Income Growth and the Distributional Effects of Urban Spatial Sorting

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Couture, Victor; Gaubert, Cecile; Handbury, Jessie; Hurst, Erik
• 署名单位: University of British Columbia; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of Pennsylvania; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdad048
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 858-898
• 关键词: residential-mobility; gentrification; determinants; INEQUALITY; QUALITY

摘要

We explore the impact of rising incomes at the top of the distribution on spatial sorting patterns within large U.S. cities. We develop and quantify a spatial model of a city with heterogeneous agents and non-homothetic preferences for neighbourhoods with endogenous amenity quality. As the rich get richer, demand increases for the high-quality amenities available in downtown neighbourhoods. Rising demand drives up house prices and spurs the development of higher quality neighbourhoods downtown. This gentrification of downtowns makes poor incumbents worse off, as they are either displaced to the suburbs or pay higher rents for amenities that they do not value as much. We quantify the corresponding impact on well-being inequality. Through the lens of the quantified model, the change in the income distribution between 1990 and 2014 led to neighbourhood change and spatial resorting within urban areas that increased the welfare of richer households relative to that of poorer households, above and beyond rising nominal income inequality.