsidy, while continuing to search for housing in lower poverty neighborhoods.     

Financing Residential Development with Special Districts

This paper empirically examines the extent to which the property tax liability created by financing residential infrastructure using special district bonds is capitalized in house prices. We compare house prices for single‐family detached homes built within development districts to similar properties located outside development districts. Our hedonic specification includes the usual housing characteristics and controls for the influence of spatial attributes using Census Block Group “neighborhood” fixed effects. The preferred empirical specification restricts the data to neighborhoods that have numerous sales of recently constructed single‐family detached homes located both within and outside development districts. The empirical results indicate that house prices for homes located within development districts are lower than house prices for similar homes located outside of development districts, but the amount of property tax capitalization is significantly less than full. Results depend on our Generalized Methods of Moments estimator, which instruments property tax rates using the characteristics of development districts. We identify valid instruments by restricting transactions to properties located in rapidly growing suburban developments.     

Assessment Ratios and Property Tax Burdens in Norfolk,Virginia, 1974–75*

To examine the relationship between property taxes and neighborhood housing, this paper employed property tax assessment to sale price ratios (i.e. effective tax rates) of residential properties sold during the period beginning July 1, 1974 through June 30, 1975. The analysis was designed to question whether or not the property tax in Norfolk results in different tax burdens for neighborhoods with different income levels. The results indicate there are substantial variations in effective tax rates within neighborhoods as well as between neighborhoods. More interesting is the fact that the property tax appeared to be progressive, given the measure used. If inequities in administration did not exist, it would be much more progressive. Such relationships indicate the existence of problems with the administration of the property tax in Norfolk. An examination of possible problems is conducted and some recommendations are made for potential corrective measures.     

Do the urban poor face higher food prices? Evidence from Vietnam

Whether there is a poverty penalty, in terms of food prices, is unsettled in the literature after more than four decades of study. Unit values from household surveys suggest that prices vary with income while outlet surveys typically find food prices varying with store type but not with neighborhood income. Most outlet surveys are from rich countries, with just one spatially limited study from a developing country. In this paper we use especially collected food price data from metropolitan areas of Vietnam to test whether the urban poor face higher food prices. Food prices in low-income neighborhoods are 1% lower, on average, than in other neighborhoods. Unit values give a different answer to the question of whether the poor face higher prices and are not suited to answer such a question.     

Property taxes and rental housing: Evidence from China

We investigate the effect of property taxes on households’ rental income by exploiting regional variations in the introduction of property taxes in China in 2011. Using the propensity score matching combined with a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the rental income of households in pilot areas significantly increased after 2011. Hence, homeowners tend to shift the potential property tax burden to tenants. Additionally, this positive effect is driven by the extensive margin, rather than the intensive margin. Our finding is robust to various alternative specifications and subsample analysis. We then adopt a triple-difference model to show that the effect varies considerably across households that own residential premises in different regions and with different property characteristics.     

The Spatial Distribution of Housing-Related Ordinary Income Tax Benefits

We estimate how tax subsidies to owner-occupied housing are distributed spatially across the United States and find striking skewness. At the state level, the mean tax benefit per owned unit in 1990 ranged from $917 in South Dakota to $10,718 in Hawaii. The dispersion is slightly greater when benefit flows are measured at the metropolitan-area level. Even assuming the subsidies are funded in an income progressivity-neutral manner, a relatively few metro areas, primarily in California and the New York–Boston corridor, are shown to gain considerably while the vast majority of areas have relatively small gains or losses.     

Income, Location and Default: Some Implications for Community Lending

This paper investigates differences in default losses across income groups and neighborhoods, in an effort to see if there are significant differences between default experience on loans to low-income households or low-income neighborhoods and other loans. We find that while defaults and losses are somewhat higher in low-income neighborhoods, default behavior is similar in the sense that responses to negative equity are similar across neighborhoods, and remaining differences are small and might be explained by omitted variables such as those measuring credit history.     

Risk Segmentation of American Homes: Evidence from Denver

This article empirically examines the segmentation of house price risk across 99 ZIP‐code‐delineated neighborhoods in metropolitan Denver. The house price risk in each neighborhood is measured with the temporal variation of quarterly appreciation rates of the neighborhood house price index over the 2002–2007 period. Cross‐sectional regressions of neighborhood house price risk on the median household income and the percentage of population in poverty from the 2000 census data for the same neighborhoods provide strong evidence that the house price risk is significantly higher in low‐income/poor neighborhoods. Subperiod analyses further indicate that the risk segmentation exists in both a booming period (pre 2005:2) and a busting period (post 2005:3). The results indicate that homeownership can be a much riskier investment for low‐income/poor households.     

关于强化我国个人所得税收入分配功能的探析

通过对我国现行个人所得税收入分配功能的分析和定位可看出,我国目前贫富差距惊人,城乡收入差距悬殊．从基尼系数分析显示,我国已经步入了国际警戒线,造成这种情况的原因是我国个人所得税不能充分执行其调节收入分配的功能。通过对税收制度方面和税收征收管理方面缺失的研究,显示我国个人所得税收入调节功能存在着严重的缺陷,影响其功能发挥的原因有个人所得税没有体现税负公平的基本原则、个人收入所占的比重较低、调控客体不完全到位等。针对这些影响因素,文章提出了强化我国个人所得税收入分配功能的改革思路．主要是对个人所得税制课税模式、功能定位、税收扣除方式等方面的调整。     

Performance effects of top management team demographic faultlines in the process of product diversification

Expanding into new product areas is an important part of the growth strategy of many firms, but there is still more to learn about how it affects firm performance. We believe that as the top management team (TMT) is responsible for coordinating product expansion, looking there can yield valuable clues. We argue that diversification entails significant additional information processing and that this strains top managerial resources. We hypothesize that task‐related faultlines within the TMT may help it cope with product expansion while bio‐demographic faultlines may hinder it. We find support for these hypotheses on a longitudinal sample of 2,730 expansion steps made by 61 German firms between 1985 and 2007: task related faultline strength increases performance when diversifying, while bio‐demographic faultline strength decreases it. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Immigration,Capital Flows and Housing Prices

Research on immigration and real estate has found that immigrants lower house prices in immigrant destination neighborhoods. In this article, we find that this latter result is not globally true. Rather, we show that immigrants can raise neighborhood house prices, at least in the case of the wealthy immigrants that we study. We exploit a surprise suspension and subsequent closure of a popular investor immigration program in Canada to use a difference‐in‐differences methodology comparing wealthy immigrant destination census tracts to nondestination tracts. We find that the unexpected suspension of the program had a negative impact on house prices of 1.7–2.6% in the neighborhoods and market segments most favored by the investor immigrants. This leads to an approximate lower bound on the effect of capital inflows of 5%.     

Food deserts and diet-related health outcomes of the elderly

It is hypothesized that residents of neighborhoods with limited access to affordable and nutritious food face greater barriers to eating a healthy diet, which may in turn, result in worse health outcomes for them. Low-income elderly in urban areas may be uniquely affected by these so-called “food deserts” due to limited transportation options, strong attachments to local neighborhoods, fixed incomes, physical limitations in food shopping and meal preparation, and chronic health problems. Using the 2006, 2010, and 2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), the association between the food environment of elderly individuals living in urban Census tracts and their diet-related health was examined. Within urban areas, we find little evidence that food deserts negatively impact the health of lower income elderly individuals. Policies to address the needs of elderly residents of food deserts should be narrowly targeted and carefully justified.     

The Antecedents and Consequences of Affordable Value Innovations for Emerging Markets

Emerging markets offer tremendous growth opportunities for firms. While established multinational firms typically focus on premium segments in emerging markets, they often fail to leverage additional growth opportunities in so‐called good enough or low‐income segments in emerging markets. Customers in these low‐income markets have substantially different requirements and are very price sensitive. Theoretical and case‐based research suggests that innovating for these low‐income segments in emerging markets differs significantly from innovating for premium or traditional Western markets. We argue that tapping successfully into low‐income segments in emerging markets requires the development of new products that meet the low price expectations while at the same time offering also value to customers in these segments. We refer to these new products as affordable value innovations. We analyze the antecedents of affordable value innovation for emerging markets. We draw on institutional theory to derive three potentially relevant antecedents of affordable value innovation for emerging markets. These are bricolage, local embeddedness, and standardization. We test our hypotheses using multiple informant data from 47 multinational corporations involving 103 innovation projects that target low‐income customers in emerging markets. Our empirical analysis shows that all three antecedents have significant effects on the level of affordable value innovation: while bricolage and local embeddedness are positively related to the level of affordable value innovation, standardization has a negative impact. We also examine the relationship between the level of affordable value innovation and performance. We find evidence for our basic assumption that a firm's capability to develop and launch affordable value innovations is key to success in emerging markets. It indicates that a firm's investments in affordable value innovations for emerging markets pay off financially. Finally, a cross‐regional comparison of our data shows that the key findings on antecedents of affordable value innovation and its impact on performance do not vary across various emerging markets. Overall, our findings offer important implications for research on and the practice of innovation for low‐income segments in emerging markets.     

Do Tax Increment Finance Districts Stimulate Growth in Real Estate Values?

We use data on all Wisconsin municipalities during the period 1990–2003 to study the effect of tax increment finance (TIF) on economic development. We use appropriate statistical techniques to measure the impact of TIF and control variables on aggregate property values. We also examine the possibility communities that use TIF are self‐selected. We find little evidence that TIF has led to significant increases in aggregate property values or that TIF increases the total value of residential and manufacturing property within a community. Surprisingly, we find positive impacts for commercial TIF districts.     

Tenure Decisions Under a Progressive Tax Structure

Although certain provisions of the federal tax code provide subsidies to homeowners, others provide subsidies to renters in the form of tax incentives for investments in rental housing. We demonstrate that the renter subsidies dominate for households in low tax brackets whereas homeowner subsidies dominate for households in high tax brackets. Moreover the dollar magnitude involved in the tenure decision can easily push a household across tax brackets. Based on this relation, we identify an upper bound on the value of a dwelling that a household with a given income will prefer to own rather than rent for tax purposes. If the household were to choose a dwelling valued in excess of this household-specific upper bound, the tax effect would reverse and favor renting. This complication provides a possible explanation for apparent tax anomalies in tenure decisions, i.e., high income renters and/or low income homeowners.     

Tracing the source of liquidity for distressed housing markets

We show that profit-seeking institutional investors provide valuable liquidity and spur the recovery of distressed housing markets. Using a quasi-natural experiment wherein investors purchased prepackaged distressed home portfolios from government-sponsored enterprises, we find that transaction prices of properties located within 0.25 miles of bulk-sale properties increased by 1.4% more than homes located farther away. This positive price spillover effect helped reverse the discounts at which such properties were being sold prior to the bulk-sale event. The price spillover effect due to the bulk-sale event is greater for foreclosed homes (4.1%), homes similar to the bulk-sale homes (2.5%), and homes in highly distressed neighborhoods (7.0%). Our results highlight asset disposition through pooling and institutional participation as a potential market-driven channel for the recovery of distressed housing markets.     

Ultra-broadband investment and economic resilience: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

We study the role of ultra-broadband infrastructures in reducing the economic recession caused by the 2020 pandemic. We exploit the variation in GDP and employment that happened between 2019 and 2020 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, and we investigate whether UBB investments had an impact on economic resilience. We use micro-level data on UBB exposure in 2019 matched with municipality-level information on local GDP and employment levels based on tax declarations for the period 2019–2020. We address the endogeneity between UBB and local income by exploiting the distance from the closest backbone node of the upstream telecommunication network. We find that exposure to UBB mitigates the negative effect of the pandemic on local employment. One additional year of UBB exposure increases local employment by 1.3 percentage points. The effect is stronger in areas hit more severely by the pandemic, thus confirming the role of advanced broadband infrastructures on the economic resilience from negative shocks.     

Work and Volunteering: Longitudinal Relationships between Work‐Related Experiences and Volunteering Behaviour

This study examines the effect of work‐related experiences on employees’ engagement in community volunteering, using data from a British longitudinal panel of employees. Using a novel analytical approach that separates variation in volunteering due to within‐person changes in work conditions from variation due to between‐person work differences, we more robustly test existing and new hypotheses about the effects of work on volunteering. New to this literature, we find that commuting and satisfaction with job experiences are significant predictors of community volunteering, both the likelihood to volunteer and volunteering frequency. In turn, volunteering determinants previously explored with cross‐sectional data, such as managerial and professional jobs, employment sector and hourly paid contracts, are no longer statistically significant in the within‐person models. We discuss a number of important theoretical and practical consequences of these findings.     

The Variation of Homeowner Tax Preferences by Income, Age and Leverage

It is well known that owner-occupied housing has long received favorable tax treatment in the U.S. federal income tax system relative to a system in which all income, regardless of its source, is subject to taxation. As a result, many economists have argued that the United States overinvests in owner-occupied housing relative to the investment that would result from a neutral income tax system. In addition, the distribution of the subsidy is often viewed as inequitable because high-income households receive the largest subsidy per dollar of housing. This article uses the 2005 American Housing Survey, conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, to perform a microlevel analysis of the current magnitude and distribution of homeowner tax preferences. We then assess how the magnitude and distribution of tax preferences would be altered by replacement of the mortgage interest deduction with a 15% credit.     

Big House, Little House: Relative Size and Value

How do markets value relative house size in a neighborhood? The literature offers differing rationales: atypical houses sell for less, capitalization of property taxes penalizes larger and benefits smaller houses in mixed neighborhoods and conspicuous consumption reinforces the value of relatively larger houses and reduces the value of relatively smaller houses to consumers. Using a simultaneous price‐liquidity model that controls for neighborhood supply and demand conditions, this article finds a dominant tax capitalization effect on price and marketing time that appears to override any extant atypicality or conspicuous consumption effects.