Nathaniel Baum-Snow

Brown University

Department of Economics, Box B

Providence, RI 02912

Phone: (401) 863-2697

Nathaniel_Baum-Snow {at} brown {dot} edu

CV: pdf

Work In Progress

School Desegregation, School Choice and Changes in Residential Location Patterns by Race (with Byron Lutz)

The Effects of Low Income Housing Developments on Neighborhoods (with Justin Marion)

Mismeasurement of Usual Hours Worked and Its Impact on Measured Wages and Wage Gaps Over Time

(with Derek Neal)

Abstract: Beginning in 1980, the census long form asked respondents to provide the number of hours they usually worked per week during the previous calendar year. These data on usual hours worked often contain errors, which in some cases, result from respondents answering the question concerning usual hours worked per week as if it referred to hours worked per day. The apparent quality of hours worked data in the census varies over time and by race and gender at a point in time. Scholars who study differences in the distributions of potential wages by gender and race and how these differences have evolved over time require data on both hourly wages and the size

of institutionalized populations. Although census long form data provide the only nationally representative samples that satisfy these criteria, our paper is a word of caution for those who do employ census data on hours worked to construct hourly wages for any samples that include part-time workers.

Urban Employment Decentralization and Innovations to the Transportation Infrastructure (New Version Coming Soon)

Understanding the City Size Wage Gap (with Ronni Pavan)

Publications

Did Highways Cause Suburbanization? (Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2007)

Abstract: Between 1950 and 1990, the aggregate population of central cities in the United States declined by 17 percent despite national population growth of 64 percent. This paper assesses the extent to which the construction of new limited access highways has contributed to central city population decline. Using planned portions of the interstate highway system as a source of exogenous variation, empirical estimates indicate that one new highway passing through a central city reduces its population by about 20 percent. These estimates imply that aggregate central city population would have grown by at least 8 percent had the interstate highway system not been built.

Effects of Urban Rail Transit Expansions: Evidence from Sixteen Cities (with Matthew E. Kahn)

Brookings Papers on Urban Affairs, 2005

Abstract: Between 1970 and 2000, there have been significant expansions in rail transit networks in sixteen U.S. cities. Over the same period, transit use has been declining rapidly. Using unique panel data on rail transit access and use at the census tract level nationwide, we evaluate and quantify the extent to which new rail transit attracts new riders. Further, we roughly quantify the benefits of new rail lines due to commuting time saved. We find evidence that in certain types of metropolitan areas, new rail transit can attract new riders. However, the majority of riders of new rail transit lines switch from riding the bus. In all but a few cities, new rail transit lines have had little impact on aggregate commuting times.

Suburbanization and Transportation in the Monocentric Model (Journal of Urban Economics, Nov. 2007)

Abstract: This paper presents a version of the monocentric city model that incorporates heterogeneous commuting speeds by introducing radial commuting highways. This model implies that metropolitan area population spreads out along new highways, which are positively valued by residents. Simulations of conservative specifications of the model imply that each additional highway ray causes about a 10 percent decline in central city population. Given observed central population declines and urban highway construction between 1950 and 1990, this model implies that highways can account for an important part of urban population decentralization.

This paper investigates the extent to which desegregation of central metro area public school districts led to population declines in central cities, movement to private schools and changing demographic compositions of neighborhoods. Our investigation using census data confirms past results using district enrollment data that school desegregation has led to central district white enrollment declines of about 15 percent. Consistent with evidence in Guryan (2004), we also find that desegregation significantly increased black enrollment in central districts by about 20 percent outside of the South. We show that these enrollment changes manifest themselves almost entirely in residential relocation to and from neighborhoods near the boundaries of central school districts. The spatial patterns in population, public school and private school enrollment responses to desegregation closely match those predicted by a land use and Tiebout sorting model.

This paper evaluates the impacts of new housing developments funded with the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the largest federal project based housing program in the U.S., on the neighborhoods in which they are built. A discontinuity in the formula determining the magnitude of tax credits as a function of neighborhood characteristics generates pseudo-random assignment in the number of low income housing units built in similar sets of census tracts. Estimates indicate that a 30 percent increase in the tax credit generates an increase of approximately 6 low income housing units on a base of 7 units per tract, and that developers differentially select gentrifying neighborhoods as locations for their developments. These additional new low income developments cause homeowner turnover to rise in neighborhoods near the 30th percentile of the income distribution and raise property values in declining areas. LIHTC units significantly crowd out nearby new construction in gentrifying areas but do not displace new construction in stable or declining areas.