Regular time: 17:10-18:40, Thursday; seminars are given in English.
December 23 (Tue) Motohiro Kumagai (Australian National University) and Kohei Takeda (National University of Singapore) 15:30–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Motohiro Kumagai (Australian National University) 15:30-17:00
Title: TBA
Kohei Takeda (National University of Singapore) 17:10–18:40
Title: TBA
This workshop is co-hosted with the Urban Economics Workshop at the University of Tokyo.
February 19 (Thr) Takuma Kamada (University of Osaka) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
March 5 (Thr) Jens Wrona (University of Duisburg-Essen) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: TBA
Abstract: TBA
January 16 (Thr) Shuhei Kaneko (UC Santa Barbara) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: The Role of Dental Health in Human Capital Formation During Adolescence
Abstract: Oral health is a vital component of our well-being, affecting both physical and mental health and significantly influencing one’s appearance. Having healthy teeth is strongly correlated with success in the labor market. Some economic studies suggest that this relationship is causal, indicating that good dental health during childhood leads to higher income in adulthood. Notably, this positive impact has been observed to be stronger among women. However, much less is known about the relevant mechanisms occurring between childhood and adulthood or why the impact is stronger among female workers. This study fills this research gap by using unique Japanese longitudinal survey data that tracked children born in a specific week in 2001, following them from birth through adolescence. We estimate the impacts of the frequency of their dental caries between the ages of 7 and 12 on several outcomes observed during adolescence, including health, non-cognitive skills, and educational attainment. To identify the causal link between dental health and outcomes observed during adolescence, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) approach, leveraging the natural fluoride concentration in tap water at the municipality level as an instrument for the frequency of dental caries in childhood. Aligning with previous findings, we find substantial sex heterogeneity in the effect. For males, childhood dental health does not affect their health, educational attainment, or non-cognitive measures. However, for females, more cavity-free years between ages 7 and 12 significantly reduce concerns about their appearance, thereby boosting their self-esteem during adolescence. Our results suggest that dental health particularly affects female students’ non-cognitive skills. Moreover, this result has substantial policy implications. Our IV estimate, which identifies the local average treatment effect triggered by the increase in fluoride in tap water, highlights the effectiveness of water fluoridation (WF) policy. WF can enhance the well-being of adolescents by improving their dental health.
February 20 (Thr) Yongheng Deng (University of Wisconsin-Madison) 15:30–17:00, Place: Marcury Tower 7F Conference Room
Title: High-Temperature and Mortgage Termination
This workshop is co-hosted with the Urban Real Estate Workshop, so the time and location differ from the usual seminar. If you wish to participate, please register using the link below.
April 4 (Fri) Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (UC Berkeley) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Local Public Goods and Property Tax Compliance: Evidence from Residential Street Pavement
Abstract: Many developing countries face a challenge whereby low tax compliance limits public goods provision, while inadequate public goods further discourage compliance. This study examines whether improvements in local infrastructure can disrupt this negative feedback loop through a randomized experiment of first-time street pavement in Acayucan, Mexico. Among 56 eligible asphalt- ing projects in poor neighborhoods, 28 were randomly assigned for paving. A theoretical model guides our analysis, highlighting belief updating about government efficiency and reciprocity from direct benefits. We use administrative property tax records to assess compliance responses and survey data to measure satisfaction with local government. Consistent with the direct benefits mechanism, property owners living on newly paved streets increased compliance by 3.2 percentage points (ITT) and 4.8 percentage points (LATE), the latter corresponding to a 5.5% increase in baseline compliance rates. Consistent with belief updating about government efficiency, a one standard deviation increase in exposure to pavement en route to downtown also raises compliance — by 1.5 percentage points (ITT) and 2.6 percentage points (LATE), the latter corresponding to a 3% increase in compliance rates. Consistent with our theoretical model, survey data indicates that individuals with worse initial beliefs about government efficiency exhibit larger belief updating when exposed to pavement projects. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests belief updating generated four times more revenue than direct reciprocity.
May 8 (Thr) Donald Davis (Columbia University) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Segregation, Spillovers, and the Locus of Racial Change
Abstract: Existing empirical research in economics on neighborhood racial sorting is overwhelmingly premised on the idea that racial preferences for a location depend on the racial shares in that location, without considering potential spatial spillover effects from nearby areas. Does this matter for the way we view the cross-section and dynamics of racial neighborhood segregation? We nest Schelling (1971)’s bounded neighborhood and spatial proximity theories within a discrete choice model, where the key distinction is precisely such spatial spillovers. We simulate the model and examine the data for 1970-2000 for more than 100 U.S. metros. Two features of the data are most compelling: the powerful presence of racial clusters and the fact that drastic racial change is concentrated at the boundary of these clusters. Both point to the spatial proximity model as the proper foundation for a theory of racial neighborhood evolution. We use these insights to revisit prominent results on racial tipping where our theory guides us to distinguish differences by location. While prior research pointed to powerful racial tipping in the form of White exit, we show this is largely driven by theoretically-distinct “biased white suburbanization” leading to White entry in remote areas. In urban areas far from existing Minority clusters, we find zero or small tipping effects, at odds with a bounded neighborhood interpretation. The most consistent effects of tipping, still of modest size, are found in areas adjacent to existing Minority clusters, confirming the relevance of the racial spillovers of the spatial proximity model. Existing research conflates these quite distinct effects. Overall, our results suggests that tipping is a less central feature of racial neighborhood change than suggested in prior research and that greater attention needs to be paid to spatial dimensions of the problem.
May 26 (Mon) Seow Eng Ong (National University of Singapore) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: The Emerging China REIT Market: Trends, Performance and Prospects
Abstract: China’s economic progress over the past decades has been predicated on investment in infrastructure (roads, cities, rail) rather than consumption. In the wake of slowing economic growth over the past years, the Chinese authorities have started to encourage consumption through various measures. Serendipitously, real estate investment trusts (REITs) were established in China since 2021. The C-REIT market is a good testing ground given that infrastructure REITs were the first to be introduced, followed by industrial/logistics, affordable housing and most recently retail/consumption REITs. In addition, retail C-REITs o er the most direct test for the impact of consumption policy measures. In this paper, we evaluate how the stock market responds to (a) introduction of retail C-REITs and (b) policy measures to boost consumption via the event study approach.
June 2 (Mon) Kwan Ok Lee (National University of Singapore) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Revisiting the N-Minute City: Big Data Evidence from New York City and Singapore
Abstract: The concept of the N-minute city—centered on neighborhood self-sufficiency—has gained prominence in urban planning, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has encouraged shorter-distance travel and greater adoption of remote work. This talk revisits ongoing debates on the N-minute city by addressing two key questions: (1) Can N-minute city indices be more effectively constructed using a dynamic choice framework that captures spatiotemporal variations in residents’ preferences for amenities and locations—by incorporating the geographic distribution of amenities with varying quality levels and travel costs weighted by resident attributes—rather than relying solely on the density of predefined points of interest (POIs)? (2) Do planning parameters such as the balance between commercial and residential land use serve as more meaningful indicators for assessing the potential realization of N-minute city ideals in planning practice than POI density alone? Drawing on big data from mobile phone-based mobility patterns in New York City and subway ridership in Singapore, this talk offers new insights into more robust ways of measuring and applying N-minute city principles across diverse metropolitan contexts.
June 3 (Tue) Omokolade Akinsomi (The University of the Witwatersrand) 10:30–12:00,
Place: 1st Collaboration Laboratory(第一共同研究室), 12F, Engineering Bldg. 14, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo
Title: Can Prudence and Moderation explain why investors simultaneously love and hate REITs?
Abstract: In this paper, we examine whether investors’ preference for higher-order moments in asset returns is priced into the performance of Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) stocks. Using the universe of REIT stocks from 1993 to 2022, we explore the dynamics of the total, systematic, and idiosyncratic skewness, and kurtosis in REIT returns. We find that REIT stocks with high idiosyncratic and total skewness generate significantly higher returns than those with low idiosyncratic and total skewness. REIT stocks with average systematic skewness appear to be more desirable than those with extremely high and low systematic skewness. REIT stocks with high idiosyncratic, systematic, and total kurtosis are associated with lower returns than those having lower idiosyncratic, systematic, and total kurtosis. We find that preferences for higher-order moments in REIT stocks appear to be motivated by the lottery-insurance paradox, in which investors desire positive firm-specific asymmetric pay-off from their REIT holdings, while simultaneously rejecting tail risks and systematic comovement of their REIT exposure with the broader equity market.
July 3 (Thr) Yuta Suzuki (Shanghai Jiao Tong University) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Living in a Ghost Town: The Geography of Aging and Depopulation
Abstract: This paper analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of population aging and decline in Japan, revealing a stark contrast between rapidly aging rural areas and expanding metropolitan regions. Using spatially disaggregated data and a dynamic life-cycle spatial general equilibrium model, we show that depopulation is driven by out-migration and low birth rates, further exacerbated by lower productivity and declining amenities. Our model projects that this unequal spatial trajectory of aging and population decline will persist. The resulting spatial inequality poses a significant challenge for the national government: sustaining local public services in aging areas is essential for the remaining elderly population, yet the required per capita fiscal transfers continue to grow. The findings highlight a fundamental trade-off between efficiency and equity: while population concentration enhances aggregate efficiency, maintaining population dispersion promotes spatial equity.
September 18 (Thr) Thomas Monnier (Hitotsubashi University ) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: The Informality Trade-Off: Wages and Rural-Urban Migration in South Africa
Abstract: In rapidly urbanizing countries, many urban inhabitants work in the informal sector. Should policy makers try to shrink it? To answer this question, I develop a generale-quilibrium model of rural-urban migration based on frictional job search and matching. A key novelty of this approach is to combine migration choice of workers with occupational choice across formal and informal labour markets. I first estimate my model with a South African panel of workers. I find that the urban informal sector serves as a stepping-stone to urban formal jobs. This also makes it a valuable outside option for urban formal workers. Then, I simulate formalization policies by tripling the expected cost of being inspected for urban informal firms. I find a decline in informal employment and wages that is not associated with job destruction, but with wage cuts in the formal sector. This is because urban formal firms now have more labour market power. As a result, cities become less attractive. This is exacerbated by the response of rural firms that offer higher wages and retain potential migrants: the urban population share falls by 4%. Overall, the decline in urban informality improves the allocation of labour, both across sectors in urban areas and towards more productive firms in rural areas, at the cost of lower workers’ welfare.
September 25 (Thr) Naoki Tani (Kyoto University / Ministry of Finance) 17:10–18:40, Place: IER Conference room
Title: Quantifying the causes of between-industry wage inequality and the skill premium in a global economy
Abstract: This study investigates the rationale for why between-industry wage inequality increased globally from 1995 to 2006 while the skill premium only increased in some countries. This is because of substantial differences in the relative importance of different factors driving the between-industry wage inequality and skill premium. We develop a quantitative general equilibrium model of firms’ offshoring to answer this question. Our model incorporates heterogeneous labor and firm, sector-country-specific skill intensity, and sectoral preference weights by country to analyze the effects of skill-biased technological change, trade liberalization, skilled-labor supply, and consumers’ preference shift on the change in inequality of each country. We apply our model to 24 sectors in 10 countries. The model predictions are consistent with the observed change in between-industry wage disparity and skill premium. The shift in consumers’ sectoral preference to the skill-intensive sectors, skill-biased technological change, and skilled-labor supply are the main factors which increase the skill premium. Meanwhile, between-industry wage inequality is almost exclusively attributable to the skill-biased technological change.
October 14 (Tue) Hans Koster (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) 15:40–17:10, Place: IIR Laboratory II
Title: The persistence of urban decline: Evidence from France's largest coal basin
Abstract: We argue that urban decline persists due to the interaction between sorting and the durability of the housing stock. Using the history of coal production in France's largest mining basin as a negative economic shock to local employment, we examine its effect on urban decline. The basin's geological boundaries and the proximity of housing to mines allow us to analyze local variations. We find that housing prices today drop by 11% when entering the basin, with 40% of this decline attributable to lower housing quality and the rest to sorting effects. A dynamic spatial equilibrium model with forward-looking developers suggests that urban decline can persist for many decades before reaching a new steady state, leading to increased welfare inequality between low-skilled and high-skilled households in the area.
This workshop is co-hosted with IDE-JETRO.
October 31 (Fri) and November 1 (Sat), Place: Multipurpose Room (7th floor, Mercury Tower)
2nd Sino-Japanese SPACE Workshop
The workshop is jointly organized with Shanghai Jiao Tong University. It is supported by the Institute of Innovation Research and the Center for Urban and Real Estate Studies at Hitotsubashi University, as well as by JSPS Kakenhi Grant Number 24H00012.
Contact: Kentaro Nakajima (nakajima@iir.hit-u.ac.jp)