Despite the attention given to the role of the housing market in the constitution and duration of low-income minority neighborhoods in American cities, little is known about the inner-workings of the housing market within these neighborhoods. The kind of housing professionals that populate this local economic world, the strategies they develop, both orthodox and unorthodox, especially towards tenants, are deemed of little interest by the dominant perspectives in the field, Human Ecology and Political Economy. The shared intellectual movement behind these two widely different theoretical perspectives is to understand how the city is mapped, how people and activities come to be distributed in space across the city. In this agenda, low-income minority areas are seen as a residual geographical entity, something whose existence is the effect of external forces: real estate brokers who steer households according to race, white ethnic immigrants who flee to the suburbs, white middle-class youths who gentrify the inner-city, downtown elites who disinvest from low-income minority neighborhoods. To focus on local actors of the housing market who operate within low-income minority neighborhoods requires a shift away from the traditional question of spatial distribution. Instead of framing the housing market as a spatial mechanism, this research looks at the housing market as a set of varied economic circuits that plug into a local social life with the goal of extracting money out of a local population's housing needs. In this view, the empirical questions are the variety of economic circuits in which the poor and near-poor minorities are embedded; the economic roles that define these various circuits; the strategies that are adequate, both for housing actors and for the local population; the opportunities for upward mobility and the risks of downward mobility they offer; the experience of hardship that emerges from these circuits. In brief, the key issue is how the different modes of organization of a local housing field (a term more open to variations than "market") participate to the local process of economic differentiation in low-income minority neighborhoods. The process under study can be conceived as the mutual shaping between two linked ecologies (Abbott 2005). On one hand, there are small and independent local housing professionals. For these actors, the issue is: how can they meet the specific challenges and seize the specific profits that stem from the economic project of making money out of the housing needs of poor and near-poor minorities? On the other hand, there is the ecology of the local population living in these neighborhoods. This population is internally differentiated by class and by a myriad of support networks, which may include formal organizations, such as lawyers, community based organizations, religious organizations, or legal aid societies. For this population, the key question is: how to benefit best from the housing field they face with the variety of resources at their hands? The interactions of these two ecologies with the larger regulatory framework shape the economic circuits that make up the housing field in low-income minority neighborhoods. The outcome of such interactive process can be approached from the inside - i.e. the inner-workings of the economic circuits as seen by those who derive money from them. It can also be seen from the outside - i.e. the economic structures that people living in these communities face. For almost three years (2009-2012), I was embedded into an informal group of housing actors operating in central Brooklyn and central Harlem, NY. This group is made of small landlords, larger real estate investors, independent real estate brokers, several housing lawyers and a criminal lawyer, construction workers and handymen, local community leaders, and, more marginally, New York City agents and bureaucrats and tenants. My research is an ethnographic study of this group, which I call "Larry's clique". It yielded three main results. First, the local housing field in low-income minority neighborhoods is segmented between the "housing market" and the "housing game". In the "housing market" economic dynamics fall within the boundary of institutional regulations. Roles and strategies are encapsulated in common terms like "tenant", "landlord", "housing lawyer", "real estate broker" etc. Next to this institutionalized housing market, exists a predatory segment, which, following the people I have observed, I call the "housing game". In this second segment, institutionally-proscribed modes of making money are common, formal economic roles are transformed and new categories emerge such as "the professional tenant", "the foolish landlord", "the predatory machine", "the tenant who plays the game right"; new boundaries between fair and unfair business practices are drawn; and the texture of ordinary economic transactions is not one of middle-class doux-commerce, but one of incivility and verbal violence. Second, the housing game sheds a new light on the local economic life in which poor and near-poor minorities are embedded. I have observed the formation of patrons-clients ties between local housing actors of the "game" and the local population. Patron-clients ties are a classic structure in the social scientific literature. However, it is a vocabulary that has disappeared from the scholarship on the contemporary forms of American poverty and near-poverty. My research brings back this vocabulary. Associated to this form of relation is a particular experience of hardship. The poor and near-poor who come in contact with the housing game experience the world as full of concealed riches that can be unlocked through personal yet distrustful relations of dependency. In this worldview, people shift quickly from being friend to being foe, double-agents are constant worries, simple questions as who works for whom receive unstable answers, and hubristic anger and joy accompany expectations of high rewards, of rainfalls of money, and feelings of being robbed. In this deeply personalistic worldview, something key is obliterated from the eyes of the people: it is the marginality of most of the actors I have observed from larger formal organizations and bureaucracies that chiefly affect the distribution of economic rewards in the housing market. Third, the housing game is not a well-ordered underworld in the tradition of the Chicago School. It is not a sub economic system with its own parallel culture and practices. The real mode of existence of this economic world has much less substance. Economic actors in the housing game are haunted by feelings of inefficacy and amateurism. Beyond the scams, the predatory attempts, the shouts and the insults in Housing Court, beyond the moralizing discourses about who "abuses the system" and who deserves to be "fucked", beyond all this gesticulation, people of the game have the nagging feeling of being stalled. The economic life of the housing game fights by all means necessary the actors' creeping experience of passivity, helplessness, and low self-efficacy - but it is not always successful. The vocabulary of the "game" indicates not only the distance with the institutionalized housing market, but also the dramaturgy of this economic world, the layers of meaning and symbolic practices that cover up, but only in part, the fact that the game does not fully work, does not bring the expected rewards. The concealed riches of the world remain out of reach. The intellectual posture behind this research is the reconstruction of economic categories through intimate ethnographic observations. Such reconstruction requires an epoch (i.e. a suspension) of the common modes of description of economic life inherited from both economics and legal studies and from the regulatory framework that supervises the "market". This research is the occasion, then, to interrogate the place of rich narratives and close descriptions in the study of economic life.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Design / Master / Master of Urban Design

This dissertation contains four essays in spatial and international economics. Chapter 1 investigates how housing variety varies across space. Housing costs are key in understanding real income differences across space and time. Standard measures of housing costs do not account for availability differences, where some housing varieties are available in certain cities or time periods but not others. When households have idiosyncratic preferences over housing units, the set of available housing varieties in a city matters. This paper develops theoretically-founded housing price indices to measure housing costs that account for availability differences. To allow for flexible substitution patterns, I propose a method to jointly estimate the nests that varieties belong to and the elasticity of substitution across varieties within each nest. I find that households in larger cities benefit from having access to varieties not available in smaller cities. Utility-consistent housing prices reduce the elasticity of housing prices with respect to population by a half. Since housing is a third of household expenditure, this implies that we have systematically underestimated real income and overestimated residual amenities in larger cities. In contrast to previous estimates, I find that real income is increasing in city size after accounting for availability differences. Chapter 2 investigates the factors that cause incomplete pass-through of exchange rate shocks into border prices. This paper examines the role of decreasing returns to scale, a channel that has received limited empirical and theoretical attention. Based on a first-order approximation to a firm's optimal price, I show that 1) decreasing returns to scale interacts with variable markups, imported inputs, and destination non-traded costs to generate incomplete pass-through, 2) there is asymmetry between importer currency and exporter currency shocks due to imported inputs, and 3) strategic complementarity matters, where firms adjust their prices in response to competitor prices. I propose a new estimation method for key demand and supply parameters that govern the degree of markup and marginal cost adjustments. Using the estimated parameters, I find that decreasing returns to scale is the dominant factor in generating incomplete pass-through, with variable marginal costs contributing to over 90% of the incomplete pass-through, while variable markups account for less than 10%. Chapter 3 analyzes the determinants of exporter size. Theories of comparative advantage and product differentiation have emphasized productivity and quality differences. This paper shows that incorporating decreasing returns to scale matters for understanding the determinants of exporter size. Exogenous marginal cost differences affect equilibrium quantities but do not necessarily appear in prices since lower exogenous marginal costs (a lower cost curve) are offset by higher endogenous marginal costs (movement along the cost curve). As a result, standard approaches that assume constant returns to scale underestimate the contribution of marginal cost differences and overestimate the contribution of quality differences. Based on bilateral trade flow data between 1997 to 2016 for over 200 countries and 3000 products, I find that standard approaches attribute almost no variation in exporter size to cost differences. In contrast, after incorporating decreasing returns to scale, I estimate that 58% (65%) of the variation in exporter size is attributed to fundamental cost differences in the time series (cross-section). Chapter 4 models and quantifies the dynamic gains from exporting. I develop a dynamic trade model where firms innovate and learn from other firms in the destinations they sell to. The evolution of a country's stock of knowledge can be expressed as a function of export flows and the stocks of knowledge of their trading partners. I find evidence that countries in Asia, North America, and Europe, as well as countries in the top two quartiles of TFP growth were able to better absorb foreign insights than other countries. I evaluate whether there are dynamic gains from trade with two counterfactual exercises. First, I measure the impact of changing trade costs between 1962 and 2000. I find small static gains but zero dynamic gains for the world economy. Second, I quantify the dynamic gains from export-induced foreign knowledge flows by simulating a counterfactual where there is no learning from foreign sources. I find that domestic learning compensates for foreign learning: there are large dynamic gains from exporting when there is no domestic learning and small dynamic gains when there is domestic learning.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A premise of this thesis is that too much emphasis is still placed on dealing with the crisis of housing provision, rather than planning for housing development in South Africa. Little consideration is given to the economic improvement of the housing beneficiaries. The following research question was posed: What can and should be done in order for housing beneficiaries to become economically empowered? Government has the obligation to enhance and maintain the personal social welfare of its inhabitants. Housing is part of a package of social welfare services that includes physical health as well as the incorporeal element within a human being. Housing is also a process of how people came to be housed, starting at the moment when they first apply for a house. Economic empowerment should be linked to the four dimensions of development, i.e. equity, capacity-building, participation, self-reliance. Equity leads to economic empowerment by providing equal access to economic opportunities. capacity-building has aspects of developing skills, providing access to, and establishing supportive structures for economic empowerment. Participation is concerned with achieving power to influence decisions. Finally, self-reliance is linked to economic empowerment because it refers to the ability of people to produce most of its basic needs as well as producing surpluses with which to trade for those commodities and services which it does not produce efficiently itself (Burkey, 1993:51). Economic empowerment of housing beneficiaries implies a micro, individual level focus of economic development. According to Gildenhuys (1993:26) economic welfare refers to the development of the economic and material welfare and prosperity of the individual. Apart from a micro focus, a multi-objective focus is required for sustainability. According to Dalal-Clayton and Bass (2000:12), sustainable development entails balancing economic, social and environmental objectives. Finally, there are two dimensions to economic empowerment, namely, empowerment of the housing beneficiaries, as well as empowerment of development facilitators. Evidence of shortcomings of development projects relating to economic empowerment was provided in this thesis by means of applying the findings of an empirical research project in Wesbank to economic empowerment. The research explored the management processes that were implemented that eventually resulted in outcomes not being desirable. It was explained that the initial "scattering" of opportunities to emerging contractors was not part of a concerted approach for the primary beneficiaries to become economically empowered. This housing development project did not only fail to ensure economic empowerment, but also denied the housing beneficiaries what little economic activity they were involved in prior to the move. The Wesbank evidence was also linked to the views and findings of various authoritative sources that confirmed that government development projects in general, have an unfortunate track record when it comes to economic empowerment of so-called beneficiaries. Two case studies from the United States were used to illustrate that integrated development provides the context for the economic empowerment of housing beneficiaries. Four economic development foci then provided the framework within which solutions were formulated: residential dispersal and mobility, enhancing the capacity of housing beneficiaries, investing in economic empowerment of women, and changing the mindset of the developers. This framework embodies the how of economic empowerment of housing beneficiaries. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: 'n Aanname van hierdie tesis is dat te veel klem steeds geplaas word op die hantering van krisisse t.o.v behuisingsvoorsiening, eerder as beplanning vir behuisingsontwikkeling, met min inagneming vir ekonomiese bemagtiging van behuisingsbegunstigdes. Die volgende navorsingsvraag word gestel: Wat kan en moet gedoen word ten einde ekonomiese bemagtiging vir behuisingsbegunstigdes te bewerkstellig? Regerings het 'n plig om die persoonlike sosiale welsyn van landsinwoners te bevorder en te handhaaf. Behuising is deel van 'n pakket van sosiale welsynsdienste wat fisiese gesondheid sowel as die psigiese element van mens wees insluit. Behuising is ook 'n proses wat begin die oomblik wanneer 'n persoon die eerste keer aansoek doen vir 'n huis. Ekonomiese bemagtiging moet gekoppel word aan die vier dimensies van ontwikkeling, naamlik gelykheid, kapasiteitsbou, deelname, en onafhanklikheid. Gelykheid lei tot ekonomiese bemagtiging deurdat dit gelyke toegang tot ekonomiese geleenthede bevorder. Kapasiteitsbou sluit in ontwikkeling van vaardighede, verskaffing van toegang, en die oprig van ondersteunende strukture vir ekonomiese bemagtiging. Deelname bevorder die toename in mag om besluite te beïnvloed. Onafhanklikheid word gekoppel aan ekonomiese bemagtiging omdat dit verwys na die vermoë van mense om self in die meeste van hul basiese behoeftes te voorsien. Ekonomiese bemagtiging van behuisingsbegunstigdes impliseer 'n mikro, individuele vlak fokus op ekonomiese ontwikkeling. Volgens Gildenhuys (1993:26) verwys ekonomiese welvaart na die ontwikkeling van die ekonomiese en materiële welvaart en vooruitstrewendheid van die individu. Behalwe 'n mikro fokus, is 'n multi-doelwit fokus ook noodsaaklik vir volhoubaarheid. Volhoubare ontwikkeling behels die balansering van ekonomiese, sosiale en omgewings doelwitte. Daar is twee dimensies van ekonomiese bemagtiging, naamlik bemagtiging van die behuisingsbegunstigdes, sowel as bemagtiging van ontwikkelingsfasiliteerders. Bewyse van tekortkominge in ontwikkelingsprojekte aangaande ekonomiese bemagtiging word voorsien d.m.v die toepassing van bevindinge van 'n empiriese navorsingsprojek in Wesbank op ekonomiese bemagtiging. Die navorsing het die bestuursprosesse ondersoek wat gevolg was in die projek en uiteindelik ook veroorsaak het dat die uitkomste onwenslik was. Die aanvanklike verspreiding van geleenthede teenoor opkomende kontrakteurs was nie deel van 'n gefokusde plan vir die primêre begunstigdes om ekonomies bemagtig te word nie. Die behuisingsprojek het nie net daarin gefaal om ekonomiese bemagtiging te bewerkstellig nie, maar het ook die bietjie ekonomiese aktiwiteit waarin begunstigdes betrokke was voor die skuif na Wesbank, weggeneem. Die bewyse in Wesbank word ook gekoppel aan die sieninge en bevindinge van verskeie gesaghebbende bronne wat bevestig dat regeringsontwikkelingsprojekte oor die algemeen 'n swak rekord het wat betref ekonomiese bemagtiging van sogenaamde begunstigdes. Twee gevallestudies van die VSA is na verwys om te illustreer dat geïntegreerde ontwikkeling die konteks verskaf vir ekonomiese bemagtiging van behuisings begunstigdes. Vier ekonomiese bemagtiging fokus areas verskaf 'n raamwerk waarin oplossings geformuleer is: verspreiding en mobiliteit, verbetering van kapasiteit van begunstigdes, ekonomiese bemagtiging van vroue, en verandering van die denkpatroon van ontwikkelingsfasiliteerders. Hierdie raamwerk stel voor die hoe van ekonomiese bemagtiging van behuisingsbegunstigdes.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Objectives. First, the study aims to explore demographic and socio-economic characteristics of residents who moved into Indlovu village. Second, the study will explore if the housing development attracted the intended beneficiaries as outlined in the policy document of the RDP and the targeted households as specified by the local authority. Third, the study will examine whether there is differential selection of people at places of origin into new housing developments. Background. Since 1994 when South Africa attained independence, the major thrust of the new government was to improve the welfare of the people who were previously underprivileged, especially the Black population. Affirmative policies aimed at the black population were formulated. The Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was formulated in 1994 and was aimed at addressing housing, health, education and economical problems for people who could not afford. South African citizens with low socio-economic status, without proper shelter and previously disadvantaged were provided with subsidised houses. These RDP houses induced an influx towards urban areas in informal settlement, further swelling the waiting-list for RDP houses. Methods. This study utilises data from the Africa Centre Demographic Information System (ACDIS). The Demographic Surveillance Area (DSA) is located in rural KwaZulu Natal. The surveillance area includes a new RDP housing development called Indlovu village. The analysis examines the socio-economic and demographic characteristics of people who moved into Indlovu village between 2003 and October 2006. In bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis, the determinants of movement into RDP houses were estimated. The dependent variable ‘moved’ was defined as a binary, where 1 was assigned to those who moved from elsewhere within the DSA to the RDP development scheme and 0 to those who never moved. However, some of the people who have moved into Indlovu Village could have moved from other places outside the DSA and these were analysed separately. Results. There are equal numbers of male and female headed households in Indlovu. Bivariate analyses suggest that there is a statistically significant difference between individuals who moved to Indlovu and those who did not move from the DSA with a p-value <0.001. When controlling for age, sex, marital status, education, employment, household socio-economic status and place of origin, multivariate analysis suggests that people from the rural part of the DSA are more likely than those from urban and peri-urban areas to move into the RDP housing area. Looking at age, more elderly individuals were more likely to be allocated the houses relative to the younger age groups, however, this was not statistically significant. Individuals in the middle age were less likely to move relative to the younger age groups. Equal proportions of females and males benefited from the development and these findings agree with the requirements of the policy. Those in a relatively high socio-economic status were more likely to move than those in the relatively low socio-economic status. Multivariate analysis suggests that the currently married people were more likely to move to Indlovu village. However these findings were not statistically significant but they were significant in the bivariate analysis. Also those from households with dependents were more likely to move relative to those who stayed alone. These findings were not significant after adjusting for other variables. Again this is consistent with the requirements of the policy which stipulates that married people and individuals with dependants have to benefit from these housing developments. The Indlovu housing scheme target people living in and around the DSA, but the development mostly benefited those originating from far away places. Almost 60% of the residents in Indlovu came from places outside the DSA while only 36% originated from within the DSA. Conclusions. This analysis aimed to determine the socio-demographic determinants of individuals who move into RDP houses, using the case study of movement from the Africa Centre DSA into Indlovu village. The findings revealed that the housing development was able to attract individuals from household with average socio-economic status and those from high and very high socio-economic status relative to the very poor households. The RDP policy required that poor individuals with low socio-economic status should be the ones who benefit, however this is contrary to the current study’s findings. However, though by demographic characteristics (gender, age and marital status) most of the beneficiaries met the criteria for eligibility for RDP housing, most came from places further than communities surrounding these housing schemes, disadvantaging the intended beneficiaries. These findings suggest the importance of evaluating the recipients of RDP housing developments around the country, to ensure that the deserving individuals receive the houses. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 353-427) / xii, 427 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / "The Parks" and its constituent labour force was established by the state to underpin the profitability of industrial capital. It is now to be dismantled, its residents dispersed in order to recreate the conditions for renewed profitability. Focusses on a study of "The Parks" community to give a better understanding under Australian conditions of: the special, socially constituted nature of place; the interplay of the global-local and the impacts of economic restructuring; the inseparability of labour and housing markets; and, how the agency of private markets and the state interpenetrate each other. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Adelaide University, Dept. of Geographical and Environmental Studies, 2001

This thesis is about imperfections in urban labour markets of three developing countries. I study how physical living conditions place constraints on labour force participation, and increase risks associated with unemployment. In Chapter One I test for the impact of high search costs on labour market outcomes of job seekers. I use a randomized trial of transport subsidies among youth living far away from the centre of the city in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Lowering transport costs increases the intensity of job search and leads to better employment outcomes. Weekly phone call data shows that treatment works to stop job search activity from declining over time. I show that the results are consistent with a dynamic model of job search with cash constraints and monetary search costs. Income from temporary work is used to smooth consumption and pay for the costs of search. I find that subsidies reduce participation in temporary work. Chapter Two looks at the links between poor housing conditions in slums and market labour supply. I test for the effect of free government housing in South Africa on households, using four waves of panel data and a natural experiment due to the allocation of new housing according to proximity from housing projects. I then use planned but cancelled projects to control for non-random selection of housing project sites. I find that government housing leads to large increases in household incomes from wage work, and increases in the labour supply of female household members. I argue that these results are due to reduced burdens of work in the home of improved housing, especially for women. In Chapter Three we look at how labour markets respond to large but temporary economic shocks caused by typhoons in the Philippines. We use quarterly aggregate, repeated-cross sectional and panel data to demonstrate robust evidence of downward wage flexibility. Lay-offs do not occur when storms hits, but hours per worker fall. We explain these results with a model of implicit contracts under which risk is shared between workers and firms through wage cuts, but workers are insured against lay-offs so that adjustments in labour demand occur through reductions in hours per worker. Our results are particularly strong for workers in long term contractual relationships in the private sector.

The rapid urbanization of modern cities poses several economic challenges and questions, such as energy efficiency, environmental sustainability, and the distribution of businesses. These elements significantly shape the dynamics of housing markets and urban migration patterns. My dissertation explores the causal impacts of environmental amenities and informational transparency on housing market valuations and the interactions within business sectors. In the first chapter of this thesis, we study the equilibrium effects of building energy efficiency information on the housing market. Building energy efficiency is crucial for identifying energy-saving potential, yet such information was not publicly available in the past. We examine the equilibrium effects of a regulation in New York City that mandates increased public access to information on building energy efficiency. We find that the effectiveness of disclosure policies in achieving desired market outcomes hinges significantly on the salience of the information disclosed. Our findings suggest that enhancing the salience of building energy efficiency disclosures leads to the emergence of energy efficiency premiums and incentivizes buildings to make energy efficiency improvements. Particularly, luxury buildings exhibit more pronounced responses. We develop and estimate an equilibrium model of demand for homes and building energy efficiency, as well as buildings' choices of energy efficiency levels. The results indicate that the increase in housing prices attributable to energy efficiency improvements significantly exceeds the savings in energy bills. In the second chapter of this thesis, we the strengths of agglomeration spillovers in the local non-tradable service sector using a comprehensive list of grocery store openings in the U.S. in 2018 -- 2019. We combine deep learning tools with propensity score estimation to find counterfactual opening sites and compare business outcomes surrounding actual and counterfactual sites. We find openings of grocery stores lead to significant growth in foot traffic to their opening locations and a 39 percent increase in foot traffic to businesses within 0.1 miles. The spillovers of demand are strongest between new grocery stores and businesses in wholesale and retail and hospitality services. We also find that grocery store openings lead to a 6.9 percentage point higher growth in the number of businesses within 0.1 miles of the openings 0--3 years later. My third chapter investigates the economic impacts of cleaning up heavily polluted waterways in urban neighborhoods. We leverage the Black-and-Odorous Water Program, a major urban environmental campaign in China, as a natural experiment to identify the causal impact of cleaner waterways on local housing prices, housing supply, and business growth. Implemented in 2016, the program remediated heavily polluted waterways in China's 36 most developed cities. Using a difference-in-differences estimator, we find that the program mainly benefits properties within 1 mile of cleaned-up waterways: These properties saw a 2.3% appreciation in market value after the program. Beyond the impacts on the housing market, we identify two novel mechanisms associated with community revitalization following pollution management and examine their implications for housing prices. First, new real estate developments near treated waterways are more likely to offer high-end units after the program. Second, service businesses flourish in neighborhoods near cleaned waterways, indicating a commercial rejuvenation of these areas.