Urban Economics Association

4th Meeting of the Urban Economics Association

At the 56th Annual North American Meetings of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI)
November 18-21, 2009
Grand Hyatt, San Francisco

Program Committee: Tom Holmes (Minnesota), Henry Overman (LSE), Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (Princeton), and Kurt Schmidheiny (Pompeu Fabra)

Conference Program

Session 01A. Thu 8:00-10:00. Local Public Goods and Taxation I (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Steven Craig (University of Houston), Janet Kohlhase* (University of Houston), D. Andrew Austin (Congressional Research Service), Stephanie Botello (EmployStats)
   Cities and Suburbs: Expenditure Patterns in the Urban Fiscal System
2. Oded Hochman* (Ben Gurion University)
   Efficient Agglomeration of Spatial Clubs
3. Alex Anas ( State University of New York at Buffalo), David Pines* (Tel Aviv University)
   Optimal structures of property tax in an urban setting as an optimal commodity tax (Ramsey problem)

Chair: David Pines

Discussants: 1. David Pines (pines@post.tau.ac.il), 2. Janet Kohlhase (jkohlhase@uh.edu), 3. Oded Hochman (oded@bgu.ac.il)

Session 01B. Thu 8:00-10:00. Urban Theory I (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Thomas Holmes* (University of Minesota), Wen-Tai Hsu (Chinese University Hong Kong), Sanghoon Lee (University of British Columbia)
   A Tractable Model of Regional Agglomeration: Eaton-Kortum meets Krugman
2. Kristian Behrens (Department of Economics, Université du Québec à Montréal), Yoshitsugu Kanemoto* (Graduate School of Economics and Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo), Yasusada Murata (Advanced Research Institute for the Sciences and Humanities (ARISH), Nihon University)
   The Henry George Theorem in a second-best world
3. Hiroshi Aiura (Oita University), Yasuhiro Sato* (Osaka University)
   A model of urban demography
4. Marcus Berliant (Washington University in St. Louis), Chia-Ming Yu* (Washington University in St. Louis)
   Locational Signaling and Agglomeration

Chair: Chia-Ming Yu

Discussants: 1. Chia-Ming Yu (cyua@artsci.wustl.edu), 2. Thomas Holmes (holmes@umn.edu), 3. Yoshitsugu Kanemoto (kanemoto@e.u-tokyo.ac.jp), 4. Yasuhiro Sato (ysato@econ.osaka-u.ac.jp)

Session 02A. Thu 13:30-15:30. Housing I (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Lu Han* (University of Toronto)
   The Risk-Return Relationship in Housing Markets: Financial Risk versus Consumption Insurance
2. Karl Case (Wellesley College), John Cotter (University College Dublin), Stuart Gabriel* (UCLA)
   Housing Investment, Risk, and Return: New Evidence from a Housing Asset-Pricing Model
3. Hideo Konishi* (Boston College)
   Entrepreneurial Land Developers: Local Externalities and Mixed Housing Developments
4. Thomas Davidoff* (University of British Columbia)
   Regional variation in home price appreciation and long-term care insurance demand

Chair: Thomas Davidoff

Discussants: 1. Thomas Davidoff (thomas.davidoff@sauder.ubc.ca), 2. Lu Han (lu.han@rotman.utoronto.ca), 3. Stuart Gabriel (stuart.gabriel@anderson.ucla.edu), 4. Hideo Konishi (hideo.konishi@bc.edu)

Session 02B. Thu 13:30-15:30. Empirical Analysis of Agglomeration I (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Yasuhiro Sato (Osaka University), Takatoshi Tabuchi (University of Tokyo), Kazuhiro Yamamoto* (Osaka University)
   Market Size and Entrepreneurship
2. Marius Brülhart* (University of Lausanne), Céline Carrère (University of Clermont-Ferrand 1), Federico Trionfetti (University of Aix-Marseille)
   Decomposing Agglomeration Effects: How Wages and Employment Adjust to Improved Market Access
3. Maarten Bosker* (University of Groningen), Eltjo Buringh (Utrecht University), Jan Luiten van Zanden (Utrecht University)
   City seeds: the origins of the European city system
4. Mark Partridge (Ohio State University), Dan Rickman* (Oklahoma State University), Kamar Ali (University of Saskatchewan), M. Rose Olfert (University of Saskatchewan)
   Recent Spatial Growth Dynamics in Wages and Housing Costs: Proximity to Urban Production Externalities and Consumer Amenities

Chair: Dan Rickman

Discussants: 1. Dan Rickman (dan.rickman@okstate.edu), 2. Kazuhiro Yamamoto (yamamoto@econ.osaka-u.ac.jp), 3. Marius Brülhart (marius.brulhart@unil.ch), 4. Maarten Bosker (e.m.bosker@rug.nl)

Session 03A. Thu 16:00-18:00. Cities in China (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Chengri Ding* (University of Maryland), Xingshuo Zhao (University of Maryland)
   Development of Housing and Land Markets and Urban Spatial Structure:Evidence from Beijing
2. Hongbin Cai (Peking University), Vernon Henderson* (Brown University), Qinghua Zhang (Peking University)
   China’s Land Market Auctions: Evidence of Corruption?
3. Maarten Bosker (University of Groningen), Steven Brakman (University of Groningen ), Harry Garretsen* (University of Groningen ), Marc Schramm (Utrecht University)
   Agglomeration, Labor Mobility and Wages across Chinese Cities: Urban Development in China and New Economic Geography
4. Benjamin Faber* (London School of Economics)
   Integration and the Periphery: The Unintended Effects of New Highways in a Developing Country

Chair: Benjamin Faber

Discussants: 1. Benjamin Faber (b.s.faber@lse.ac.uk), 2. Chengri Ding (cding@umd.edu), 3. Vernon Henderson (J_Henderson@brown.edu), 4. Harry Garretsen (j.h.garretsen@rug.nl)

Session 03B. Thu 16:00-18:00. Urban and Regional Policy (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Antonio Accetturo* (Bank of Italy), Guido de Blasio (Bank of Italy)
   Policies for Local Development: An Evaluation of Italy’s “Patti Territoriali”
2. Leo Feler* (Brown University)
   Capital Subsidies and Agglomeration Economies: Evidence from Brazilian Cities
3. Robert Chirinko (University of Illinois at Chicago), Daniel Wilson* (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
   Job Creation Tax Credits and Job Growth: Whether, Where, and When?
4. Leah Brooks* (University of Toronto), Justin Phillips (Columbia University)
   When Do Cities Bind Themselves? The Existence and Extent of Locally-Imposed Tax and Expenditure Limits

Chair: Leah Brooks

Discussants: 1. Leah Brooks (leah.brooks@utoronto.ca), 2. Antonio Accetturo (antonio.accetturo@bancaditalia.it), 3. Leo Feler (leo_feler@brown.edu), 4. Daniel Wilson (daniel.wilson@sf.frb.org)

Session 04A. Fri 8:00-10:00. Transportation and Commuting (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Olaf Jonkeren (VU University, Amsterdam), Jos van Ommeren* (VU University, Amsterdam), Piet Rietveld (VU University, Amsterdam)
   Endogenous freight prices, joint costs and trade imbalances
2. Mogens Fosgerau (Technical University of Denmark), Kenneth Small* (University of California at Irvine)
   Marginal congestion cost on a dynamic network with queue spillbacks
3. Bert Lue* (University of Michigan), David Albouy (University of Michigan)
   Driving to Opportunities: Commuting and Sub-Metropolitan Quality-of-Life Measures
4. Raven Molloy (Federal Reserve Board of Governors), Hui Shan* (Federal Reserve Board of Governors)
   I want my SUV: The Effect of Gas Prices on Household Location

Chair: Hui Shan

Discussants: 1. Hui Shan (hui.shan@frb.gov), 2. Jos van Ommeren (jommeren@feweb.vu.nl), 3. Kenneth Small (ksmall@uci.edu), 4. Bert Lue (bertlue@umich.edu)

Session 04B. Fri 8:00-10:00. Quantitative Methods (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Francisco Martinez (University of Chile), Alex Anas* (State University of New York at Buffalo)
   Multinomial Logit as a Model of Stochastic Matching with Bilateral Rational Expectations
2. Kurt Schmidheiny* (Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Marius Brülhart (University of Lausanne)
   On the Equivalence of Location Choice Models: Conditional Logit, Nested Logit and Poisson
3. Vernon Henderson (Brown University), Adam Storeygard* (Brown University), David N. Weil (Brown University)
   Measuring Economic Growth from Outer Space
4. Tatsuhito Kono* (Tohoku University), Kirti Kusum Joshi (Tohoku University), Yuichi Morita (Tohoku University)
   Maximum and Minimum Floor Area Ratio Regulations for a monocentric city with Traffic Congestion

Chair: Tatsuhito Kono

Discussants: 1. Tatsuhito Kono (kono@plan.civil.tohoku.ac.jp), 2. Alex Anas (alexanas@buffalo.edu), 3. Kurt Schmidheiny (kurt.schmidheiny@upf.edu), 4. Adam Storeygard (adam_storeygard@brown.edu)

Session 05A. Fri 10:30-12:30. Local Productivity (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Pierre M Picard* (University of Luxembourg)
   Economic Geography and the Choice of Product Quality
2. Antonio Accetturo* (Bank of Italy, Milan branch), Matteo Bugamelli (Research Department, Banca d'Italia), Andrea Lamorgese (Research Department, Banca d'Italia)
   Immigration and investment: some theory and evidence on Italian firm level data
3. Howard Bodenhorn (Clemson University), David Cuberes* (University of Alicante)
   Financial Development and City Growth
4. David Albouy* (University of Michigan)
   What Are Cities Worth? Land Rents, Local Productivity, and the Capitalization of Amenity Values

Chair: David Albouy

Discussants: 1. David Albouy (albouy@umich.edu), 2. Pierre M Picard (pierre.picard@uni.lu), 3. Antonio Accetturo (antonio.accetturo@bancaditalia.it), 4. David Cuberes (cuberes@merlin.fae.ua.es)

Session 05B. Fri 10:30-12:30. Urban Theory II: System of Cities (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Yannis Ioannides* (Tufts University)
   Labor Turnover and Urban Structure
2. Wen-Tai Hsu* (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
   Central Place Theory and City Size Distribution
3. Nathan Seegert* (University of Michigan), David Albouy (University of Michigan)
   The Optimal Distribution of Population Across Cities and the Private-Social Wedge
4. Takatoshi Tabuchi* (University of Tokyo)
   Self-organizing Marketplaces

Chair: Takatoshi Tabuchi

Discussants: 1. Takatoshi Tabuchi (ttabuchi@e.u-tokyo.ac.jp), 2. Yannis Ioannides (yannis.ioannides@tufts.edu), 3. Wen-Tai Hsu (wthsu@cuhk.edu.hk), 4. Nathan Seegert (seegert@umich.edu)

Session 06A. Fri 14:45-16:45. Housing II: Crisis (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Stuart Gabriel (University of California, Los Angeles), Stuart Rosenthal* (Syracuse University)
   Do the GSEs Expand the Supply of Mortgage Credit? New Evidence of Crowd Out in the Secondary Mortgage Market
2. Neil Bhutta* (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), Hui Shan (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System), Jane Dokko (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System)
   Default Decisions of Underwater Subprime Borrowers
3. Carlos Garriga* (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), Don Schlagenhauf (Florida State University)
   Home Equity, Foreclosures, and Bail-outs
4. Satyajit Chatterjee* (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), Burcu Eyigungor (Koc University)
   Foreclosures and House Price Dynamics in Local Housing Markets

Chair: Satyajit Chatterjee

Discussants: 1. Satyajit Chatterjee (chatterjee.satyajit@gmail.com), 2. Stuart Rosenthal (ssrosent@maxwell.syr.edu), 3. Neil Bhutta (neil.bhutta@frb.gov), 4. Carlos Garriga (carlos.garriga@stls.frb.org)

Session 06B. Fri 14:45-16:45. Local Public Goods and Taxation II (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. William Strange* (University of Toronto), Leah Brooks (University of Toronto)
   The Micro-Empirics of Collective Action: The Case of Business Improvement Districts
2. Ron Cheung* (Florida State University), Chris Cunningham (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta)
   Voters Hold the Key: Lock-in, Mobility and the Portability of Property Tax Exemptions
3. Gabriel Ahlfeldt* (University of Hamburg)
   Blessing or curse? Gentrification, appreciation and resistance within the Berlin “Mediaspree”
4. Matthew Turner* (University of Toronto)
   The effects of land transfer taxes on real estate markets: Evidence from a natural experiment in Toronto

Chair: Matthew Turner

Discussants: 1. Matthew Turner (mturner@chass.utoronto.ca), 2. William Strange (wstrange@rotman.utoronto.ca), 3. Ron Cheung (rcheung@fsu.edu), 4. Gabriel Ahlfeldt (ahlfeldt@econ.uni-hamburg.de)

Session 07A. Sat 8:00-10:00. Structural Models (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Holger Sieg* (Carnegie Mellon University), Dennis Epple (Carnegie Mellon University), Judy Geyer (Carnegie Mellon University )
   Excess Demand and Rationing in Equilibrium in the Market for Public Housing
2. Kelly Bishop* (Washington University in St. Louis), Christopher Timmins (Duke University)
   Simple, Consistent Estimation of the Marginal Willingness to Pay Function: Recovering Rosen's Second Stage without Instrumental Variables
3. Patrick Bayer (Duke University), Robert McMillen (University of Toronto), Alvin Murphy* (Washington University in St Louis), Christopher Timmins (Duke University)
   A Dynamic Model of Demand for Houses and Neighborhoods

Chair: Alvin Murphy

Discussants: 1. Alvin Murphy (murphya@wustl.edu), 2. Holger Sieg (holgers@andrew.cmu.edu), 3. Kelly Bishop (kbishop@wustl.edu)

Session 07B. Sat 8:00-10:00. Urban Theory III: Heterogenous Workers (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Sanghoon Lee* (University of British Columbia), Qiang Li (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics)
   Wages, Rents, and City Size Distribution
2. Frederic Robert-Nicoud* (University of Geneva), Kristian Behrens (UQAM), Gilles Duranton (University of Toronto)
   Sorting, selection and agglomeration
3. Matthias Wrede* (University of Marburg)
   Heterogenous Skills and Homogeneous Land: Segmentation and Agglomeration
4. Kristian Behrens* (Université du Québec à Montréal), Frédéric Robert-Nicoud (Université de Genève)
   Agglomeration, selection and accessibility in an urban system

Chair: Kristian Behrens

Discussants: 1. Kristian Behrens (behrens.kristian@uqam.ca), 2. Sanghoon Lee (sanghoon.lee@sauder.ubc.ca), 3. Frederic Robert-Nicoud (frederic.robert-nicoud@unige.ch), 4. Matthias Wrede (wrede@wiwi.uni-marburg.de)

Session 08A. Sat 10:30-12:30. Empirical Analysis of Agglomeration II (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Steve Gibbons (LSE), Henry Overman* (LSE), Matti Sarvimaki (LSE)
   The impact of subsidizing commercial space in deprived neighbourhoods
2. Jason Faberman* (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), Matthew Freedman (Cornell University)
   Reallocation, Selection and the Sources of Earnings Growth in Cities
3. Jorge De la Roca* (CEMFI), Diego Puga (IMDEA, Universidad Carlos III and CEPR)
   Who benefits the most from working in a dense city? Evidence from micro-data for Spain
4. Nathaniel Baum-Snow* (Brown University), Ronni Pavan (University of Rochester)
   Understanding the City Size Wage Gap

Chair: Nathaniel Baum-Snow

Discussants: 1. Nathaniel Baum-Snow (Nathaniel_Baum-Snow@brown.edu), 2. Henry Overman (h.g.overman@lse.ac.uk), 3. Jason Faberman (Jason.Faberman@phil.frb.org), 4. Jorge De la Roca (jdelaroca@cemfi.es)

Session 08B. Sat 10:30-12:30. Externalities I: Neighbourhood Effects (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Yves Zenou* (Stockholm University)
   Social Interactions and Labor Market Outcomes in Cities
2. Felix Weinhardt* (London School of Economics)
   Moving into the Projects: Social Housing Neighborhoods and School Performance in England
3. Abdul Munasib* (Oklahoma State University)
   Housing Tenure Choice Implications of Social Networks: A Structural Model Approach
4. Edward Coulson* (Penn State University )
   Housing prices and neighborhood homeownership and vacancies

Chair: Edward Coulson

Discussants: 1. Edward Coulson (fyj@psu.edu), 2. Yves Zenou (yves.zenou@ne.su.se), 3. Felix Weinhardt (f.j.weinhardt@lse.ac.uk), 4. Abdul Munasib (munasib@okstate.edu)

Session 09A. Sat 13:30-15:30. Local Public Goods and Taxation III (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Jordi Jofre-Monseny* (Universitat de Barcelona), Albert Solé-Ollé (Universitat de Barcelona)
   Is agglomeration taxable?
2. Hyun-Ju Koh* (University of Munich), Riedel Nadine (Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation)
   Taxing Agglomeration Rents: The Importance of Being Different
3. Michael Pflüger* (University of Passau), Rainald Borck (University of Passau), Hyun-Ju Koh (University of Munich)
   Inefficient Lock-in and Subsidy Competition
4. Keith Ihlanfeldt* (Florida State University), Tom Mayock (Florida State University)
   Information, search, and house prices: Revisited

Chair: Keith Ihlanfeldt

Discussants: 1. Keith Ihlanfeldt (kihlanfe@fsu.edu), 2. Jordi Jofre-Monseny (jordi.jofre@ub.edu), 3. Hyun-Ju Koh (hyunju.koh@lrz.uni-muenchen.de), 4. Michael Pflüger (pflueger@uni-passau.de)

Session 09B. Sat 13:30-15:30. Urban Theory IV: Land Use (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Arthur O'Sullivan* (Lewis & Clark College), Robert Helsley (University of California, Berkeley)
   A Three-Dimensional Agent-Based Model of Urban Land Use
2. Wen-Jung Liang (Tamkang University), Chao-Cheng Mai (Academia Sinica), Jacques-François Thisse (CORE), Ping Wang* (Washington University in St. Louis)
   An Economic Theory of Marshallian Industrial Districts
3. Jan Brueckner (UC Irvine), Robert Helsley* (UC Berkeley)
   Sprawl and Blight
4. Klaus Desmet (Universidad Carlos III), Esteban Rossi-Hansberg* (Princeton University)
   Spatial Development

Chair: Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

Discussants: 1. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (erossi@princeton.edu), 2. Arthur O'Sullivan (arthuro@lclark.edu), 3. Ping Wang (pingwang@wustl.edu), 4. Robert Helsley (helsley@haas.berkeley.edu)

Session 10A. Sat 16:00-18:00. Externalities II: Knowledge Spillovers (San Francisco A - Theatre Level)

1. Marcus Berliant* (Washington University in St. Louis), Masahisa Fujita (Konan University)
   Culture and Diversity in Knowledge Creation
2. Oliver Falck (Ifo Institute for Economic Research), Michael Fritsch (University of Jena, School of Economics and Business Administration), Stephan Heblich* (Max Planck Institute of Economics)
   Bohemians, Human Capital, and Regional Economic Growth
3. Luis Cabral (New York University), Zhu Wang* (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City), Yi Xu (New York University)
   Network Effects and Geographic Concentration of Industry
4. Lall Ramrattan* (UC Berkeley Extension), Michael Szenberg (Pace University, Lubin School of Business)
   The Paradoxical Behavior of Regions in Response to Free Trade and Growth in the Post- Cold War Global Economy

Chair: Lall Ramrattan

Discussants: 1. Lall Ramrattan (lallram@netscape.net), 2. Marcus Berliant (berliant@artsci.wustl.edu), 3. Stephan Heblich (heblich@econ.mpg.de), 4. Zhu Wang (zhu.wang@kc.frb.org)

Session 10B. Sat 16:00-18:00. Housing III: Prices (San Francisco B - Theatre Level)

1. Christian A. L. Hilber* (London School of Economics), Wouter Vermeulen (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis & VU University)
   Supply Constraints and House Price Dynamics: Panel Data Evidence from England
2. Jos Van Ommeren* (VU University), Marnix Koopman (Delft University of Technology )
   Rent control and the value of apartment characteristics to households
3. John Chamblee (University of Georgia), Peter Colwell (University of Illinois), Carolyn Dehring* (University of Georgia), Craig Depken (University of North Carolina Charlotte)
   The Value of Conservation Restrictions
4. Andrew Haughwout* (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
   Vacant Land Price Trends in the US

Chair: Andrew Haughwout

Discussants: 1. Andrew Haughwout (andrew.haughwout@ny.frb.org), 2. Christian A. L. Hilber (c.hilber@lse.ac.uk), 3. Jos Van Ommeren (Jommeren@feweb.vu.nl), 4. Carolyn Dehring (cdehring@terry.uga.edu)

* Presenter