Dr. Ignacio Aravena (p)

I estimate the causal effect of urban violence hotspots on real estate outcomes using the October 2019 social unrest in Santiago, Chile. Combining georeferenced incident hotspots from the national prosecutor’s office with the universe of property transactions, I implement difference-in-differences and event-study designs with block, month, and municipality-by-year fixed effects. Residential prices in blocks with moderate to high violence exposure experience price declines of about 5–6% relative to controls, while low-exposure areas show no detectable effect. These discounts persist and grow over five years and are smallest during the metro-closure phase, when an accessibility mechanism would predict the largest impacts; furthermore, they increase after service resumed and COVID restrictions ended. To separate violence from accessibility disruptions, I classify blocks into mutually exclusive channels (Violence Only, Metro Only, Both, Control) and estimate a triple-difference decomposition. Both approaches indicate that residential price effects are driven by violence exposure rather than proximity to closed stations. Residential transaction volumes do not differentially decline, suggesting adjustment occurs primarily through prices. In contrast, commercial price effects are not significant, but violence exposure substantially reduces the probability of any commercial transaction, consistent with market thinning and potential selection among observed sales. Effects are concentrated in medium- and high-socioeconomic status neighborhoods and in central municipalities, consistent with greater sensitivity to perceived safety risks among higher-income buyers.

Mr Constantin Tielkes (p), Mr. Jonas Röder-Löhr

Urban Economists view cities as monocentric entities centered around a Central Business District (CBD). This paper investigates the slope and the evolution of the price gradient between the CBD and the rest of the settlement area for 1,108 cities in Germany. In our empirical work, we employ a novel definition of CBD that relies on the density and distribution of commercial activity within a city. We find that urban gradients are highly heterogeneous within Germany, with around 27 % of German cities even featuring a negative gradient. We find that around 70 % of the CBD-premium can be attributed to apartment quality, neighborhood characteristics and access to transport infrastructure. CBD-premiums decreased considerably between 2013 and 2016, but have registered an uptick since the Covid pandemic.