In response to growing concerns over housing affordability and the rise of vacant investment properties, cities like Oakland, California have adopted Vacant Property Taxes (VPTs) to discourage property speculation and increase housing availability. By incentivizing occupancy and reducing artificial scarcity, these policies aim to increase supply and, in turn, put downward pressure on home prices. To evaluate this hypothesized relationship, I use a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to study the effects of Oakland’s Measure W on residential property prices, comparing changes in Oakland to those in nearby cities where a similar tax has not been implemented. Contrary to expectations, I find a statistically significant 7.66 percentage point increase in property prices—approximately $97,205 relative to the pre-policy average—following the tax’s implementation. This result, however, is sensitive to model specification. No
evidence suggests a short-term decrease in prices, and effects are more pronounced among lower-value properties. These results challenge prevailing assumptions about VPTs as a straightforward affordability tool. Rather than lowering prices, the policy may have contributed to increased housing prices, highlighting the potential for unintended consequences depending on tax design and market dynamics.
To better understand the impacts of market concentration and reduced competition on consumers in the airline industry, this paper investigates the effects of Alaska Airlines’ 2016 merger with Virgin America on airfares and quantities of passengers. I use highly disaggregated route- and firm-level data to conduct an event study and a difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects. The identification strategy compares routes where Alaska and Virgin had both competed prior to the merger (overlapping routes) to routes where only one had operated in order
to estimate the effects of reduced competition. I find that prices did not change significantly after the merger but increased sharply by an estimated $40.96 after Alaska eliminated Virgin from the market in 2018. I attribute this result to reduced competition, because load factor, a proxy for efficiency, does not vary systematically between overlapping and non-overlapping routes after the merger.
How effective are paternity leave policies in improving new mothers’ labour market outcomes and promoting gender equality? The persistent gender earnings gap largely arises from women’s prolonged career interruptions due to disproportionate childcare responsibilities. Paternity leave policies are designed to mitigate these interruptions by encouraging a more equal share of childcare duties within a household. Existing research primarily examines restrictive, quota-based paternity leave policies, finding increased paternal leave uptake but mixed long-term effects on mothers’ labour market outcomes and household division of labour.
This study analyzes the effect of the UK’s Shared Parental Leave Regulations (SPL), which allows parents to flexibly share leave and pay. Despite having little influence on paternity leave uptake rate and duration, the reform results in a significant positive effect on women’s labour income in the childbirth year. However, this positive effect reverses in subsequent years, leading to negative impacts on mothers’ earnings. Further analysis indicates that SPL may result in a short-term reduction in fathers’ labour supply, possibly reflecting some increased childcare involvement that initially supports mothers’ earnings. Yet, this shift is accompanied by a decline in fathers’ life satisfaction and followed by a reduction in mothers’ labour supply. These patterns are consistent with research suggesting that short-term deviations from traditional gender norms may backfire on progresses in gender equality.
Popular beliefs that women are more caring or helpful than men misalign with mixed evidence about gender differences in prosociality, i.e., behaviour that benefits others. Nevertheless, can such beliefs, specifically about differences in altruism and generalized trust, lead to observed gender gaps in prosocial behaviours like volunteering? Using individual-level data on the volunteering of second-generation immigrants in the United States, I first document that men are 28% less likely than similar women to volunteer, but there are no obvious gender differences in volunteering hours. Linking these individuals to altruism and trust norms from their mothers’ countries of ancestry, I find that men’s volunteering is less influenced by norms about generalized trust compared to women, particularly along the extensive margin. My analysis suggests that this result is driven by a misperceived gender norm that places a greater responsibility on women to help others (particularly strangers), with tangible consequences for allocating unpaid labour.
Government employees make up a significant portion of the workforce and have high union membership rates in both Canada and the United States. To understand how this impacts the macroeconomy I investigate the relationship between public sector unions (PSUs) and the private sector. Synthesizing previous research, I establish that PSUs can lead to ”crowding out” of private labour and increase government labour costs. The effects of this on the private sector through labour reductions and distortionary tax increases are formalized in a neoclassical growth model. Using literature estimates of model parameters I estimate a range of quantitative effects through different causal pathways, from a 0.4% decrease in capital and output to a 5.2% decrease in capital and 1.7% decrease in output. I then use company and state level data to look at the effects of PSUs empirically with a two-way fixed effects approach, and find insignificant results.
response to growing concerns over housing affordability and the rise of vacant investment properties, cities like Oakland, California have adopted Vacant Property Taxes (VPTs) to discourage property speculation and increase housing availability. By incentivizing occupancy and reducing artificial scarcity, these policies aim to increase supply and, in turn, put downward pressure on home prices. To evaluate this hypothesized relationship, I use a difference-in-differences (DiD) approach to study the effects of Oakland’s Measure W on residential property prices, comparing changes in Oakland to those in nearby cities where a similar tax has not been implemented. Contrary to expectations, I find a statistically significant 7.66 percentage point increase in property prices—approximately $97,205 relative to the pre-policy average—following the tax’s implementation. This result, however, is sensitive to model specification. No
To better understand the impacts of market concentration and reduced competition on consumers in the airline industry, this paper investigates the effects of Alaska Airlines’ 2016 merger with Virgin America on airfares and quantities of passengers. I use highly disaggregated route- and firm-level data to conduct an event study and a difference-in-differences analysis with two-way fixed effects. The identification strategy compares routes where Alaska and Virgin had both competed prior to the merger (overlapping routes) to routes where only one had operated in order
