Revenue-Recycling and the Efficiency and Spatial Distributional Impacts of Development Taxes

Recent studies that compare the efficiency and distributional impacts of alternative instruments to curb sprawl typically ignore what to do with the revenues from anti-sprawl policies, such as development taxes. This paper extends first-best analysis of development taxes aimed at preserving land at the urban fringe to account for interactions with other distortions within the urban system. By incorporating urban decline at the city core, which in turn, generates negative neighborhood spillover effects and extra pressure for development at the urban fringe, we provide a more complete framework to evaluate the efficiency and distributional impacts of development taxes. We consider three potential alternative schemes to recycle the revenues: lump sum recycling, earmarked revenues to purchase conservation easements that permanently save open space and earmarked revenues to subsidize a revitalization program at the city core. In this setting, when revenues from the development tax are earmarked to fund a conservation easement there is an additional welfare gain (relative to the lump sum case) because the threat of future conversation of open space is fully eliminated. Similarly, when revenues are earmarked to fund a revitalization program at the city core, there are additional sources of welfare that make this policy preferred relative to the lump-sum recycling scheme. Finally, we also explore the spatial distributional impacts of these three alternative recycling schemes.Urban Sprawl, Revenue-Recycling, Regional Coordination, Spatial Modeling, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q31, R14, R38,

Wealth and Economic Mobility

Reviews studies of how wealth shapes intergenerational mobility through education, neighborhood choice, and occupational choice. Examines the roles of intergenerational assets transfers, credit constraints, and home ownership in children's mobility

Valuing access to water - a spatial hedonic approach applied to Indian cities

An important infrastructure policy issue for rapidly growing cities in developing countries is how to raise fiscal revenues to finance basic services in a fair and efficient manner. This paper applies hedonic analysis that explicitly accounts for spatial spillovers to derive the value of improved access to water in the Indian cities of Bhopal and Bangalore. The findings suggest that by looking at individual or private benefits only, the analysis may underestimate the overall social welfare from investing in service supply especially among the poorest residents. The paper further demonstrates how policy simulations based on these estimates help prioritize spatial targeting of interventions according to efficiency and equity criteria.Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Housing&Human Habitats,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water and Industry,Water Use

Achieving regional growth dynamics in African agriculture

"This study focuses on public investments and policy reforms for leveraging growth spillovers at the African regional level. A conceptual framework that is built on the endogenous growth theory and the new economic geography is presented first to gain a better understanding of the underlying theory and empirical evidence on regional integration and growth spillovers. In order to demonstrate the potential benefits from greater cross-border technology spillovers in Africa, as well as from trade liberalization and investment in infrastructure, results from ex-ante simulations using partial and general equilibrium models are then presented and discussed. Results indicate that sizeable regional spillover benefits can be obtained by permitting greater crossborder transfer and adoption of improved technologies, sometimes as large as three to four times the gain in direct benefits obtained within the innovating countries. This is especially true for commodities like mutton, groundnuts and sorghum. Moreover, reducing trade barriers between African countries in agriculture and non-agriculture can significantly increase intra-regional agricultural trade and raise economic growth rates. The simulations also demonstrate that improving transportation infrastructure generates the most encouraging results, increasing agricultural income by as much as 10%. The findings in this study confirm that greater regional cooperation in agricultural research and development, harmonization of regulatory standards for technology adaptation, and harmonization and liberalization of trade systems within the region could play a crucial role in expanding opportunities for African farmers. Therefore, strengthening linkages among African countries through infrastructure, agricultural R&D, and expansion of intraregional trade can generate large spillovers and leverage regional growth." Authors' AbstractComputable General Equilibrium Models C68 ,

Spatial aspects of infant mortality and informal workers: The case of Ceara State -Brazil

High levels of infant mortality and high participation of informal workers in the labor market are living conditions faced by many developing countries. In Ceara State - Brazil, their trends during the last three decades have followed opposite directions. Whereas infant mortality has decreased substantially since the 1980s, suggesting that the country is on the right path to development, the labor market has presented increasing levels of informality, which challenges traditional theories of development. The essays of this thesis aim to investigate some aspects of these two phenomena. In particular, the first essay offers an approach to analyze if the health care program known as the Community Health Worker Program has been an important factor explaining the downward trend in infant mortality. Moreover, it provides a framework to identify if the effectiveness of this program is under-estimated when traditional methods of evaluation do not consider its spatial spillover effect. This effect occurs when improvements in this health care program in one municipality affect not only infant mortality in that municipality but also the infant mortality of neighboring municipalities. The second essay studies heterogeneity among informal workers and investigates possibilities of social interactions and spatial segmentation among different types of workers. Besides sharing the same study site (Ceara Sate - Brazil), both essays incorporate and empirically verify the hypotheses that neighborhood conditions (at city or urban sector levels) play an important role in: (i) amplifying the benefits of health care programs, and (ii) affecting workers\u27 behavior in the labor market

Fiscal Multipliers and the Labour Market in the Open Economy

Several contributions have recently assessed the size of fiscal multipliers both in RBC models and New Keynesian models. None of the studies considers a model with frictional labour markets which is a crucial element, particularly at times in which much of the fiscal stimulus has been directed toward labour market measures. We use an open economy model (more specifically, a currency area calibrated to the European Monetary Union) with labour market frictions in the form of labour turnover costs and workers’ heterogeneity to measure fiscal multipliers. We compute short and long run multipliers and open economy spillovers for five types of fiscal packages: pure demand stimuli and consumption tax cuts return very small multipliers; income tax cuts and hiring subsidies deliver larger multipliers, as they reduce distortions in sclerotic labour markets; short-time work (German "Kurzarbeit") returns negative short-run multipliers, but stabilises employment. Our model highlights a novel dimension through which multipliers operate, namely the labour demand stimulus which occurs in a model with non-walrasian labour markets.fiscal multipliers, fiscal packages, labour market frictions

Lessons Learned and Next Steps in Energy Efficiency Measurement and Attribution: Energy Savings, Net to Gross, Non-Energy Benefits, and Persistence of Energy Efficiency Behavior

This white paper examines four topics addressing evaluation, measurement, and attribution of direct and indirect effects to energy efficiency and behavioral programs: Estimates of program savings (gross); Net savings derivation through free ridership / net to gross analyses; Indirect non-energy benefits / impacts (e.g., comfort, convenience, emissions, jobs); and, Persistence of savings

Housing and Mobility Toolkit for San Mateo County

Since the end of the Great Recession, San Mateo County has attracted new workers at a record rate without building anywhere near enough housing. This jobs-housing imbalance drives the cost of housing up and forces many moderate and lower-income employees and their families out of the County. A lack of access to quality affordable housing in the County and the entire Bay Area along with limited transportation options means that an increased number of employees drive in and out of the County every workday. The resultant congestion, gridlock, and long commutes along with other negative environmental, social, and economic impacts create a major concern for communities in the County and beyond. Clearly, this problem has two distinct but interrelated dimensions: housing development and transportation planning. A select group of Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) Research Associates worked closely with representatives from the San Mateo County Home for All initiative to help address this challenge by developing a toolkit of successful case studies with a holistic approach to housing development and transportation planning

The Decentralization Tradeoff for Complementary Spillovers

We examine a symmetric two-district setting with spillovers of local public spending where a spill-in from the foreign spending is not a substitute, but a complement to domestic spending. Specifically, we assume production of two district-specific public goods out of two complementary district-specific inputs. We compare equilibria in non-cooperative decentralization and cooperative centralization for different spillovers, complementarities and cost-division rules, and control for the effects of strategic delegation and the feasibility of voluntary contributions to the input in the foreign district. We find that centralization welfare-dominates decentralization in most institutional settings and for a wide range of parameters, yet we can also identify necessary and sufficient conditions for decentralization to welfare-dominate centralization. The setup features three novelties: In the absence of transfers, welfare in decentralization increases in spillovers, strategic delegation in decentralization improves welfare, and centralized provision may be non-monotonic in spillovers.Spillover, Spill-in, Strategic complementarity, Decentralization theorem

Beyond Biomass: Valuing Genetic Diversity in Natural Resource Management

Strategies for increasing production of goods from working and natural systems have raised concerns that the diversity of species on which these services depend may be eroding. This loss of natural capital threatens to homogenize global food supplies and compromise the stability of human welfare. We assess the trade off between artificial augmentation of biomass and degradation of biodiversity underlying a populations' ability to adapt to shocks. Our application involves the augmentation of wild stocks of salmon. Practices in this system have generated warnings that genetic erosion may lead to a loss of the “portfolio effect” and the value of this loss is not accounted for in decision making. We construct an integrated bioeconomic model of salmon biomass and genetic diversity. Our results show how practices that homogenize natural systems can still generate positive returns. However, the substitution of more physical capital and labor for natural capital must be maintained for gains to persist, weakens the capacity for adaptation should this investment cease, and can cause substantial loss of population wildness. We apply an emerging optimization method—approximate dynamic programming—to solve the model without simplifying restrictions imposed previously