We estimate the effect of urban spatial structure on income segregation in Brazilian cities between 2000 and 2010. Our results show that, first, local density conditions increase income segregation: the effect is higher in monocentric cities and smaller in polycentric ones. Second, the degree of monocentricity-polycentricity also affects segregation: while...

In the post World War II period, most U.S. cities experienced large movements of population from the city centers to the suburbs. In this paper we provide causal evidence that this process of suburbanization can be explained by the rise of violent crime in city centers. We do so by...

The responsiveness of house prices to monetary policy shocks depends on the nature of the shock – expansionary versus contractionary – and on local housing supply elasticities. These findings are established based on a panel of 263 US metropolitan areas. We test and find supporting evidence for the hypothesis that...

I investigate the effect of highways on residential sprawl in European cities between 1990 and 2012. I find that a 10% increase in the stock of highways (km) causes a 0.4% growth in the residential land area, a 1.7% growth in the number of residential lots, and a 0.7% growth...

We study the US city size distribution over space. This paper makes two contributions to the empirical literature on city size distributions. First, this study uses data from different definitions of US cities in 2010 to study the distribution of cities in space, finding significant patterns of dispersion depending on...

An inflow of immigrants into a region impacts house prices in three ways. For a fixed level of local population, housing demand rises due to the increase in foreign- born population. In addition, immigrants can influence native location decisions and induce additional shifts in demand. Finally, changes in housing supply...