Ever wondered what housing value proxy for sales prices to use? Long story (in our @cesifo.org DP) short: Assessed values are good for quantification of QSMs. List prices better for hedonic valuation using panel identification. www.ifo.de/en/cesifo/pu... @hans-koster.bsky.social

I am too young to get nostalgic (at least I pretend), but 10 years after the "Berlin Wall" paper and with 15 years newer data I realize two things: 1) The Berlin spatial structure did not change that much 2) how much more convenient it has gotten to collect land values 😀 @reddingecon.bsky.social

What a fabulous 2025 @bsoeberlin.bsky.social www.bqse.de seminar season it has been! Thanks to all the co-organizers, our manager @immanuelfeld.bsky.social , all speakers, guests, and locals! You have been a fantastic spatial community! sites.google.com/view/bqse/bq...

Last day of the @bsoeberlin.bsky.social course in Quantitative Spatial Economics. What a great cohort! If you spot any of these faces on the job market, don't hesitate! Thoroughly impressed by their coursework—the nerdy discussions during the lectures: priceless! 🫰 sites.google.com/view/bqse/bq... f

Preparing my Applied Econometrics course @humboldtuni.bsky.social using
@gaborbekes.bsky.social
great textbook gabors-data-analysis.com. Added a nerdy exercise to the application of Random Forrest to predicting Airbnb prices. OLS beats Random Forrest when predicting outside a spatial window!

The 2025 season of the @bsoeberlin.bsky.social QSE course is running. Here is how it is going: sites.google.com/view/bqse/bq.... And here is my latest toy for the current cohort and anyone else. Maybe the simplest way of computing travel time matrices, designed for noobs! github.com/Ahlfeldt/TTM...

🧑‍🎄time! Our @cepr_org @LSEGeography @CEP_LSE
DP #PrimeLocations is forthcoming at AER: Insights.🍾 Our🎁4u: PL shapefiles and employment by sector at micro-geographic grid-level for 381 MSAs and 125 global cities. All free to download from primelocations.ahlfeldt.com Use it wisely!😀

Need an 📢alternative to Rosen-Roback 📢that accounts for trade (tradable goods & local services) & mobility (local ties &idiosyncratic tastes) frictions? Our new paper & quality-of-life solver for MATLAB/Stata/R/Python, plus a😎HTML-tool available at qol.ahlfeldt.com

Is it just me, or is there a mild Clovid effect in rental prices?

We have updated the Ahlfeldt-Heblich-Seidel Index. Now contains micro-geographic prices and rents for Germany at postcode level until 2023. Of course, all data available for download! New webtool allows for comparisons between years: sites.google.com/view/ahlfeld...
@bseberlin.bsky.social

What a great way to start my sabbatical in #Barcelona. Already loving it!

I did not handle it, but I am thrilled that this cool paper by
@eviladecans & @MiquelAngelGL is out in
@RegScUrbEc. It is not just access to jobs that matters for urban gradients. Amenities matter, too. And they will still matter if/when we all telecommute... doi.org/10.1016/j.re...

Interested in the effects of planned #HSR in Poland? Here is another great project by a
@HumboldtUni
student from my QSE class assessing three proposed plans using the MRRH2018-toolkit (github.com/Ahlfeldt/MRR...). See their GitHub repository: github.com/jjkiljanski/...

Should Berlin extend the radial metro line U4 or build a circular U0? I love how our @HumboldtUni and @BSE_Berlin students are addressing such questions in their term papers using #QuantitativeSpatialModels. Marking feels rewarding!

Few non-economists will be surprised: When house prices go up, home buyers have to borrow more to sustain housing consumption. 🤔🤔🤔 Macroeconomic implications of this intuitive channel are substantial due to a feedback loop between prices and borrowing. bankofengland.co.uk/working-pape...