Giacomo Rosso (p)

Henri de Groot

This paper investigates the impact of real estate prices on local economic businesses within cities. I use a novel geo-located dataset of retailers and service providers, combined with information on sale and rental prices. I propose a unique empirical strategy that leverages the staggered implementation of a district heating system in Turin as an exogenous shock to housing prices. The analysis reveals that housing prices differently affect local economic sectors. While tradable sectors show resilience, non-tradable sectors experience a notable decline following the housing price shifts, exhibiting a negative effect of approximately 3\%. This is probably due to demographic changes, particularly among college students, who are primary consumers in the non-tradable sector. The paper highlight the complex interplay between housing market changes, demographic shifts, and urban economic businesses. Moreover, it emphasizes the critical role of housing market dynamics in shaping urban planning and policy decisions.

Bethany Smart (p)

Henri de Groot

The global food system is a driver of water scarcity, land use change, and climate change. The linkage mechanism between the negative externalities caused by household food consumption and household income levels have not been extensively studied. Previous studies have emphasised the strong influence that socioeconomic status has on the quantity, quality and type of food products consumed. The argument for including socioeconomic variables when investigating the links between household consumption and environmental impacts is that both climate change and the food system can be viewed as socio-ecological, and both affect cultural values and identities which drive behaviour. The hypothetical extraction method (HEM) is a popular method for measuring inter-sectoral environmental linkages. The HEM involves comparing the hypothetical scenario where an endogenous sector is extracted from an economic system to the actual economic system. In this paper, we utilise the HEM on an environmentally extended input-output model for California to measure the backward linkages of the food sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, water withdrawals and land use caused by the consumption of nine different household income groups for the years 2010 and 2019. The findings reveal that: (i) the highest income group are the most vital from a consumption perspective as a minor change in their consumption levels could have significant impacts on the environmental indicators; (ii) the income-level growth experienced in the aftermath of the Great Recession was insufficient to reduce the gap between low- and high-income households in terms of their contribution to the three environmental indicators; and (iii) despite its significant share of total food-related expenditure, the hospitality sector had a low impact per dollar for all three environmental factors, which suggests that tailored policies should focus on promoting ‘burden-shifting’ through the consumption of food-away-from-home.

Koami West Togbetse (p)

Henri de Groot

The global shift towards clean and sustainable energy sources, known as the energy transition, is compelling numerous countries to transition from polluting energy systems to cleaner alternatives, commonly referred to as green energies. In this context, cobalt holds significant importance as a crucial mineral in facilitating this energy transition due to its pivotal role in electric batteries. Considering the Democratic Republic of Congo's reputation for political instability and its position as the largest producer of cobalt, possessing over 50\% of the world's reserves, we have conducted an assessment of the potential conflicts that may arise as a result of the rapid increase in cobalt demand. The results show that cobalt does not appear to be a determinant contributing to past conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gold, on the other hand, stands out as one of the coveted metals for rebel groups engaged in rampant exploitation, increases the likelihood of conflicts occurring. However, according to our predictive model, cobalt has the potential to emerge as a contributing factor, similar to gold, if appropriate measures akin to those outlined in section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act are not effectively implemented to regulate the utilization of these minerals in the supply chains of corporations.