Partisanship and political polarization are salient features of today’s society. We merge deeds records with voter rolls and show that political polarization is more than just “political cheerleading.” Descriptively, homeowners are more likely to sell their homes and move when their...

Germany like many other European countries subsidize commuting by granting the right to deduct commuting expenses from the income tax base. This regulation has often been changed and has regularly been under debate during the last decades. The pros (e.g. causing efficiency gains with respect to...

Households in real cities are heterogeneous regarding their size and composition. This implies that the household structure - i.e. the (average) household size, the composition, the relative share of different household types, and the number of households - differs across cities. This aspect is...

Households in real cities are heterogeneous regarding their size and composition. An aspect usually neglected in urban models used to study economic and policy issues that arise in today's cities. We develop an urban general equilibrium model that takes a more complex household structure...

This paper examines several policy regimes to deal with the problem that households suffer from environmental damage by firms in the same region. Taxation gives firms and households an incentive to stay away from each other. Laissez faire (compensation) only gives households (firms) an incentive...

Speculative behavior plays a key role in numerous markets, but little is known about its causes. We test for neighborhood effects on speculative behavior using daily lottery sales data from 20 states in the U.S. In a sample of 160,000 retailers, lottery sales in a census block increase by $0.26,...

An unappreciated potential benefit of commuting subsidies is that they can expand the choice set of feasible job opportunities in a way that facilitates a better job match quality. Variations in wages and initial commuting distances, combined with major reforms of the commuting subsidy formula...

This study identifies a severe gap between the financial backlash borrowers believe awaits them after strategic mortgage default and the reality that lenders rarely pursue deficiency judgments. This, coupled with the social norm finding that borrowers widely view strategic default as immoral,...

Zimbabwe like many other developing nations has energy supply that is less than energy demand. This entails prioritization and increased prices economically, however as energy is a basic need, a different approach is called for. The goal of human development needs to be achieved, which has seen...