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Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 19 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure x
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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
People’s Republic of China—Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: 2024 Article IV Consultation Discussions-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
Hong Kong SAR’s economy is on a path of gradual but uneven recovery following a protracted period of shocks. While the unemployment rate has declined to historical lows, employment loss has been sizable and domestic demand has remained weak amid tight financial conditions and property market downturn, both locally and in Mainland China. The territory’s integration with Mainland China, including in the context of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) initiative, has significantly increased in recent years, but rising regional competition has put pressure on some of its traditional growth engines, prompting the authorities to pursue new sources of growth, including from innovative, technology-driven sectors.
Keywords:
consultation discussion; exchange regime; surveillance topic; rate of HK; surveillance effort; Housing; Housing prices; Climate finance; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
Satellite-Based Census of Residential Buildings: Application for Climate Risk Assessment
Andinet Woldemichael
and
Iyke Maduako
Housing represents the largest asset and liability, in the form of mortgages, on most national balance sheet. For most households it is their largest investment, and when mortgages are required also represents the largest component of household debt. It is also directly tied to financial markets, both the mortgage market and insurance sector. Although many countries have a rich set of housing censuses and statistics, others have large data gap in this area and therefore struggle to formulate effective policies. This paper proposes an approach to construct a global census of residential buildings using opensource satellite data. Such a layer can be used to assess the extent these buildings are exposed to climate hazards and how their production and consumption, in turn, affect the climate. The approach we propose could be scaled globally, combining existing layers of building footprints, climate and socioeconomic data. It adds to the ongoing effort of compiling spatially explicit and granular climate indicators to better inform policies. As a case study, we compute selected indicators and estimate the extent of residential properties exposure to riverine flood risk for Kenya.
Keywords:
Census of buildings; Climate Exposure; Building Footprint; flood risk; property indicator; aggregate dwellings Capital Stock value; descriptive statistics of the data; flood hazard map; return period; Housing; Climate change; Stocks; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Spending Challenge of Achieving the SDGs in South Asia: Lessons from India
Ms. Mercedes Garcia-Escribano
,
Ms. Tewodaj Mogues
,
Marian Moszoro
, and
Mauricio Soto
South Asia has experienced significant progress in improving human and physical capital over the past few decades. Within the region, India has become a global economic powerhouse with enormous development potential ahead. To foster human and economic development, India has shown a strong commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Agenda. This paper focuses on the medium-term development challenges that South Asia, and in particular India, faces to ensure substantial progress along the SDGs by 2030. We estimate the additional spending needed in critical areas of human capital (health and education) and physical capital (water and sanitation, electricity, and roads). We document progress on these five sectors for India relative to other South Asian countries and discuss implications for policy and reform.
Keywords:
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Human Capital; Infrastructure; India; spending estimation; health outcome; spending challenge; physical capital; SDG sector; Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); Electricity; South Asia
Cover IMF Working Papers
Demographics and the Housing Market: Japan’s Disappearing Cities
Ms. Yuko Hashimoto
,
Mr. Gee Hee Hong
, and
Xiaoxiao Zhang
How does a shrinking population affect the housing market? In this study, drawing on Japan’s experience, we find that there exists an asymmetric relationship between housing prices and population change. Due to the durability of housing structures, the decline in housing prices associated with population losses is estimated to be larger than the rise in prices associated with population increases. Given that population losses have been and are projected to be more acute in rural areas than urban areas in Japan, the on-going demographic transition in Japan could worsen regional disparities, as falling house prices in rural areas could intensify population outflows. Policy measures to promote more even population growth across regions, and avoid the over-supply of houses, are critical to stabilize house prices with a shrinking population.
Keywords:
WP; house price; price; house; housing price; price appreciation; condominium price; price dynamics; price decline; price change; Housing prices; Housing; Population growth; Inflation; population change; house prices; durable housing model; akiya (vacant houses); regional disparity
Cover IMF Working Papers
Foreign Demand and Local House Prices: Evidence from the US
Mr. Damien Puy
,
Mr. Anil Ari
, and
Ms. Yu Shi
We test whether foreign demand matters for local house prices in the US using an identification strategy based on the existence of “home bias abroad” in international real estate markets. Following an extreme political crisis event abroad, a proxy for a strong and exogenous shift in foreign demand, we show that house prices rise disproportionately more in neighbourhoods with a high concentration of population originating from the crisis country. This effect is strong, persistent, and robust to the exclusion of major cities. We also show that areas that were already expensive in the late 1990s have experienced the strongest foreign demand shocks and the biggest drop in affordability between 2000 and 2017. Our findings suggest a non-trivial causal effect of foreign demand shocks on local house prices over the last 20 years, especially in neighbourhoods that were already rather unaffordable for the median household.
Keywords:
WP; time series; house price; housing boom; foreign demand shocks; interaction term; housing affordability; Housing prices; Foreign currency exposure; Housing; Real estate prices; Global; House Prices; Political Risk; Capital Flows
Cover IMF Working Papers
How Should We Measure City Size? Theory and Evidence Within and Across Rich and Poor Countries
Remi Jedwab
,
Mr. Prakash Loungani
, and
Anthony Yezer
It is obvious that holding city population constant, differences in cities across the world are enormous. Urban giants in poor countries are not large using measures such as land area, interior space or value of output. These differences are easily reconciled mathematically as population is the product of land area, structure space per unit land (i.e., heights), and population per unit interior space (i.e., crowding). The first two are far larger in the cities of developed countries while the latter is larger for the cities of developing countries. In order to study sources of diversity among cities with similar population, we construct a version of the standard urban model (SUM) that yields the prediction that the elasticity of city size with respect to income could be similar within both developing countries and developed countries. However, differences in income and urban technology can explain the physical differences between the cities of developed countries and developing countries. Second, using a variety of newly merged data sets, the predictions of the SUM for similarities and differences of cities in developed and developing countries are tested. The findings suggest that population is a sufficient statistic to characterize city differences among cities within the same country, not across countries.
Keywords:
WP; per capita income; economic development; density function; low income; Urbanization; Cities; Urban Giants; Population; Standard Urban Model; Measurement; Urban Technology; Building Heights; Sprawl; Housing; Transportation; income elasticity; building height; Income; Wages; Housing prices; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Transport Infrastructure, City Productivity Growth and Sectoral Reallocation: Evidence from China
Yang Yang
This paper examines the impact of highway expansion on aggregate productivity growth and sectoral reallocation between cities in China. To do so, I construct a unique dataset of bilateral transportation costs between Chinese cities, digitized highway network maps, and firm-level census. I first derive and estimate a market access measure that summarizes all direct and indirect impact of trade costs on city productivity. I then construct an instrumental variable to examine the causal impact of highways on economic outcomes and the underlying channels. The results suggest that highways promoted aggregate productivity growth by facilitating firm entry, exit and reallocation. I also find evidence that the national highway system led to a sectoral reallocation between cities in China.
Keywords:
WP; market access; dependent variable; transportation cost; Transport infrastructure; trade; highway; productivity; China; firm TFP; logistics company; census data; production efficiency; Transportation; Total factor productivity; Infrastructure; Global; City productivity growth; evidence from China; sectoral reallocation; C. firm Productivity; Manufacturing
Cover IMF Working Papers
Small Island States in the Pacific: the Tyranny of Distance
Mr. Chris Becker
This paper seeks to document key characteristics of small island states in the Pacific. It restricts itself to a limited number of indicators which are macro-orientated - population, fertility of land, ability to tap into economies of scale, income, and geographic isolation. It leaves aside equally important but more micro-orientated variables and development indicators. We show that small island states in the Pacific are different from countries in other regional groupings in that they are extremely isolated and have limited scope to tap economies of scale due to small populations. They often have little arable land. There is empirical evidence to suggest that these factors are related to income growth.
Keywords:
WP; arable land; gross national income; small state sample; small states; growth rate; microstate; economies of scale; geographic isolation; a number of small states; small states in the Pacific; Personal income; National income; Pacific Islands; Caribbean
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Djibouti: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper
International Monetary Fund
Following a participatory process involving all development players, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) on Djibouti sets goals for poverty reduction and improvement of inhabitants’ living conditions. Analysis of the results of the first three years of implementation of the PRSP reveals a number of significant achievements but shows that chronic weaknesses are still undermining the country’s development efforts. These results were achieved through implementation of priority measures in the social sectors and in the areas of growth support and preservation of macroeconomic stability.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; civil society; human resources; private sector; president of the republic; development program; government priority; regional council; Housing; Job training; Global; Southern Africa; East Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Irrational Exuberance in the U.S. Housing Market: Were Evangelicals Left Behind?
Mr. Christopher W. Crowe
The recent housing bust has reignited interest in psychological theories of speculative excess (Shiller, 2007). I investigate this issue by identifying a segment of the U.S. population-evangelical protestants-that may be less prone to speculative motives, and uncover a significant negative relationship between their population share and house price volatility. Evangelicals' focus on Biblical prophecy could account for this difference, since it may enable them to interpret otherwise negative events as containing positive news, dampening the response of house prices to shocks. I provide evidence for this channel using a popular internet measure of "prophetic activity" and a 9/11 event study. I also analyze survey data covering religious beliefs and asset holding, and find that 'end times' beliefs are associated with a one-third decline in net worth, consistent with these beliefs providing a form of psychic insurance (Scheve and Stasavage, 2006a and 2006b) that reduces asset demand.
Keywords:
WP; standard deviation; house prices; economics of Religion; asset price cycles; share of evangelical; dependent variable; growth series; price appreciation; population share; price volatility; evangelical area; Housing prices; Housing; Asset bubbles; Insurance; Middle East; Global