Mobile Households Research Articles

The Damages and Distortions from Discrimination in the Rental Housing Market

Abstract By constraining an individual’s choice during a search, housing discrimination distorts sorting decisions away from true preferences and results in a ceteris paribus reduction in welfare. This study combines a large-scale field experiment with a residential sorting model to derive utility-theoretic measures of renter welfare loss associated with the constraints imposed by discrimination in the rental housing market. Results from experiments conducted in five cities show that key neighborhood amenities are associated with higher levels of discrimination. Counterfactual simulations based on the sorting model suggest that discrimination imposes damages equivalent to 4.4% and 3.5% of the annual incomes for African American and Hispanic/Latinx renters, respectively. Damages are increasing in income for African American renters, such that effects become stronger for economically mobile households. Renters of color must make substantial investments in additional search to mitigate the costs of these constraints. We find that a naive model ignoring discrimination constraints yields biased estimates of willingness to pay for key neighborhood amenities.

The Missing Homebuyers: Regional Heterogeneity and Credit Contractions

Abstract This paper documents an unprecedented decrease in young homeownership since the Great Recession driven by regions with high house prices. Using a panel of U.S. metro areas, I calibrate an equilibrium spatial macro-finance model with overlapping generations of mobile households. The dynamics of regional housing markets is explained by an aggregate credit contraction with heterogeneous local impacts rather than by local shocks. Lower millennial income and wealth amplify its effect. The impact of subsidies to first-time buyers is dampened, because they fail to stimulate regions that suffer from larger busts. Place-based subsidies achieve larger gains. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

The gendered practices of the upwardly mobile in India

This study examines the relationship between economic mobility and the practice of female seclusion in Indian households using the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative panel survey. Women from households which became wealthier between survey waves were found to have increased restrictions on their physical mobility as well as higher odds of practicing head-covering or purdah. These results held even after the inclusion of controls for changes in household composition, health of the woman, and her labor force participation. Stratified fixed effects regression analyses revealed that mobility-induced female seclusion was primarily practiced in poorer communities, in rural areas, and among the less-educated. The findings suggest that economically mobile households may use female seclusion as a strategy to signal household status.

Upward mobility and Consumption Pattern: An Analysis from Central and Southern Punjab, Pakistan

During the past couple of decades the rapid changes in socio economic structure of Punjab, Pakistan have been observed. The present study is an attempt to analyze the impact of socio economic mobility on the changes in consumption pattern of households in Central and Southern Punjab, Pakistan using primary data. In the first part, the study identifies the socio economic factors which are responsible for upward mobility while, the second part deals with the impact of upward mobility on the changes in consumption pattern of households. The results of logistic model reveal that income and occupation progression have emerged important factors which cause changes in consumption pattern of households from basic goods to cultural goods. However, the impact of education on the changes in consumption pattern has come up low as compared to occupation progression and income. The study concludes that the role of government is highly important in shaping the consumption behavior of mobile households through providing appropriate incentives regarding higher education and occupation progression.

This Town Ain't Big Enough? Quantifying Public Good Spillovers

Despite long-standing theoretical interest, empirical attempts at investigating the appropriate level of decentralization remain scarce. This paper develops a simple and flexible framework to test for the presence of public good spillovers between fiscally autonomous jurisdictions and to investigate potential welfare gains from marginal fiscal integration. We build a quantitative spatial equilibrium model with many local jurisdictions, mobile households and endogenous local public goods causing spillovers across jurisdictional boundaries. We show how one can exploit migration and housing price responses to shocks in local public goods at different geographic scales to reveal the intensity of spillovers. Applying our framework to the particularly fragmented French institutional setting, we structurally estimate the model using a unique combination of municipal administrative panel datasets. Estimation relies on plausibly exogenous variations in government subsidies to instrument changes in the supply of public goods. We find that public goods in a municipality account for 4--11% of the local public good bundle enjoyed by its residents, and that public goods in each neighbor municipality account for an average 3.2--3.5% of this bundle. Finally, we simulate the effect of a reform increasing fiscal integration and find substantial welfare gains

The Missing Home Buyers: Regional Heterogeneity and Credit Contractions

This paper demonstrates that the protracted decrease in young homeownership since the Great Recession was driven by high-house price regions, despite credit standards changing mostly nationally. Using a panel of U.S. metro areas, I calibrate an equilibrium spatial macro-finance model with overlapping generations of mobile households. Aggregate and regional housing dynamics are explained more by the heterogeneous impacts of an aggregate credit tightening than by local shocks. Lower Millennial income and wealth amplify this effect. The impact of subsidies to first-time buyers is dampened, because they fail to stimulate regions that suffer larger busts. Place-based subsidies achieve larger gains.

History of Trypanosomosis in the One-Humped Camel and Development of its Treatment and Cure, with Special Reference to Sudan

Sudan has one of the largest populations of domestic animals in Africa. One-humped camel (Camelus dromedarius) numbers were estimated at 4.5 million in 2009. Once used extensively for military transport they are still used in the transport role by spatially mobile pastoralist households and are a major source of milk and meat for these people. Trypanosomosis, due to Trypanosoma evansi, generally known as ‘surra’ but as ‘gufar’ in Sudan was first identified in camels in the country in 1902 and is the main cause of disease although T. vivax infections have recently been discovered in parts of Sudan. This protozoan disease is the most important health problem in camels, causing high morbidity and huge production losses. The causal organism, unlike most other trypanosomes, is not transmitted cyclically with tsetse (genus Glossina) flies as the vector but mechanically by biting flies mainly family Tabanidae but also by others of the Muscidae. Identification of the parasite in camel blood was initially by simple microscopic techniques but biotechnology and molecular methods now enable infection to be diagnosed at an earlier stage and with more accuracy. Prophylactic and curative treatments of trypanosomosis are notoriously complicated and uncertain with the situation in camels being exacerbated because of its peculiar physiology. Many trypanocides have been developed over time but the parasite often develops resistance to these drugs. Some drugs are successful, for some time, as both prophylactics and cures but are often accompanied by undesirable side effects. Other drugs used on conventional domestic stock are ineffective in camels or have lower efficacy. Research on diagnosis and treatment of trypanosomosis is continuing but the disease continues to cause production losses to the detriment of national and household incomes and food security.

The Macro Frames of Microwork: A Study of Indian Women Workers on AMT in the Post-Pandemic Moment

Digital labor platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) are able to mobilize local patriarchies, exploiting women’s labor to drive global capitalism’s AI ambitions. Our qualitative study, based on interviews with AMT workers, shows that an intertwining of economic necessity and familial validation makes microwork on digital platforms an optimal choice for small-town Indian women from upwardly mobile households in a global digital economy. As a workplace, AMT demands an exacting adherence to the rules of the platform, but enjoys absolute impunity. Women must learn to manage the coercive disciplinarity of the platform, striving to meet its unknowable metrics. Waiting late nights for tasks from US requesters, they must face the exploitative tyranny of an unpredictable wage that may be withdrawn without explanation. With the onset of the pandemic and resultant instabilities in household income, women’s work on AMT becomes non-negotiable to making ends meet, even as its harshness is more acute, with reducing work, falling pay, longer hours, and the risk of suspension. The digital economy thrives on gendered dispossession – not only extracting women's digital labor for profit, but also obscuring the care work they must perform in the ostensible flexibility afforded by platform capitalism. The study, hence, reflects how labor platforms, like AMT, engage in global labor arbitrage, exploiting gendered and racial faultlines in the digital economy. Pointing to the urgent need to address gender and redistributive justice, we propose policy recommendations for the government, multilateral institutions, and digital labor platforms as well as advocacy strategies for trade unions and civil society organizations.

Addressing Unintentional Exclusion of Vulnerable and Mobile Households in Traditional Surveys in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Hanoi: a Mixed-Methods Feasibility Study

The methods used in low- and middle-income countries’ (LMICs) household surveys have not changed in four decades; however, LMIC societies have changed substantially and now face unprecedented rates of urbanization and urbanization of poverty. This mismatch may result in unintentional exclusion of vulnerable and mobile urban populations. We compare three survey method innovations with standard survey methods in Kathmandu, Dhaka, and Hanoi and summarize feasibility of our innovative methods in terms of time, cost, skill requirements, and experiences. We used descriptive statistics and regression techniques to compare respondent characteristics in samples drawn with innovative versus standard survey designs and household definitions, adjusting for sample probability weights and clustering. Feasibility of innovative methods was evaluated using a thematic framework analysis of focus group discussions with survey field staff, and via survey planner budgets. We found that a common household definition excluded single adults (46.9%) and migrant-headed households (6.7%), as well as non-married (8.5%), unemployed (10.5%), disabled (9.3%), and studying adults (14.3%). Further, standard two-stage sampling resulted in fewer single adult and non-family households than an innovative area-microcensus design; however, two-stage sampling resulted in more tent and shack dwellers. Our survey innovations provided good value for money, and field staff experiences were neutral or positive. Staff recommended streamlining field tools and pairing technical and survey content experts during fieldwork. This evidence of exclusion of vulnerable and mobile urban populations in LMIC household surveys is deeply concerning and underscores the need to modernize survey methods and practices.

Forced to move: Patterns and predictors of residential displacement during an era of housing insecurity

Recent work on residential displacement—being forced out of one’s home—hints that its nature and prevalence have changed during the early twenty-first century. We evaluate this supposition against the backdrop of past displacement research. Reason-for-move data from seven waves of the American Housing Survey (2001-2013) are used to construct displacement measures that range from narrow (limited to forced moves prompted by government or private action or disaster loss) to broad (also including eviction and foreclosure). Our analysis shows that, regardless of measure, no consistent upward trend over time is apparent in the small percentage of mobile households experiencing displacement, although as many as 3.6 million individuals may be affected biennially. We also find that longstanding socioeconomic, racial, and other disparities in displacement persist but tend to be of modest magnitude. Such patterns could contribute to a perception of displacement as socially unpredictable, further heightening public concern about the issue.

Welfare Dynamics in India Over a Quarter Century: Poverty, Vulnerability, and Mobility During 1987-2012

This paper analyzes the Indian National Sample Survey data spanning 1987/88-2011/12 to uncover patterns of transition into and out of different classes of the consumption distribution. At the aggregate level, income growth has accelerated, accompanied by accelerating poverty decline. Underlying these trends is a process of mobility, with 40-60 percent of the population transitioning between consumption classes and increasing mobility over time. Yet, the majority of those who escape poverty remain vulnerable. Most of those who are poor were also poor in the preceding period and, thus, are likely to be chronically poor. The characteristics of upwardly mobile households contrast with those of the poor; these households are also far less likely to experience downward mobility. The paper also finds that states exhibit heterogenous mobility patterns.

Commuting and Taxes: Theory, Empirics and Welfare Implications

We examine the effect of interstate differences in income taxes on commuting times. Our theoretical model introduces a border into a model of an urban area and shows that differences in average tax rates distort commuting patterns, but the sign of the effect depends on whether taxes are residence-based or employment-based. Empirically, tax differentials have a large effect on commuting times for affluent households and mobile households. We show that commuting times are a sufficient statistic to measure the spatial welfare effects of tax policy. The model and empirical design can be used by economists to study other policy differences. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Shared journeys, linked lives: a relational-biographical approach to mobility practices

This paper innovatively extends existing practice-theoretical mobility research by examining biographical aspects of people’s everyday mobility that capture and reflect their social relations. Drawing on nine qualitative interviews with couples who live in/near Vienna without a private car, the paper demonstrates the promising potential of retrospective forms of social research for uncovering the dynamics of mobility practices across the life course. It conceptualises individuals as inherently social and mutually interconnected mobility practitioners whose complex and dynamic interactions with others make up more or less mobile households and families. The paper thus treats social relations as a major connector between the constitutive social and material elements of (mobility) practices, making an explicitly relational contribution to current practice-theoretical debates in mobility research.

Voice and Exit as Accountability Mechanisms: Can Foot-Voting Be Made Safe for the Chinese Communist Party?

According to Albert O. Hirschman’s famous dichotomy, citizens can express their preferences with their “voice” (by voting with ballots to elect better representatives) and “exit” (by voting with their feet to choose better places to live). Suppose, however, that ballot-voting is ineffective: Can exit not merely aid but also replace voice? Using as a case study the People’s Republic of China, a party state without elective democracy, we argue that exit is not a substitute for, but rather a complement to, voice. China’s bureaucratic promotion system plays the role of local elections in the United States, promoting or replacing local officials based on their performance in office. In either regime, however, it is costly for local voters (in the United States) or the Chinese Communist Party (in China) to monitor and assess local officials. Attention to foot-voting in the legal design of local government can help reduce these costs. By evaluating cadres who run the lower levels of China’s local governments on the basis of how successfully they attract mobile households, the central CCP authorities could reduce the costs of monitoring these local officials and thereby reproduce, by bureaucratic means, some of the benefits of electoral democracy. Success in attracting foot-voters can be most cheaply measured by the Party’s evaluating cadres primarily on the basis of local land values which, because they are a product of foot-voters’ decisions about where to live, function like ballots insofar as they reflect the popularity of local cadres’ policy decisions with mobile Chinese households. For foot-voting to improve governmental accountability, however, the Chinese system of local government law requires some basic but politically feasible reforms ― in particular, the introduction of a local property tax system, the creation of a federated city system that grants power and autonomy to sub-city units, and the liberalization of China’s household registration system to make the population fully mobile across different jurisdictions.

Households without Houses: Mobility and Moorings on the Eurasian Steppe

Mobility is often cited as the essence of life in the Eurasian steppe, and with it mobile dwellings and households. Steppe nomads offer ethnographically potent visions of inhabited space into which archaeological landscapes fit comfortably. Challenges include the discovery of early household sites, the characterization of households that lack structures, and how to examine the dynamics of mobile pastoralist households without being drawn into an agglomerative model that builds toward optimal practices. This paper will marshal the archaeological evidence for domestic spaces in mobile steppe households. A flexible and extensible model of household spaces will be offered that links activities and resources into a network of contextual relationships at the household scale. This provides a model for analogical use of ethnographic data, frameworks into which the archaeological fragments of mobile households can be fitted, and above all a means of comparative characterization between periods of inhabitation in t...

Revealed Preference Measures of Quality of Life in Australia's Urban and Regional Areas

Using data from the 2011 Census, we estimate quality of life across Australia. With mobile households, utility will be equalised across regions, so those regions with high real incomes must have a compensating low quality of life and vice versa. There are significant differences in quality of life across the 56 regions we examine. The top‐ranked region in our study is the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, while the Western Australian Outback has the lowest quality of life. The drivers of quality of life are explored, and climate appears to be important as well as certain human‐made cultural amenities.

Banqueting and Women’s Work in The Late Lancashire Witches and Receipt Books for Women

Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome’s The Late Lancashire Witches features scenes where the play’s witches engage in feasts that strongly evoke the banquets popular in elite and upwardly mobile households. Contemporaneous with the play’s 1634 performance and publication, there were a plethora of books available for women that gave instructions for preparing banqueting receipts themselves. Where the receipt books represent banqueting as a virtuous activity, The Late Lancashire Witches associates banqueting with witchcraft and improper femininity. This article argues that these differing representations of the banquet allow us to trace women’s involvement in the emerging public sphere.

Who Supports Portable Assessment Caps?: The Role of Lock-Ins, Tax Share, and Mobility

We examine voter support in 2008 for Constitutional Amendment 1 in Florida, which modifies a Proposition 13-like property assessment growth cap by allowing homeowners to port their exempted value to a new home. Despite claims by amendment proponents that it would lower property taxes, we do not find that support was higher in precincts with a greater share of eligible property owners. Nor was support explained by the average size of existing exemptions. Instead, we find that precincts with more mobile households supported Amendment 1. In addition, we find evidence that voters understood how changing assessment methodology could affect their tax share. Under a conventional assessment cap, a homeowner who moves resets the assessed value to the market price, lowering the share of assessed value for remaining homeowners. Remarkably, we find that support for Amendment 1 falls as mobility in other parts of the city increases. This finding suggests that Amendment 1 was viewed as a way for high-mobility voters to shift the tax burden back to low-mobility homeowners. In addition, support is higher when a city has a high number of out-of-state immigrants, who have no tax exemption to port into the city, but support is lower when the city has high rates of in-state immigration. These findings suggest that voters are fairly tax savvy and as concerned with shifting the tax burden as they are with curbing absolute expenditures.

The use of mobile phones for demographic surveillance of mobile pastoralists and their animals in Chad: proof of principle

Background Demographic information is foundational for the planning and management of social programmes, in particular health services. The existing INDEPTH network surveillance sites are limited to coverage of sedentary populations. Including mobile populations in this approach would be expensive, time consuming and possibly low in accuracy. Very little is known about the demography of mobile pastoralists and their animals, so innovative approaches are urgently needed. Objective To test and evaluate a mobile demographic surveillance system for mobile pastoralist households, including livestock herds, using mobile phones. Design Mobile pastoralist camps were monitored (10 for 12 months and 10 for 18 months) using biweekly mobile phone calls with camp leaders and their wives to conduct interviews about the households and livestock. The collected information was validated through personal visits, GPS data and a livestock demographic model. Results The study showed the feasibility of mobile phone surveillance for mobile pastoralist camps, providing usable, valid information on human and livestock population structures, pregnancy outcomes and herd dynamics, as well as migration patterns. The approach was low-cost and applicable with the existing local resources. Conclusion Demographic surveillance in mobile populations is feasible using mobile phones. Expansion of the small-scale system into a full mobile demographic surveillance system is warranted and would likely lead to improved planning and provision of human and animal health care.

State Tax Differentials, Cross-Border Commuting, and Commuting Times in Multi-State Metropolitan Areas

We examine the effects of differences in income tax rates on commuting times. Our theoretical model introduces a border into a model of an urban area and shows that differences in average tax rates distort commuting patterns. Empirically examining multi-state urban areas allows us to exploit tax discontinuities. Tax differentials have large effects on commuting times for affluent households and mobile households. We demonstrate the assumptions under which commute times are a sufficient statistic to measure the welfare effects of tax policies across space. The model and empirical design can be used by economists to study other policy differences.