explore 2015

2015

Habitat and Urban Development

The jury of the 13th edition of the annual CAF Research Program decided to award five proposals out of 252 received.

 The selection committee included Paul Romer (New York University), Esteban Rossi-Hansberg (Princeton University), Diego Puga (CEMFI), Daniel Rodriguez (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Juan F. Vargas (CAF and Universidad del Rosario) and Pablo Brassiolo, and  Pablo Sanguinetti (CAF).and.

The winning proposals are:

  • "Social Housing Policy and Labor Market Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from Argentina", by Guillermo Cruces, María Laura Alzúa and Julián Amendolaggine. The aim of this proposal is to study the impact of a social housing policy program implemented in Rosario (Argentina) exploiting a random assignment to identify the policy's causal effect on outcomes related to labor market and socioeconomic conditions of benefited households.
  •  "Efecto de los subsidios cruzados en servicios públicos domiciliaros sobre el mercado de vivienda en Bogotá", by Juan Miguel Gallego, Carlos Eduardo Sepúlveda and  Sergio Montoya. This research proposes to examines whether the cross subsidies on utilities, targeted based on dwelling external conditions and habitat surroundings, distort the housing market in Bogota. In order to do so, the authors exploit the discontinuities in the stratification of households and the allocation of subsidies.
  •  "Do you really want your own house?: The impact of home ownership on the labor market: a regression discontinuity design", by Pablo Navarrete and Nicolás Navarrete.

The proposal aims to estimate the causal effect of homeownership on employment using a regression discontinuity design that exploits an arbitrary threshold arising from a voucher-based homeownership program in Chile.

  •  "Slum Growth in a System of Developing World Cities", by Guillermo Alves. The proposal estimates a spatial general equilibrium model for Brazil in order to study quantitatively the factors that affect urbanization, and the incidence and growth ofslums.
  •  "Estimating the costs of traffic congestion in Bogota", by Gilles Duranton. The aim of this proposal is to develop a new methodology based on satellite images to measure urban congestion, and implements it to Bogota (Colombia).

Each winning proposal will receive USD 15 thousands and will be presented in an academic seminar in July.