Diego Puga | Lightnews

The Economics of Spatial Mobility: Theory and Evidence Using Smartphone Data*

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

i) Miyauchi, Nakajima & @reddingecon.bsky.social, @qjeharvard.bsky.social. Tokyo smartphone data reveal trip chaining as central to urban mobility. Consumption externalities link locations, shaping agglomeration, work-from-home impacts, and returns to transport investment doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

ABSTRACT. We develop a tractable quantitative framework for modeling the rich patterns of spatial mobility observed in smartphone data. We show that travel

Regional Borders, Commuting, and Transport Network Integration

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

h) Loumeau, @restatjournal.bsky.social. Regional borders distort commuting and residential patterns. Fragmented transport networks create a 7km penalty when crossing French departmental borders; integrating them yields sizable real income gains doi.org/10.1162/rest...

Abstract. This paper exploits spatial quasiexperimental variation around French departmental borders to provide novel evidence that regional borders disturb surrounding economic activity; namely, comm...

Flight from Urban Blight: Lead Poisoning, Crime, and Suburbanization

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

g) Curci & Masera, @restatjournal.bsky.social. Instrumenting crime with lagged lead exposure and soil chemistry shows large effects on suburbanization, racial sorting, and persistent impacts on urban amenities and productivity doi.org/10.1162/rest...

Abstract. In this paper we study the effect of violent crime on residential and firms location decisions and their implications for segregation in cities. We do so by proposing a new instrument to exo...

Of Cities and Slums | Journal of Political Economy: Vol 133, No 9

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

f) Cavalcanti Ferreira, Monge-Naranjo & Torres de Mello, @jpol_econ.bsky.social. In Brazil, slum/rural schools ranking varies with parents’ education. Slums help low-educated families access urban jobs & schooling but act as intergenerational barrier for more educated families doi.org/10.1086/736210

We study the emergence and persistence of urban slums in Brazil. Using data on labor markets, housing costs, and access to education, we construct a quantitative model to explore the impact of slums o...

Personalized Pricing and the Value of Time: Evidence from Auctioned Cab Rides - The Econometric Society

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

e) Buchholz, Doval, Kastl, Matejka & @tobiassalz.bsky.social, @ecmaeditors.bsky.social. Estimating value of time key for transport evaluation, ride-hail data reveal large heterogeneity. Personalized pricing raises platform & driver surplus but slightly lowers consumer surplus doi.org/10.3982/ECTA...

In Harm's Way? Infrastructure Investments and the Persistence of Coastal Cities

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

d) Balboni, @aeajournals.bsky.social AER. Road investments in Vietnam favor coastal cities, but dynamic spatial estimates show infrastructure loses value as sea levels rise, implying large welfare gains from more foresighted, inland-focused investment doi.org/10.1257/aer....

(January 2025) - Coasts contain a disproportionate share of the world's population, reflecting historical advantages, but environmental change threatens a reversal of coastal fortune in the coming dec...

Location Sorting and Endogenous Amenities: Evidence from Amsterdam - The Econometric Society

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

c) @milena-almagro.bsky.social & Domínguez-Iino, @ecmaeditors.bsky.social. Heterogeneous residents sort across locations w endogenous amenities. In Amsterdam, tourism shifts neighbourhood amenities, compensates younger residents for high rents, amplifies losses for older ones doi.org/10.3982/ECTA...

The Geographic Flow of Bank Funding and Access to Credit: Branch Networks, Synergies, and Local Competition

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

b) @vaguirregabiria.bsky.social, Clark & Wang, @aeajournals.bsky.social AER. US bank deposits and loans are geographically imbalanced. Branch networks transfer liquidity but flows are limited by deposit-loan synergies (home bias) & market power (limits flows to small markets) doi.org/10.1257/aer....

(June 2025) - Geographic dispersion of depositors, borrowers, and banks may prevent funding from flowing to high-loan-demand areas, limiting credit access. Using bank-county-year-level data, we provid...

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

a) Acosta & Håkonsson Lyngemark, RSUE. Firms fragment spatially & HQs become more manager-intensive. Danish data and a structural model highlight the role of within-firm scale effects, wage gaps, and communication frictions doi.org/10.1016/j.re...

Behaviour-based dependency networks between places shape urban economic resilience - Nature Human Behaviour

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Jan 2

These are 10 of my favourite #UrbanEconomics & #SpatialEconomics articles published in academic journals in 2025, continuing with a tradition started in 2018 (order is alphabetical by first author, no ranking implied):

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · May 30

Honoured and delighted to receive the 2025 Maurice Allais Prize in Economics, together with Gilles Duranton, for our paper Urban Growth and its Aggregate Implications (Econometrica, @ecmaeditors.bsky.social, 2023).
📷: Peter Gunnar

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Mar 8

Huge congratulations, Judit! So well deserved!

Lluis Montoliu @lluismontoliu.bsky.social · Mar 8

Llego a Alicante y veo este anuncio por la calle de los premios #JaimeI Premios Rei Jaume I y me ha parecido muy ingenioso, irónico, innovador y hecho con talento. Una estupenda idea. Enhorabuena al diseñador o diseñadora o publicista que lo ha ideado, por esta propuesta diferente.

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

You can also look back (in another platform) at my lists of 10 #UrbanEconomics articles published in 2023 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...), 2022 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...), 2021 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...), 2020 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...), 2019 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...) & 2018 (x.com/ProfDiegoPug...)

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Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

j) Yabe, Garcia-Bulle, Frank, Pentland & @estebanmoro.bsky.social, @natureportfolio.bsky.social Human Behavior. Sequential visits to venues measured with smartphone pings deviate substantially from gravity, implying spatial shock diffusion is more complex than mere spatial decay t.ly/BGshD

Yabe and colleagues use human mobility data to identify dependencies in visitation patterns between places in cities, with unexpected prevalence at long-distance connections. Leveraging this network e...

Plants in Space | Journal of Political Economy: Vol 132, No 3

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

i) Oberfield, Rossi-Hansberg, Sarte & Trachter, @jpolecon.bsky.social. Firms choose plant density in tractable model of trade-off between distance to consumers vs span-of-control, fixed costs & cannibalization; productive firms place more plants in dense high-rent areas, less elsewhere t.ly/N4Jds

To decide the number, size, and location of its plants, a firm balances the benefit of delivering goods from multiple plants with the cost of setting up and managing these plants and the potential for...

Matching and Agglomeration: Theory and Evidence from Japanese Firm-to-Firm Trade - The Econometric Society

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

h) Miyauchi, @ecmaeditors.bsky.social. Using Japanese firm‐to‐firm transactions panel data, shows rematching following unexpected supplier bankruptcy improves with spatial density of alternative suppliers; this can account for big share of agglomeration benefits t.ly/0TTgV

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

g) Magontier, Solé-Ollé, @eviladecans.bsky.social, @jpube.bsky.social. With job benefits of coastal development more spatially concentrated than amenity losses, party alignment of neighbouring mayors eases cooperation & curbs development in Spain t.ly/s2yUT

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

f) Liu, Rosenthal & Strange, JUrbanEcon. Studies how building composition differs with anchor tenant inside, on blockface, across the street: anchors skew building's tenants towards their industry, building owners partly internalize externalities t.ly/EjLuc

Peak-Hour Road Congestion Pricing: Experimental Evidence and Equilibrium Implications - The Econometric Society

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

e) @thetahat.bsky.social, @ecmaeditors.bsky.social. Field experiment with GPS data in Bangalore indicates commuters have moderate schedule inflexibility and high value of time, suggesting limited benefits from peak-spreading congestion charges in developing country megacities t.ly/_A6L7

Co-Location, Good, Bad, or Both: How do New Entries of Discount Variety Stores Affect Local Grocery Businesses?

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

d) Evensen, Steen & Ulsaker, @jeeanews.bsky.social. Non-linear relationship between effect of grocery store entry on competitors & distance: very close entry increases local demand & attracts customers but as distance increases competitive effect dominates t.ly/TRMT-

Abstract. We analyse 69 entries and relocations by the largest Norwegian discount variety chain Europris during the period 2016–2019, and measure how its l

Income Growth and the Distributional Effects of Urban Spatial Sorting

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

c) Couture, Gaubert, @handbury.bsky.social & Hurst, @reveconstudies.bsky.social. Spatial model of city with non-homothetic neighbourhood preferences & endogenous amenity quality: rising top incomes reshape US urban sorting, driving gentrification & displacing poorer households t.ly/XfHHZ

Abstract. 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 quant

The Microgeography of Housing Supply | Journal of Political Economy: Vol 132, No 6

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

b) Baum Snow & Han, @jpolecon.bsky.social. Quantify US neighbourhood-level housing supply elasticities and their components, aggregating Bartik shocks with quantitative spatial model, revealing large within-city variations driven by land, topography, and regulation t.ly/3NOQM

We perform a comprehensive neighborhood-level analysis of housing supply. Predictions of floor space and housing unit supply elasticities using our estimates average 0.5 and 0.3 across all urban neigh...

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

a) Accetturo, Cascarano & de Blasio, RSUE. In Italian areas more exposed to pirate raids, easier-to-defend but less productive locations ended up in being relatively more populated, effects persisted until 1960s t.ly/_l6xT

Mapa de la atención primaria en España: más de la mitad de los centros de salud citan pasadas 48 horas

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 27

These are 10 of my favourite #UrbanEconomics articles published in academic journals in 2024 (continues a tradition started in 2018, order is alphabetical by first author, no ranking implied):

Diego Puga @diegopuga.org · Dec 23

Governments should provide data on quality of public service provision, but often don’t. Thanks to Spain’s Freedom of Information Act & journalists like Montse Hidalgo, @danielegrasso.bsky.social & @iguacel.bsky.social we get facts like map of delays getting appointment with family doctor t.ly/Jnh_L

Comunidades y Gobierno se pusieron como objetivo en 2019 garantizar atención no urgente en menos de dos días. Los datos de más de 2.500 centros de 16 comunidades revelan un panorama dispar