Research & Projects

Morawetz, Ulrich. B., Klaiber, Henry. A., & Zhao, Hongxi. 2024. The impact of traffic noise on the capitalization of public walking area: A hedonic analysis of Vienna, Austria. Journal of Environmental Management, 353, 120060.

Azevedo, Joao Pedro Wagner De & Van Den Brink, Rogier J. E. & Corral, Paul & Avila, Montserrat & Zhao, Hongxi & Mostafavi, Mohammad-Hadi, 2018. "Poverty, Inequality, and Agriculture in the EU," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8638, The World Bank.

Zhao, Hongxi. “The Impact of Commuting Discontinuity and Infrastructure Investment on Urban Development”. Job Market Paper.

Urban development patterns are an important determinant of energy consumption, transportation costs and the use and design of public infrastructure. At the urban boundary, there is significant policy interest in understanding how infrastructure can alter patterns of low-density urban development and whether substantial investment in such measures is warranted. I use data from Vienna, Austria to quantify how a natural barrier, the Danube River, has influenced recent development patterns as the river creates a commuting cost discontinuity for residents on the opposite side to the city center. Building on the Wheaton (1982) model of urban development, I develop a novel measure of volume infill suitable for dense multi-story urban environments. The regression discontinuity design employed identify a proximate effect of 17-19% reduction in infill volume when a new building is constructed across the Danube from the city center, a result consistent with predictions of the Wheaton (1982) urban growth model. A difference-in-difference design is used to identify that the reduction in density is mitigated by bridges, especially large volume multi-modal bridges with large traffic capacity.

Zhao, Hongxi; Klaiber, H. Allen. “A Day at the Park:  The Immediate and Longer-Term impact of the COVID Era on Park Amenity Valuation”. In Review at Real Estate Economics.

This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach to investigate changes in the capitalized value of urban open space immediately following COVID-19 as Ill over time. Our findings reveal contrasting effects of COVID-19 on the capitalized value of large and small public parks with smaller parks increasing in value and larger parks declining in value. We further find that these impacts were persistent for larger parks but appear more transitory for smaller neighborhood parks.

Zhao, Hongxi; Klaiber, H. Alen; Morawetz, Ulrich B. “Public Transportation Investments and Private Housing Supply Decisions”

In this paper, we use a comparative static analysis to empirically examine how public transportation systems, especially high-speed metro, alter urban density, which builds upon structural models of Baum-Snow 2007 and Brueckner 1987. Our results show that metro and trams have significant positive impact on corridor density (0.6-0.8%) and new stations increased corridor density by 1.5-1.7%.

Public Investment and Private Ownership: Determinants of Urban Redevelopment Dynamics

Urban development plays a crucial role in enhancing housing quality and energy efficiency, particularly in historic cities where most land is already developed. This paper examines how private ownership structures impact the timing and likelihood of redevelopment, as well as the influence of public real estate investment on redevelopment decisions within neighborhoods.

Capital investment after Redevelopment: An Analysis using WWII Bombing

World War II bombings necessitated widespread post-war urban redevelopment in Vienna. Utilizing a matching method, we found that redeveloped parcels experienced significantly greater capital investment, evidenced by increased building heights, and accommodated substantially more residents.

Distance Equivalence in Assessing Barrier and Non-barrier Urban Development Directions

This paper introduces a method for quantifying the cost imposed by commuting barriers by comparing urban development patterns across different directions. The approach translates barriers into equivalent commuting distances. Initial findings suggest that crossing the Danube River is equivalent to adding at least 1.2 kilometers to a commute.

Poverty Mapping and Small Area Estimations. 2024. World Bank Report.

o Provided governments (Congo, Tajikistan and Nigeria) evidence to accurately target vulnerable localities by estimating socio-economic indicators at fine grids

o Applied Fay-Harriot and Gradient Boosting Machine Learning methods using geospatial and survey data

o Communicated with local government officials to promote and present small area estimation methods

Access to Basic Services in Ghana. 2024. World Bank Report.

o Provided Ghana government policy suggestions on mitigating inequality by directing service provision to vulnerable areas

o Wrote statistical analysis on service access disparity among districts in Ghana

o Compiled grid-level data from Ghana 2012 and 2016 surveys, cocoa production locations, and flooding risks simulations

Congo Rainforests Evaluation and Protection. 2023. World Bank Report

o Facilitated World Bank's investment in water infrastructure and deforestation projects by valuing carbon effects, using meta-analysis to define economic values of deterring deforestation in Congo

Evaluation of Green Infrastructure Investment. 2021. Columbus City Government

o Informed Columbus city governments their projects’ diverse effects on neighborhood real estate market

o Used matching and DID models to conduct non-market evaluations on flood management green infrastructures

The Global Database of Early Childhood Development. 2019. World Bank Database

o Provided strong data support to World Bank Global office on analyzing children’s welfare and development

o Aligned questionnaires from early childhood development surveys of over 20 countries to produce globally comparable data

The Global Geodatabase of Poverty at Subnational Levels. 2018. World Bank Database.

o Produced 2018 subnational level global poverty estimations using micro-data from over 180 countries, cooperating with economists and statisticians from various regional offices

Thinking CAP: Supporting Agricultural Jobs and Incomes in the EU. 2017. Published World Bank Report.

o Informed European Commission the distributional effects of subsidies and funding under their Common Agricultural Policy using econometric models

o Harmonized agricultural, budget, and household data from 27 European Union member countries