do germans save to leave an estate an examination of the bequest motive i investigate whether a bequest motive for savings influences the post retirement wealth trajectories of german households two measures of the bequest motive are studied the existence of children as the main group of potential heirs and the respondents declared intention to bequeath while having children has no significant impact on households wealth trajectories stated bequest intentions are associated with considerable heterogeneity in wealth holdings the main conclusion from this study is that both the pure life cycle model and the life cycle model with bequest motives provide a valid basis for a theory of household wealth accumulation once the heterogeneity of preferences is acknowledged jel classification d91 j14

expansion versus density in barcelona a valuation exercise this study provides an alternative empirical approach to identify optimal urban growth when accounting for its associated environmental effects it is assumed that preserving outer landscapes and enjoying reduced density levels are inversely related and so households must trade them off the exercise analyses whether more disperse urban growth would be socially desirable in a particular area the metropolitan region of barcelona a contingent valuation exercise using a double bounded format was undertaken and an extended version of the spike model was used to estimate the willingness to pay of changing to a less dense urban path the results show that a less compact scenario would be welfare increasing in aggregate terms it is suggested that general proposals on compacting cities should not necessarily constitute a desirable planning goal

the effects of public pensions on private wealth evidence on the german savings puzzle based on german panel data between 1984 and 1999 we test for the interaction of social security benefits and private wealth formation in a simple life cylce model benefits from public pension systems should displace equal amounts of private retirement accumulation our estimate for the offset effect corrected for several possible measurement biases is much lower however than expected from pure life cycle considerations and less than comparable estimates for the us and the uk this result thus supports other evidence on a particular german savings puzzle which might be due to market imperfections and or bounded rational behaviour

pension wealth and household saving evidence from pension reforms in the united kingdom using three major u k pension reforms as natural experiments we investigate the relationship between pension saving and discretionary private savings unlike most differences in differences approaches which rely on average differences between control and treatment group we use economic theory to model the response of each individual household the empirical analysis based on the family expenditure survey uses both time series and cross sectional variation to identify the behavioral response the earnings related tier of the pension scheme is found to have a negative impact on private savings with relatively high substitution elasticities the impact of the flat rate tier is not significantly different from zero jel h55 h91 the relationship between pension wealth and household savings is crucial for important policy issues such as establishing the effects of changes in pension legislation on saving behavior from a theoretical point of view the lifecycle framework suggests that the provision of public benefits after retirement constitutes a negative incentive to accumulate wealth during one s working life quantifying the resulting relationship between pension wealth and saving even within a simple theoretical frame

causes of sprawl a portrait from space we study the extent to which u s urban development is sprawling and what determines differences in sprawl across space using remote sensing data to track the evolution of land use on a grid of 8 7 billion 30 30 meter cells we measure sprawl as the amount of undeveloped land surrounding an average urban dwelling the extent of sprawl remained roughly unchanged between 1976 and 1992 although it varied dramatically across metropolitan areas ground water availability temperate climate rugged terrain decentralized employment early public transport infrastructure uncertainty about metropolitan growth and unincorporated land in the urban fringe all increase sprawl

precautionary savings a panel study theoretical literature shows that income uncertainty boosts saving yet empirical work is incomplete i test for the precautionary motive for saving using panel data knowing this motive s size is important for gauging the responsiveness of saving to government programs that reduce uncertainty and for comparison to other motives such as bequests most empirical studies of precautionary saving use either aggregate time series or cross sectional data which cannot capture the effects of individual income uncertainty i derive measures of total permanent and transitory income uncertainty from panel data the national longitudinal survey and find a strong precautionary motive a doubling of uncertainty increases the ratio of wealth to permanent income by 29

tax competition and income redistribution an empirical analysis for switzerland tax competition is supposed to lead to thecollapse of the welfare state because first it willbecome difficult for a single jurisdiction to levy aredistribution tax upon the rich and mobile andsecond such a policy if undertaken in onejurisdiction will attract poor individuals from otherjurisdictions and erode internal redistributionpolicies in this paper the impact of personal incometaxes and transfers on residence decisions oftaxpayers is analyzed with swiss subfederal data therelationship of tax competition and the erosion of theswiss welfare state is tested with aggregate data onincome redistribution

new wine in old bottles the changing socioeconomic attributes of sprawl during building boom and stagnation abstract european cities are shifting towards scattered urban models with important transformations in the local socioeconomic context with the aim to identify relevant associations with different urban patterns the present study compares the socioeconomic profile of districts with respectively continuous and discontinuous settlements along the urban gradient in rome italy during building boom early 1970s and economic stagnation late 2000s non parametric correlation statistics and multivariate techniques were used to investigate the spatio temporal evolution of 24 indicators population settlement labor market economic structure and 14 land use environmental and topographic indicators at the municipal scale the socioeconomic context discriminating discontinuous from continuous settlements in the early 1970s was significantly different from what was observed in the late 2000s in the early 1970s economic structure and labor market indicators have played a major role while demographic variables and heterogeneity in the natural landscape surrounding discontinuous settlements were particularly important in the late 2000s policies oriented to urban sustainability and sprawl containment may benefit from an in depth understanding of the different socioeconomic contexts associated with scattered settlements in expansion and recession times

regional sorting of human capital the choice of location among young adults in sweden berck p tano s and westerlund o regional sorting of human capital the choice of location among young adults in sweden regional studies migration rates are highest among young adults especially students and their location choices affect the regional distribution of human capital growth and local public sector budgets using swedish register data on young adults the choice of whether to enrol in education and the choice of location are estimated jointly the results indicate a systematic selection into investment in further education based on school grades and associated preferences for locations with higher per capita tax bases for students the estimates indicate lower preferences for locations with higher shares of older people the importance of family networks for the choice of location is confirmed

income segregation and local progressive taxation empirical evidence from switzerland this study investigates spatial income segregation in fiscally decentralized urban areas the theoretical part proposes the progressivity of local income taxes as a new theoretical explanation for income segregation the empirical part studies how income tax differentials across municipalities affect the households location decisions i use data from the swiss metropolitan area of basel that contains tax information on all moving households in 1997 the location choice of the households is investigated within the framework of the random utility maximization model different econometric specifications of the error term structure such as conditional logit nested logit and multinomial probit are compared the empirical results show that rich households are significantly and substantially more likely to move to low tax municipalities than poor households this result holds after controlling for alternative explanations of segregation social interactions and distance from the central business district are established as other major factors for income segregation households in general tend to choose locations close to other households like themselves

how family networks drive residential location choices evidence from a stated preference field experiment in bogota colombia this research quantifies the relative importance of proximity to extended family networks in the stated residential location choices of bogota s low to middle income residents by applying a conditional logistic regression model and using data from an original choice experiment i find that the surveyed individuals prefer living near their extended family and on average prioritise it more than accessibility to the central business district those who have relied on help from extended family members in a personal or economic crisis situation have a stronger preference for living near extended family compared with those who have not as do those who are able to rely on extended family ties for childcare assistance

fiscal policies capital formation and capitalism abstract this lecture examines the effect of tax policy and social security retirement benefits on capital accumulation and economic welfare the paper begins by examining how capital income taxes reduce the real return to savers and then discusses the welfare loss of capital income taxation relative to the alternatives of taxing consumption and labor income the analysis shows that capital income taxes impose a very substantial deadweight loss even if they do not alter private saving the first section of the paper also discusses the theory and empirical literature on the effect of capital income taxes on national saving the second part of the lecture deals with social security retirement benefits in 1994 the aged members of the u s population will receive cash and medical benefits that cost the government 530 billion or 16 000 per person over age 65 the likely impact of these benefits on private saving and the empirical evidence on this subject are then reviewed the second part of the paper concludes by discussing the welfare loss of unfunded social security benefits and the possibilities for alternative arrangements a final section discusses the implications of international capital flows for this analysis as capital flows become more important particularly in europe the response of government policy may be to compete for foreign capital inflows and to tax domestic savers more heavily this would lead to a smaller total volume of capital the sharp decline in the net national saving rate from more than 8 percent of gdp in the united states in the 1970s to only 4 5 percent in the 1980s and from more than 14 percent of gdp in europe in the 1970s to 9 9 percent in the 1980s may not only create lower real incomes and slower growth but may weaken capitalism itself in the united states a decade of slow growth has increased protectionist tendencies in international trade and led to a new interest in industrial policies that expand the role of government in guiding the direction of technology and of private investment in these ways the government policies that discourage saving might make the schumpeterian vision of a shift from private capitalism to a government dominated economy more likely

combining revealed and stated data to examine housing decisions using discrete choice analysis abstract this paper uses stated preference and revealed preference data separately and jointly to examine individuals housing choices in particular it combines an established revealed preference approach discrete choice analysis of actual housing purchases and a relatively new stated preference approach choice based conjoint analysis of hypothetical housing purchases to provide us with a better understanding of the factors driving housing decisions these methods are appropriately combined since they reflect the same decision process households select the dwelling that provides the best combination of attributes from the feasible set of alternatives in total this paper analyzes three data sets only actual housing purchases only hypothetical housing purchases and both types of purchases combined analysis finds that actual and hypothetical housing purchases are similar decision processes with respect to some attributes yet are dissimilar with respect to other attributes nevertheless combining the two types of data improves identification of both categories of attributes journal of economic literature classification number r21

the impact of pension schemes on saving in israel israeli micro and macro data indicate that consumption smoothing is limited and thus pension savings increase private and national savings since private savings rates are to a great extent unequal across different income groups saving is almost exclusively concentrated in the upper two quintiles

a multivariate analysis of the energy intensity of sprawl versus compact living in the u s for 2003 abstract we explore the energy intensity of sprawl versus compact living by analyzing the total energy requirements of u s households for the year 2003 the methods used are based on previous studies on energy cost of living total energy requirement is calculated as a function of individual energy intensities of goods and services derived from economic input output analysis and expenditures for those goods and services we use multivariate regression analysis to estimate patterns in household energy intensities we define sprawl in terms of location in rural areas or in areas with low population size we find that even though sprawl related factors account for about 83 of the average household energy consumption sprawl is only 17 19 more energy intensive than compact living based on how people actually lived we observe that some of the advantages of reduced direct energy use by people living in high density urban centers are offset by their consumption of other non energy products a more detailed analysis reveals that lifestyle choices household type number of vehicles and family size that could be independent of location play a significant role in determining household energy intensity we develop two models that offer opportunities for further analysis

a conditional logit model of the role of local public services in residential choice this study develops and estimates an econometric model of choice among residential communities the econometric method employed is maximum likelihood estimation of a multinomial logit this makes i

pension wealth and household savings tests of robustness abstract a substantial literature exists on the impact of pension schemes both public and private on the level of household saving yet there is no clear consensus on the impact of pensions on private saving in this paper we show how beliefs about this displacement effect are modified by prior beliefs both about variables which might be relevant in an equation for private savings and about the magnitude of the displacement effect using data for 8279 canadian households and estimates of pension wealth both private and social security which we construct for each household in the sample the estimated displacement effects are found to be relatively robust with respect to both types of prior belief

the economic effects of social security toward a reconciliation of theory and measurement abstract in this paper we argue that actuarial valuation of social security benefit streams is theoretically inconsistent with the assumption of pure life cycle motives instead we show that the simple discounted value of future benefits ignoring the possibility of death is often a good approximation to the relevant concept of value this observation motivates a re examination of existing empirical evidence concerning the economic effects of social security we focus our attention on studies of distributional equity and personal saving behavior in both cases we argue that the use of simple rather than actuarial discounting of survival contingent income streams produces results that differ dramatically from previous findings specifically estimates based on actuarial valuation may overstate the importance of redistribution between and within generations and may understate the depressive effect of social security on personal wealth accumulation by a factor of three or more

exploring sprawl results from an economic agent based model of land and housing markets this paper uses an economic agent based model of land use in a growing community on the urban fringe to explore the importance of key economic variables on the spatial patterns of development over time understanding dispersed patterns of urban development is important for designing policies for mitigating the environmental and other adverse effects of urban sprawl the model includes as agents heterogeneous farmer landowners and housing consumers and a representative developer who buys land and builds houses underlying economic behavior of consumer utility maximization and developer and farmer profit maximization is assumed a unique feature of the model is that housing is characterized by variation in both lot size and house size allowing for exploration of the effects of changes in key parameters on both land and housing markets and the interaction between them the paper explores the relative importance of consumer preferences spatial distribution of agricultural productivity and travel costs in creating sprawling development patterns consumer preferences for large lots do result in more land in development and lower density but leap frog development in the model appears to be driven by other economic influences as well and in general more stable housing prices mute the effect of more variable land prices and tend to dampen the effects of economic shocks to the urbanizing area

landscape preferences and patterns of residential development abstract i analyze a model of residential location choice where people derive utility from their proximity to open space when people have such landscape preferences then 1 equilibrium residential development is mixed with undeveloped land 2 equilibrium land price gradients depend sensitively on how land markets are organized are not generally monotonic and may or may not reflect the value of open space and 3 dynamic equilibria generally have the property that more remote areas are developed before more central areas finally when compared to optimal development equilibrium development houses too many residents too close together and remote areas are developed too soon these results imply that equilibrium development may not be sprawling enough and that policies to encourage infill development are not welfare improving

estimating preferences for local public services using migration data using swedish micro data the paper examines the impact of local public services on community choice the choice of community is modelled as a choice between a discrete set of alternatives it is found that given taxes high spending on child care attracts migrants less conclusive results are obtained with respect to the role of spending on education and elderly care high local taxes deter migrants relaxing the independence of the irrelevant alternatives assumption by estimating a mixed logit model has a significant impact on the results

the stochastic city abstract this paper analyzes a simple model of an urban area with growth and uncertainty household income rents and prices for land follow stochastic processes even though investors are risk neutral uncertainty affects both land rents and land prices in equilibrium because the conversion of land from agricultural to urban use is irreversible growth on the other hand affects urban and agricultural land prices but not the level of rents we show that uncertainty i delays the conversion of land from agricultural to urban use ii imparts an option value to agricultural land iii causes land at the boundary to sell for more than its opportunity cost in other uses and iv reduces equilibrium city size

the life cycle model of consumption and saving a central implication of life cycle models is that agents smooth consumption we review the empirical evidence on smoothing at frequencies from within the year up to across a lifetime we find that life cycle models particular those which incorporate realistic features of markets and goods have more empirical successes than failures we also show that some apparent deviations from theoretical predictions imply very small welfare losses for agents finally we emphasize that the coherence of life cycle models imposes an important discipline when incorporating new features into models

the effects of pensions on household wealth a reevaluation of theory and evidence this paper examines the extent to which households offset pension wealth with reductions in other wealth systematic econometric biases imply that the estimated offsets in previous empirical studies are smaller than the true offset and may even have the wrong sign new empirical estimates that do not correct for the biases generate little offset between pensions and other wealth estimates that correct for the biases show substantially more offset a smaller impact of pensions on overall saving than in most previous studies the estimates also indicate that the effects of pensions on wealth vary significantly across households

social security and households saving this paper provides new evidence on the substitutability between private and pension wealth by exploiting the italian pension reform of 1992 we use a difference in difference estimator that exploits the differential effects of the reform on individuals belonging to several yea of birth cohorts and different occupational groups we find convincing evidence that saving rates increase as a result of a reduction in pension wealth by allowing for the possibility that substitutability changes with age we find that substitutability is particularly high and precisely estimated for workers between 35 and 45

residential segregation and unemployment the case of brussels this paper investigates the causal effects of the spatial organisation of brussels on unemployment propensities using census data at the individual level the unemployment probability of young adults is estimated while taking into account personal household and neighbourhood characteristics the endogeneity of residential locations is solved by restricting the sample to young adults residing with their parents the potential remaining bias is evaluated by conducting a sensitivity analysis the results suggest that the neighbourhood of residence significantly increases a youngster s probability of being unemployed a result which is quite robust to the presence of both observed and unobserved parental covariates

joint choice of tenure and dwelling type a multinomial logit analysis for the city of chongju this paper explores the plausible variables that influence choices in the chongju housing market a joint model of tenure and dwelling type is estimated within the multinomial logit framework the