TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Will skyscrapers save the planet? Building height limits and urban greenhouse gas emissions JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - This paper studies the effectiveness of building height limits as a policy to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It shows that building height limits lead to urban sprawl and higher emissions from commuting. On the other hand, aggregate housing consumption may decrease, which reduces emissions from residential energy use. A numerical model is used to evaluate whether total GHG emissions may be lower under building height restrictions. Welfare is not concave in the strictness of building height limits, so either no limit or a very strict one (depending on the strength of the externality) might maximize welfare. The paper discusses several extensions, such as congestion, endogenous transport mode choice, migration, and urban heat island effect. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved KW - Greenhouse gas emissions KW - City structure KW - Building height limits Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2016.01.004 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 58 SP - 13 EP - 25 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Schrauth, Philipp T1 - Urban pollution BT - A global perspective T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - We use worldwide satellite data to analyse how population size and density affect urban pollution. We find that density significantly increases pollution exposure. Looking only at urban areas, we find that population size affects exposure more than density. Moreover, the effect is driven mostly by population commuting to core cities rather than the core city population itself. We analyse heterogeneity by geography and income levels. By and large, the influence of population on pollution is greatest in Asia and middle-income countries. A counterfactual simulation shows that PM2.5 exposure would fall by up to 36% and NO2 exposure up to 53% if within countries population size were equalized across all cities. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 60 KW - population density KW - air pollution KW - gridded data Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-572049 SN - 2628-653X IS - 60 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Übelmesser, Silke A1 - Wimbersky, Martin T1 - The Political Economics of Higher-Education Finance for Mobile Individuals JF - FinanzArchiv N2 - We study voting over higher-education finance in an economy with two regions and two separated labor markets. Households differ in their financial endowment and their children's ability. Nonstudents are immobile. Students decide where to study; they return home after graduation with exogenous probability. The voters of the two regions decide on whether to subsidize higher-education costs or to rely on tuition fees only. We find that in equilibrium, in both regions a majority votes for subsidies when the return probability is sufficiently small. When that probability is large, both regions opt for full tuition finance. KW - voting KW - higher education KW - financing scheme KW - mobility Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1628/001522115X14206439673215 SN - 0015-2218 SN - 1614-0974 VL - 71 IS - 1 SP - 82 EP - 105 PB - Mohr Siebeck CY - Tübingen ER - TY - GEN A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Gohl, Niklas T1 - Steigende Mieten? BT - Gentrifizierung in deutschen Großstädten und die Suche nach bezahlbarem Wohnraum T2 - Ökonomenstimme N2 - Vor dem Hintergrund rasant steigender Mieten in deutschen Großstädten untersuchen wir in einer neuen Studie die Auswirkungen von Gentrifizierung sowie von politischen Gegenmaßnahmen auf unterschiedliche Einkommensgruppen anhand eines quantitativen Modells für Berlin. Wir finden, dass eine Mietpreisbindung (wie der „Mietendeckel“) allen Haushalten, vor allem aber den ärmeren Haushalten, schadet. Andere Maßnahmen wie Neubau oder direkte Subventionen schneiden besser ab. Y1 - 2022 UR - https://oekonomenstimme.org/articles/1961 PB - KOF Konjunkturforschungsstelle der ETH Zürich CY - Zürich ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Wrede, Matthias T1 - Spatial and social mobility JF - Journal of Regional Science N2 - This paper analyzes the relationship between spatial mobility and social mobility. It develops a two-skill-type spatial equilibrium model of two regions with location preferences where each region consists of an urban area that is home to workplaces and residences and an exclusively residential suburban area. The paper demonstrates that relative regional social mobility is negatively correlated with segregation and inequality. In the model, segregation, income inequality, and social mobility are driven by differences between urban and residential areas in commuting cost differences between high-skilled and low-skilled workers, and also by the magnitude of taste heterogeneity. KW - inequality KW - segregation KW - social mobility KW - spatial mobility Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/jors.12382 SN - 0022-4146 SN - 1467-9787 VL - 58 IS - 4 SP - 688 EP - 704 PB - Wiley CY - Hoboken ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Freier, Ronny A1 - Martin, Thorsten T1 - Race to the debt trap? - Spatial econometric evidence on debt in German municipalities JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - Through an intertemporal budget constraint, jurisdictions may gain advantages in tax and spending competition by 'competing' on debt. While the existing spatial econometric literature focuses on tax and spending competition, very little is known about spatial interaction via public debt. If jurisdictions compete for mobile capital to finance public spending, they may compete in debt levels as well as taxes. We use a theoretical model to derive the reaction of jurisdictions' debt levels to their neighbors' debts. We then estimate the spatial interdependence of public debt among German municipalities using a panel on municipalities in the two largest German states from 1999 to 2006. We find significant and robust interaction effects between debt levels of neighboring municipalities, which we compare to spatial tax and spending interactions. The results indicate that a municipality increases its per capita debt by 16-33 Euro as a reaction to an increase of 100 Euro in neighboring municipalities. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Public debt KW - Tax and spending competition KW - Municipality data KW - Spatial interactions KW - Spatial panel estimation Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2015.04.003 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 53 SP - 20 EP - 37 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald T1 - Public transport and urban pollution JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - This paper studies the effect of public transport policies on urban pollution. It uses a quantitative equilibrium model with residential choice and mode choice. Pollution comes from commuting and residential energy use. The model parameters are calibrated to replicate key variables for American metropolitan areas. In the counterfactual, I study how free public transport coupled with increasing transit speed affects the equilibrium. In the baseline simulation, total pollution falls by 0.4%, as decreasing emissions from transport are partly offset by rising residential emissions. A second counterfactual compares a city with and without public transit. This large investment decreases pollution by 1.7%. When jobs are decentralized, emissions fall by 0.5% in the first and by 3% in the second counterfactual. KW - Public transport KW - Pollution KW - Discrete choice Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2019.06.005 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 77 SP - 356 EP - 366 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Oshiro, Jun A1 - Satō, Yasuhiro T1 - Property tax competition BT - A quantitative assessment T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - We develop a model of property taxation and characterize equilibria under three alternative taxa-tion regimes often used in the public finance literature: decentralized taxation, centralized taxation, and “rent seeking” regimes. We show that decentralized taxation results in inefficiently high tax rates, whereas centralized taxation yields a common optimal tax rate, and tax rates in the rent-seeking regime can be either inefficiently high or low. We quantify the effects of switching from the observed tax system to the three regimes for Japan and Germany. The decentralized or rent-seeking regime best describes the Japanese tax system, whereas the centralized regime does so for Germany. We also quantify the welfare effects of regime changes. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 52 KW - property taxes KW - tax competition KW - efficiency Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-562228 SN - 2628-653X ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Schrauth, Philipp T1 - Population density and urban air quality JF - Regional science and urban economics N2 - We use panel data from Germany to analyze the effect of population density on urban air pollution (nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, ozone, and an aggregate index for bad air quality [AQI]). To address unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variables, we present long difference/fixed effects estimates and instrumental variables estimates, using historical population and soil quality as instruments. Using our preferred estimates, we find that the concentration increases with density for NO2 with an elasticity of 0.25 and particulate matter with elasticity of 0.08. The O-3 concentration decreases with density with an elasticity of -0.14. The AQI increases with density, with an elasticity of 0.11-0.13. We also present a variety of robustness tests. Overall, the paper shows that higher population density worsens local air quality. KW - Population density KW - Air pollution Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103596 SN - 0166-0462 SN - 1879-2308 VL - 86 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Borck, Rainald A1 - Schrauth, Philipp T1 - Population density and urban air quality T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - We use panel data from Germany to analyze the effect of population density on urban air pollution (nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone). To address unobserved heterogeneity and omitted variables, we present long difference/fixed effects estimates and instrumental variables estimates, using historical population and soil quality as instruments. Our preferred estimates imply that a one-standard deviation increase in population density increases air pollution by 3-12%. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 8 KW - population density KW - air pollution Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427719 SN - 2628-653X IS - 8 ER -