In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations. Numerous studies have estimated the impact of foreclosures on neighboring properties, and these...

Cuyahoga County created a land bank in 2009 explicitly intended to acquire low-value properties, mitigate blighted housing, help stabilize neighborhoods, and slow the decline of property values. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the land bank by estimating spatially-corrected hedonic...

State governments allocate authority, under a federally imposed cap, to issue tax-exempt bonds that fund “private activities” such as industrial expansion, student loans, and low-income housing. This paper presents political economy models of the allocation process and an empirical analysis....

This paper proposes and tests a structural model reflecting the process of authorizing private-activity municipal bond issuance. Private-activity municipal bonds offer tax-exempt financing for programs including industrial development, utilities, low-income housing, and student loans. The...

The housing and economic crises have exerted a strong and lingering impact on housing markets across the nation. In this paper, we assess the degree to which local anti-blight policies have infl uenced housing market outcomes following the crises. The analysis is performed for cities in Cuyahoga...

Raising the share of adults with college degrees in a region or jurisdiction is a nearly universal goal of regional policymakers. They believe that education, as summarized by this statistic, is the cause of increasing employment, productivity, and wages. Using statistics estimated from the...

In the wake of the Great Recession, steep declines in state and local government expenditures and employment were a large and persistent source of economic weakness. The business cycle was also characterized by large increases and decreases in household debt. We estimate the extent to which...

When local governments default or file for bankruptcy, it is often because public officials misunderstood the risks associated with innovative financial products. If unsophisticated municipal bond issuers were to widely adopt a high risk financial product, this could harm taxpayers and...

Economists are shifting attention and resources from work on survey data to work on “big data.” This analysis is an empirical exploration of the trade-offs this transition requires. Parallel models are estimated using the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Consumer Credit Panel/Equifax and the...

In this paper we investigate the history of negotiable instruments and the holder in due course rule and contrast their function and consequences in the 1700s with their function and consequences today. We explain how the holder in due course rule works and identify ways in which the rule’s...