Research
Research interests: Macroeconomics, Spatial Economics, Big Data
Working papers
Understanding Spatial House Price Dynamics in a Housing Boom March 2024
joint with Leo Kaas and Georgi Kocharkov
We examine the trends and determinants of spatial house price dispersion during Germany’s recent housing boom after 2009. Using a dataset of online sales listings, we find that house price dispersion has significantly increased, driven by variation in prices between postal codes. We propose a housing-directed search model to understand the drivers of rising spatial price dispersion, highlighting the role of housing supply, demand and the matching process between buyers and sellers. Changes in housing demand are the primary factor contributing to the rise in house prices and their dispersion in metropolitan regions.
Presented at: Uni Frankfurt Brown Bag Seminar 2023, EUI Brown Bag Seminar 2023, Uni Toronto Research Seminar 2024, TU Wien 2024, Search in Housing Markets Imperial Business School 2024
Invited at: Freie University Berlin (June 2023), FAU Erlangen-Nurnberg macro/labor seminar (July 2024)
Occupational Inheritance in Africa [under major revision]
STEG Working Paper No. 047, slides
Using harmonized cross-sectional surveys of 27 African countries covering around 8 million parents-children matched pairs, this paper studies intergenerational mobility (IM) in occupational attainment in Africa. First, I document substantial heterogeneity across and within African countries and demographic groups and I identify the strongest predictors of IM at the micro and macro level. Second, I examine the hypothesis that human capital is driving IM in Africa. To establish causality, I use as an event study the lifting of primary school fees in five African countries. Correlational evidence suggests that heterogeneity in the occupational outcomes might be attributable to differences in school quality.
Presented at: Frankfurt Brown Bag Seminar 2022, EEA-ESEM 2022, STEG Theme Workshop 0 2022, Frankfurt-Mannheim Workshop 2022, LSE-Opportunity and Inequality Workshop (poster),
Invited at: GEM/GGDC seminar series (May 2023)
Work in progress
Geography, Human Capital and Upward Mobility in Developing Countries [Preliminary and model is missing]
Principal Investigator: STEG research grant - £12,000
joint with Alexander Ludwig and Alex Monge Naranjo
We collect a sample of 23 million parents-children matched pairs across 76 developing countries and 13,000 sub-national regions to explore the geography of intergenerational educational mobility and internal migration in developing countries and their implications for the aggregate formation of human capital.
Presented at: SED 2023, EEA-ESEM 2023, Structural Transformation Conference Exeter (2024), STEG X Workshop On Structural Transformation And Macroeconomic Dynamics 2024
Buy or Rent: Measuring the Distributional Effects of Monetary Policy on the Housing Market
[draft available upon request] slides
joint with Martin Groiss
How do the prices of properties listed for sale or rent respond to changes in monetary policy? To answer this question, we use a large online dataset of 23 million listings across 386 regions in Germany from 2007 to 2023 and high-frequency monetary policy surprises in the Euro Area. We investigate the dynamic causal effect of monetary policy changes in an IV panel local projection framework. Expansionary monetary policy has contributed
significantly to the increase in house prices, with the effects being more pronounced for house sales than for rents. We then examine the differences between conventional and unconventional monetary policy tools and find a temporary response of house prices to policy rate cuts and a more pronounced effect of forward guidance and quantitative easing. Finally, we examine regional differences in housing market responses to monetary policy and show the role played by regional population growth, regulations and the city size.
Presented at: EEA-ESEM 2024 (scheduled), Residential Housing Markets Vienna 2024 , Free University Research Seminar (2024)
Labor Mobility, Sorting and Regional Housing Costs [very preliminary]
I examine the relationship between regional house price trends and labor market dynamics during a period of housing boom. Combining administrative labor market data with house price data from Germany, I show that workers’ sorting behavior increased over the period 2007-2018. That is, workers with higher abilities tend to move to more productive districts. I propose a simple spatial general equilibrium model with heterogeneous types that could be used to rationalize the price differences observed across different districts in Germany.
Pre-PhD Publications
"The effects of fiscal consolidation on macroeconomic indicators in Cyprus"
joint with N. Pashourtidou and CS. Savva, 2014, Cyprus Economic Policy Review