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Title: Essays on Migration, Urban, and Housing Economics
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2023
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Abstract: The ability to move to different neighborhoods and cities is crucial in shaping people's access to better job opportunities, housing, education, and economic prospects. From a macroeconomic perspective, the mobility of workers and firms to more productive locations contributes to local and national economic growth while reducing regional inequality. Literature on neighborhood effects and economic mobility has also highlighted the significant role that a person's childhood neighborhood plays in determining their long-term economic and educational outcomes (Chetty and Hendren, 2017). Households migrate across space, voluntarily or involuntarily, in response to personal life events, changes in their physical, political, and social environment, and broader housing and labor market conditions. However, with housing supply constraints and affordability challenges faced by many large cities, households may struggle to move to or remain in neighborhoods that offer better economic opportunities. Therefore, it is essential to understand the factors and policies that influence household mobility decisions and the consequences of these moves. My dissertation includes three chapters that explore different aspects of migration and residential mobility, and their interplay with housing policy and the housing market. These papers examine the factors and policies influencing migration decisions, the destinations households choose, and the potential implications for spatial inequality. The first chapter examines the effect of relaxing land-use regulations on the local housing market and households’ migration patterns. In response to housing affordability challenges, some local governments adopt land-use reforms to increase residential development capacity within the city. These “upzoning” policies aim to increase housing supply and lower local housing costs, but they can also generate positive amenity effects that attract high-income households to the neighborhood. This paper studies how large-scale neighborhood upzoning in New York City between 2004 and 2013 affected local housing supply, prices, and residential mobility patterns using a difference-in-difference method. To analyze this, I construct a parcel-level dataset by combining zoning amendment maps with microdata tracking individual address histories. By using a difference-in-difference method and comparing upzoned areas and the adjacent areas outside the upzoned boundaries, I find that housing supply increases after upzoning. There is suggestive evidence that existing properties on parcels with a greater increase in residential capacity experience increases in housing prices, whereas properties on parcels that are not effectively upzoned do not show the same trend. This difference could be attributed to different changes in option values of redevelopment after upzoning. Furthermore, incumbent residents in upzoned areas are more likely to move to a different neighborhood or leave the metropolitan area, but there is no evidence of a higher likelihood of moving to lower-income areas. Lastly, the study indicates that in-migrants, following upzoning, originate from slightly higher-income neighborhoods. These results suggest that in this context, upzoning can both increase housing supply and change the composition of local residents in the neighborhood. The second chapter, co-authored with Sewin Chan and Katherine O’Regan, uses the American Community Survey to study the extent to which young adults (YAs) aged 24-29 return to their parents’ home (“boomerang”). We find that the share of YA moves that are boomerangs is higher among more disadvantaged groups in terms of race/ethnicity, education, recent marital dissolution, and employment disruption. Differences by marital status and presence of children vary by sex and by whether moves cross metropolitan areas. Importantly, within-metro boomerang moves are more likely in metros with weaker labor markets and cross-metro boomerang moves disproportionately land in higher unemployment and lower earnings metros than their origin. To shed light on where YAs could land if they boomeranged, we create a synthetic cohort of YAs who would have been 17 and living with parents in 2006-2012, and we examine the quality of these parental locations in 2018-2019. The patterns suggest that Black and Hispanic YAs, and those from lower socioeconomic status families, face weaker labor markets and opportunities when boomeranging. To the extent that these are not offset by parental supports, combined with higher boomerang propensities among the disadvantaged, our results suggest another channel through which racial and socioeconomic disparities are perpetuated. The third chapter examines another factor that could influence people's migration behavior and housing outcomes: adverse health events. Adverse health events not only affect individuals' physical activity and labor productivity but also have persistent effects on various aspects of their lives. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and event study models with individual fixed effects, I investigate how the initial diagnosis of chronic diseases is associated with housing stability and homeownership transitions. The findings reveal that female renters are more likely to move after the onset of chronic disease, and they are also more likely to live in overcrowded housing. In terms of housing tenure, male homeowners are more likely to transition out of homeownership following a chronic disease diagnosis, and male renters are also significantly less likely to transition into homeownership after developing a chronic illness. These findings highlight the importance of assisting individuals in preventing chronic diseases or accessing healthcare and housing services when they experience adverse health events, as it can be crucial in mitigating the long-term negative consequences on housing outcomes.
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Authors: Liao, Hsi-Ling
Institution: New York University
Department: Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
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Pages: 1-125
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Migration and Immigration, Population Mobility and Spatial Demography
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