Using Bank of Italy data on Italian banks in the period 1990-2004, the paper analyses the short and long-run effects of the concentration of the banking industry on the availability of credit to small and medium-sized firms. Our study employs a bank-based approach and investigates the...

Sao Paulo's metropolitan area is one of the largest urban spaces in the world. As it happens with any other large metropolitan area, understanding its structure, problems and dynamics is not a simple task. The structure of cities has been studied by urban economics ever since von Thunen's land...

Rising inter-regional inequality is discussed in the literature for Russia as well as China, leading to the question how regional incomes are distributed. A nonparametric method, the Kernel Density Estimation, is used to estimate the inter-regional income distribution and how this distribution...

We develop a test of precautionary behavior in the consumption decisions of rural agricultural households. Among surveyed households facing a median level of consumption risk, we find that 10 percent of savings can be attributed to a precautionary motive, and this increases to 15 percent for...

For the interested observer of real estate markets, China is the most fascinating place in the world today, and the coming years promise to be no less intriguing than the recent past has been. This Article offers an overview of how a specific segment of the Chinese real estate market - the...

This paper examines the effect Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)projects have on neighboring sales prices of single-family homes in Dallas County. The results suggest LIHTC projects that went into place between 1986 and 2003 have a small, positive signifi cant effect on single-family home...

Housing policy in the United States has long supported homeownership yet variation persists across income groups. This paper employs recent mortgage origination data to focus on the revealed preferences of low-and-moderate income (LMI) households in home purchase mortgage choice. We identify the...

This study examines cycles and common cycles in property and related sectors in the frequency domain. The findings indicate that property shares common cycles with a number of economic sectors and, in particular, with those sectors that are the user markets of property, and lags behind in...

The perception of high crime rates in downtowns has hindered the revitalization of downtown shopping districts and adjacent residential areas. This paper presents a better methodology for measuring crime in commercial shopping districts, replacing the conventional method of quoting crimes per...