Housing prices, buses, and trams in Medellín (Colombia) (With M.A García López)

Research in Transportation Economics, vol. 106, September 2024

This paper aims to establish the impact of two medium capacity transportation systems (MCTS) on housing prices in Medellín (Colombia): Metroplús, a bus rapid transit (BRT) system, and Tranvía, a tramway system. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the Medell´ın Quality of Life Survey from 2008 to 2018 and difference-indifferences estimators, we find that Metroplús has a negative impact on the growth of rental prices, whereas Tranvía has a positive impact. We do not find any effect on several other outcomes, such as the perception of quality and coverage of the public transportation in the neighborhoods they serve, and the number of private vehicles in the household.

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Highway traffic in Britain: The effect of road capacity changes (with M.A Garcia-López and R. Sanchis-Guarner H.)

[CEP Discussion Paper]

This paper provides a theoretical framework to study the relationship between expanded road capacity, traffic volumes and increased economic activity. We build on Anas (2024) to show that increased volumes do not necessarily lead to congestion if adjustments in economic factors, such as population or employment, are not substantial. We test our predictions obtaining key estimates with data from Great Britain between 2001 and 2020 and adopting a shift-share instrumental variable approach. We find that the elasticity of vehicle kilometres travelled to road capacity improvements is positive and statistically different from 1 across different specifications, while the elasticity of population and employment is positive but smaller than 1. In our framework this implies that the cost of driving does not increase above initial levels, resulting in higher consumer surplus through changes in travel demand and time savings.

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The next bus out. Urban public transportation and multidimensional poverty  (with A. Garcia-Suaza)

This paper seeks to establish the effect of implementing a BRT system on multidimensional poverty, explore how it affects labor market outcomes as the main mechanism, and understand the effects across the distribution of poverty. Taking Cartagena's new transport system as our setting, using data from the 2018 National Census, and a Doubly-Robust estimation, we found that connectivity to Transcaribe decreases the Multidimensional Poverty Index by 6.4 p.p. The effect is more pronounced for those in the most vulnerable groups: young and unskilled workers, and women. The estimates for labor market outcomes suggest that connectivity improved access to jobs that are a good match for the skills and qualifications of unemployed individuals.​

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Concentrate to adapt: crops, droughts and land productivity

This paper aims to establish whether the effects of drought on agricultural land productivity correlate with the spatial concentration of crops. For this, I leverage drought conditions in California between 2010 and 2020, using detailed weekly information from the US Drought Monitor. My empirical strategy has three steps. First,  I identify the most concentrated crops in California using granular location data for over 40 crop types (almost 1.5 million parcels) and the Ellison-Glaeser index. Second, I use multiple-level fixed-effects specifications to analyze the effects of drought on land productivity. In the third step, I look for heterogeneous effects of drought across different levels of concentration of crops. I found that the effect of droughts on land productivity is positive and differentiated across levels of spatial concentration. These results have implications, demonstrating that the spatial distribution of crops influences how the agricultural sector responds to climate change events such as droughts.

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WORK IN PROGRESS

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Bypassing pollution (with M.A Garcia-López and R. Sanchis-Guarner H.) 

We study how the construction of a new bypass impacts air pollution levels in the urban area it bypasses, the area where it is built, and overall. Understanding this effect is important considering the health effects of traffic-related pollution and the resources devoted yearly to road infrastructure. Hence, our objectives are to: (a) establish the causal effect of building a new bypass on air pollution levels in the built-up area; (b) determine the causal effect of a new bypass on air pollution levels in the construction area; (c) evaluate the total effect of a new bypass on air pollution levels; (d) explore the role of traffic volumes on air pollution level changes.