Determinants of geographic labor mobility, electric vehicle charging station deployment, and mortgage refinancing

Abstract

Chapter 1: Impact of Occupational Licensing on Interstate Migration of WorkersLabor mobility offers workers the opportunity to improve their personal and financial situations, and plays a large role in affecting unemployment and underemployment across the country. There are several factors that limit a worker's mobility, including family ties and potential inertia as well as external factors arising from regulation. One external factor that has gained prominence in recent decades is the use of (state-specific) occupational licensing requirements. Combining data from the Current Population Survey with information from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement for all occupations and states over 5 years, I study the impact of occupational licensing on a worker's interstate mobility. Using k-means algorithms to account for potential reporting issues and running a set of fixed effects models, I find little evidence that occupational licensing limits interstate mobility. Thus, the concern that occupational licensing contributes to mismatches in the labor market seems unsubstantiated. Chapter 2: Pricing & Competition in Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (with Nehan Naim)Electric vehicle charging infrastructure is a major driver (or barrier in case of lack thereof) for electric vehicle adoption. Unlike conventional vehicles, electric vehicle (EV) owners can use various commercial and residential options for charging their vehicles. This expanded choice set has an important bearing on the decision of commercial EV charging station offerings, where these stations in the US differentiate across their offerings of charging technologies, including speed (AC, DC) and compatibility (DC Connector types), as well as pricing. United States has more than 25000 public EV charging stations, mostly operating as part of networks, like ChargePoint, Electrify America, Tesla, etc., or as independent or un-networked stations. Recently, some networks have been partnering with each other to allow 'roaming' to customers be- tween these network stations. This paper empirically investigates the effect of 'roaming' service and product/technology differentiation on business pricing by combining individual station data with market characteristics. We find stations part of a roaming network are more likely to charge a positive price, and stations use product/technology differentiation to soften competition. Chapter 3: Impact of FinTech firms on the Housing Mortgage Market I study the effect of exclusively online high-technology home mortgage originators ("FinTech" firms) on three different types of housing loans originating in the US from 2011 to 2017, namely home purchases, home improvements and home refinancing. Unlike traditional banks, FinTech firms are much less regulated and usually do not have physical stores, and like many other mortgage originators, they have an originate-to-distribute business model - which allows them to be more flexible in residential refinancing markets. However, while FinTech firms could be causing more refinancing, they could also be simply filling in the refinancing need better through enhanced prediction of potential customers and aggressive expansion in geographic areas wanting to refinance, say through online advertising channels - essentially creating an endogeneity issue. Using a year-county fixed effects model with an instrumental variables approach (state-level Bartik instrument for the number of approved applications by FinTech firms in a county), I find a significantly higher number of approved home refinancing and home purchases applications in counties with a higher FinTech presence, even after controlling for aggregated loan, borrower and county level controls. This paper builds upon prior work on the role of technology in mortgage lending and contributes by better addressing the endogeneity concern, though my sample is currently limited to the largest 20 lenders in the US as of 2016 only. --Author's abstract