Directing Development: Do One-Way Roads Inhibit Downtown Development? A Case Study of Hickory, North Carolina
by Adeleine Geitner
Abstract
In cities across the United States, residents and policymakers have passed measures to increase accessibility and walkability as a strategy for revitalizing disinvested downtowns. Alongside many of these measures, one-way roads have been reverted to two-way traffic due to their observed hindrance on walkability and pedestrian safety. In Hickory, North Carolina, planners perceive the land along the city’s downtown one-ways as less viable for development due to the speed and load of the traffic that they carry. This study observes the impact of one-way roads on the efficacy of a downtown pedestrian infrastructure plan that the city passed in 2014, aimed at increasing investment and development in the city’s downtown. It uses a difference-in-differences approach to measure how the indirect effects of this investment package are felt on one-way road properties relative to two-way road properties within the central business district.
Professor Charles Becker, Faculty Advisor
JEL Codes: R12; R58
Keywords: one-way streets; downtown redevelopment; property value appreciation; vacant land reclamation
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Taxing Marijuana and the Road to Reparations: Comparing the Colorado and Illinois Cannabis Markets
by Tommaso Carlo Filippo Babucci
Abstract
Although still prohibited at the federal level, cannabis can now be found on the shelves of recreational dispensaries across thirty-three U.S states. This thesis examines the development of this legal market from both historical and empirical perspectives. Using a new data set, it estimates the determinants of cannabis sales and tax revenues in the Colorado market and analyzes the incidence of a single tax increase. The results, which suggest that legal cannabis behaves like a luxury good, are used to analyze the potential for cannabis-funded reparations programs in Illinois, which recently approved recreational sales of cannabis.
Advisor: Connel Fullenkamp | JEL Codes: H2, R50, L15
The Impact of Agglomeration Externalities on Product Innovation Output in Chinese Industrial Firms
By Cindy Feng
Agglomeration externalities is defined as the economic benefits from concentrating firms, housing, and output. This study investigates the impact of agglomeration externalities of industrial firms on product innovation output in China. In the research, I specified the impact of agglomeration into three types: Marshallian or localization externalities, defined as the impact of collocating with same-industry firms; Urbanization economies, defined as the impact of collocating with different-industry firms, and Porter externalities, the impact of competing with same-industry firms as a result of localization. My result suggests endogenous spatial selection of firms account for most of the agglomeration impacts we observe. Despite so, urbanization economies is still impactful in boosting a firm’s innovation performance, and should be taken into account as the government implements policies that boost firm performance.
Advisors: Professor Charles Becker, Professor Kent Kimbrough | JEL Codes: R3, D24, R50
Understanding the Value of Amenities: A Study of the Land Value Determination Process in Hangzhou, China
By Ching-Ching Chen
This paper seeks to investigate the determinants of land within Hangzhou China. There are two main goals that the research paper will attempt to address. The first is to build upon existing research on land pricing in terms of the theories outlined by the monocentric city and hedonic pricing models. Second, the paper will use a dataset of Hangzhou land sales transactions between the years of 2003 and 2011 to investigate the possible existence of “luxury residuals” among commercial and residential land parcels. Nonetheless, due to the presence of large residuals, while Chinese consumers value certain amenities is not fully captured by these results. Rather, a number of case studies or outliers are used to fully examine the influences of these amenity variables in driving extreme prices. The result support the hypothesis that China, located at the bottom of Kuznets environmental curve, values amenities at extreme levels as a result of scarcity.
Advisor: Charles Becker, Kent Kimbrough | JEL Codes: Q51, R0, R14, R52 | Tagged: Empirical Analysis, Hangzhou Land Price Appreciation, Hedonic Pricing Model, Kuznets Curve, Monocentric City Model
