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Anything new in town? The local effects of urban regeneration policies in Italy

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  • Albanese, Giuseppe
  • Ciani, Emanuele
  • de Blasio, Guido

Abstract

The paper estimates the local effects of urban regeneration policies by using evidence from interventions that took place in small and medium-sized cities in the Centre and North of Italy over the period 2008–12. By combining a difference-in-differences setup with an Oaxaca-Blinder estimator, we find little support for the idea that urban regeneration projects could stimulate local economic growth in the short to medium term. Only the largest scale interventions that focused on improving the public realm seem to have led to increase in house prices, but they have had no impact on other economic outcomes.

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  • Albanese, Giuseppe & Ciani, Emanuele & de Blasio, Guido, 2021. "Anything new in town? The local effects of urban regeneration policies in Italy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:regeco:v:86:y:2021:i:c:s0166046220303082
    DOI: 10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2020.103623
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    2. Clemente J. Navarro-Yáñez, 2021. "The Effectiveness of Integral Urban Strategies: Policy Theory and Target Scale. The European URBAN I Initiative and Employment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-16, June.
    3. Chareyron, Sylvain & Goffette-Nagot, Florence & Letrouit, Lucie, 2022. "Externalities from urban renewal: Evidence from a French program," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    4. Goeyvaerts, Geert, 2023. "Reconstructing cities: Stimulating redevelopment through the tax code," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    5. Yuanyuan Huang & Lizhen Wei & Guiwen Liu & Wenjing Cui & Fangyun Xie & Xun Deng, 2022. "“Inspiring” Policy Transfer: Analysis of Urban Renewal in Four First-Tier Chinese Cities," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, December.
    6. Justin T Callais & Linan Peng, 2021. "The Impact of Place-Based Policy: Evidence from a Multiple Synthetic Control Analysis of the Northeastern Revitalization Program in China," Working Papers 2021-03, DePauw University, School of Business and Leadership and Department of Economics and Management.
    7. Abreu, Maria & Comim, Flavio & Jones, Calvin, 2022. "A capability-approach perspective on Levelling Up," SocArXiv qjau5, Center for Open Science.
    8. Elvin Meka, 2021. "Private Equity Funds/Venture Capital - A New Role and Opportunity in the Albanian Economy and Financial Market," European Journal of Social Sciences Education and Research Articles, Revistia Research and Publishing, vol. 8, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Urban regeneration; House prices; Policy evaluation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

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