GES: Rasmus Landersø, ROCKWOOL Foundation
We are pleased to welcome Rasmus Landersø to the General Economics Series (GES) on March 24. Rasmus Landersø is a Research Professor and Chief of Research for Welfare Studies at the ROCKWOOL Foundation. His research spans applied microeconomics, labor economics, the economics of crime, and the origins of inequality in skills and opportunity.
Time and place: Tuesday, 24th March, at 12:00-13:15 in B44, Vasagatan 1, Gothenburg.
Title: “Effects of a Housing Policy on Neighborhoods, Residential Mobility, and Inequality” with Christian Dustmann and Mikkel Mertz.
Abstract: “We study a large-scale conversion of roughly 20,000 public rental units into privately owned cooperative properties. The policy substantially upgraded the socioeconomic composition of residents in converted units, which in turn drew more affluent residents to the surrounding neighborhoods. However, increasing the attractiveness of specific neighborhoods relative to others inevitably triggers residential mobility, leading to broader shifts in who lives where. We find that the policy generated large ripple effects as residents relocated across neighborhoods, with low-income neighborhoods not directly targeted by the policy facing growing concentrations of disadvantaged residents. While these compositional shifts appear to be zero-sum reshuffling of adult residents across different neighborhoods, we show that the policy had real and substantial consequences for GPA, high school completion, and youth crime of children growing up in affected areas. The largest effects were observed for children with low-educated parents and appear to be mediated by changes in peer composition through social interactions. Our findings highlight both the transformative potentials of place-based housing policies as well as potential unintended redistributive effects, which emphasize the importance of assessing the broader, city-wide impact of housing policies. "