Liv Osland - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Liv Osland

Research paper thumbnail of On an Equal Footing? Comparing Commuting Patterns Across Space and Gender

Investigating Spatial Inequalities, 2019

Geographical mobility is often considered fundamental to a well-functioning labour market, and th... more Geographical mobility is often considered fundamental to a well-functioning labour market, and thus to the economy as a whole. Typically, geographical mobility can be achieved either through commuting or through migration. Commuting can be considered important for households to have access to job market opportunities and for business to access labour, skills and competencies. Previous research has found commuting patterns to differ between men and women, for example, in the sense that women travel shorter distances and rely more on public transport. However, we also know that factors such as higher education can influence an individual’s decision to commute, possibly because of specialization and a higher salary. As women’s education level approaches, or surpasses, that of men’s, one would expect to see more similarities between the travel behaviour of the two genders. In this study, we analyse gender patterns of commuting in Norway, Serbia and Sweden. We specifically address the issue of gender gap in commuting. Findings show that though there are signs of convergence, there are large regional variations. The gender gap is decreasing primarily in the more urban regions, while it is decreasing less, and even increasing, given the various levels of aggregation, in the more rural areas.

Research paper thumbnail of Estimating the impact of the Norwegian Introduction Programme on integration using a Regression Kink Design (RKD): Pre-registration

The Introduction Programme offers language, employment and cultural training for new migrants in ... more The Introduction Programme offers language, employment and cultural training for new migrants in Norway. Attendance on the programme is mandatory for most refugees and family reunification migrants (with non-Nordic spouses). Migrants are given a special benefit for attendance (calculated by hours). The amount changes based on an age cut-off: under 25s earn benefits at 2/3 the rate of those over 25. Benefits are calculated per hour of programme attendance.The benefit age cut-off can be used to measure the effects of cash incentives on programme attendance and its knock-on effect on integration outcomes such as education and employment. We propose a Regression Kink Design (RKD) to answer our primary research questions:RQ1: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on programme participation?RQ2: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on integration outcomes inclusive of employment status, wages, and further education/ training?RQ3: What is the direct e...

Research paper thumbnail of Den hedonistiske metoden og estimering av attributtpriser

Artikkelen presenterer teorigrunnlaget for den hedonistiske metoden og klargjør forutsetningene f... more Artikkelen presenterer teorigrunnlaget for den hedonistiske metoden og klargjør forutsetningene for at de implisitte prisene kan tolkes som marginal betalingsvillighet. Metoden anvendes til estimering av hedonistisk prisfunksjon og implisitte priser på boligmarkedet i Haugesund for perioden 1980 til 1987. I denne perioden finnes lite offisiell boligmarkedstatistikk i Norge. Boligareal, tomteareal, boligens alder og avstand til sentrum bidrar mest til å forklare variasjoner i boligpris. Resultatene er i tråd med økonomisk teori og andre analyser. Dette kan tyde på at det finnes fellestrekk i strukturen på boligmarkedet.

Research paper thumbnail of Commuting, Migration, Housing and Labour Markets: Complex Interactions

Research paper thumbnail of The importance of unobserved attributes in hedonic house price models

International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Housing Prices and Multiple Employment Nodes: Is the Relationship Nonmonotonic?

Housing Studies, 2012

Standard urban economic theory predicts that house prices will decline with distance from the cen... more Standard urban economic theory predicts that house prices will decline with distance from the central business district. Empirical results have been equivocal, however. Disjoints between theory and empirics may be due to a nonmonotonic relationship between house prices and access to employment arising from the negative externalities associated with proximity to multiple centres of employment. Based on data from Glasgow (Scotland), we use gravity-based measures of accessibility estimated using a flexible functional form that allows for nonmonotonicity. The results are thoroughly tested using recent advances in spatial econometrics. We find compelling evidence of a nonmonotonic effect in the accessibility measure and discuss the implications for planning and housing policy.

Research paper thumbnail of A bridge over troubled waters: valuing accessibility effects of a new bridge

Accessibility Analysis and Transport Planning

Research paper thumbnail of Capitalization of neighbourhood diversity and segregation

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2019

In this paper, we study how concentrations and diversity of different groups of households were r... more In this paper, we study how concentrations and diversity of different groups of households were reflected in the housing prices of neighbourhoods in the Oslo urban area, Norway. The focus is primarily on the settlement pattern of immigrants, but the analysis controls for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Based on a hedonic conditional autoregressive spatial model formulation, we find that households on average prefer neighbourhoods with a high concentration of natives, many immigrants from Western countries, and, at the same time, a diverse, thin representation of neighbours from a wide range of countries. We do not find that immigrants from specific countries or continents have a substantial negative impact on housing prices in a neighbourhood.

Research paper thumbnail of Do area-based intervention programs affect house prices? A quasi-experimental approach

Journal of Housing Economics, 2017

Area-based initiatives (ABI) remain a popular approach to combating urban decline. In this paper ... more Area-based initiatives (ABI) remain a popular approach to combating urban decline. In this paper we examine one such spatially concentrated effort in Oslo, Norway, to test whether the program has succeeded in making the targeted neighborhoods more attractive as measured by house prices. The Oslo ABI is an interesting case as it distinguishes itself by its extensive emphasis on improving the social fabric of distressed neighborhoods. Place-based policies generate spatial discontinuities in program implementation. We exploit this in a quasiexperimental difference-indifference approach, enabling a systematic pre/post comparison of house prices in treatment and control areas. We find that in two target areas there is a significant rise in housing prices, while in one target area there is no significant effect. Finally, one area experiences significant negative effects. Hence, the results are mixed which is not inconsistent with the existing literature. The estimated coefficients are remarkably stable

Research paper thumbnail of A comparison of estimation methods for multilevel models of spatially structured data

Research paper thumbnail of Accounting for Local Spatial Heterogeneities in Housing Market Studies

Journal of Regional Science, 2016

We adopt a novel method to deal with omitted spatial heterogeneities in hedonic house price analy... more We adopt a novel method to deal with omitted spatial heterogeneities in hedonic house price analysis. A Gaussian variant of the conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is used to study the impact of spatial effects. In a general linear modeling framework, we include zone‐specific random effects that are allowed to interact spatially with neighboring zones. The results demonstrate that this estimator accounts for missing spatial information, producing more reliable results on estimated spatially related coefficients. The CAR model is benchmarked against a fixed effects model. Socioeconomic neighborhood characteristics are found to have only modest impact on spatial variation in housing prices.

Research paper thumbnail of Rural depopulation, labour market accessibility and housing prices

Accessibility, Equity and Efficiency

Research paper thumbnail of Putting a price on your neighbour

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2016

Neighbourhood population composition affects the willingness to pay for housing units. This paper... more Neighbourhood population composition affects the willingness to pay for housing units. This paper utilises a large and rich data set and hedonic regression techniques to disentangle the effect that neighbourhood affluence and presence of inhabitants with an immigrant background have on home prices. Furthermore, we specify an empirical model in a way that also enable us to test for the effect of diversity, both in terms of income levels and of the composition of the immigrant population of a neighbourhood. The hedonic model can be viewed as a variety of an amenity interpretation of the population composition of a neighbourhood. Estimation of effects of population composition is not straightforward as there is good reason to believe that population composition is both endogenously determined together with house prices and that area level omitted variables could bias estimates. This is addressed by lagging the composition measures and by formulating two different models that address these difficulties in different ways. We estimated one random effects model that instruments within neighbourhood variation in population composition and one fixed effects model that control for omitted variables. We find that coefficient estimates are robust across these specifications.

Research paper thumbnail of Testing for the Impact of Local Labour Market Characteristics on House Prices

Ersa Conference Papers, Sep 1, 2006

The starting point of this paper is a hedonic regression model where house prices are explained a... more The starting point of this paper is a hedonic regression model where house prices are explained as a result of urban attraction and the accessibility to job opportunities in the region. The basic hypothesis is that house prices reflect that households in addition value accessibility to job opportunities in the neighborhood. We propose several measures of local labor market characteristics, and test for the impact on house prices. The alternative measures do not add considerably to the explanatory power. Still, some characteristics contribute significantly, and affect the size and interpretation of the relationship between local labor market conditions and house prices.

Research paper thumbnail of The spatial transferability of labour market accessibility and urban attraction eects between housing markets

The relationship between proximity to a central business district and house prices has

Research paper thumbnail of The impact of labour market accessibility on housing prices

In this paper we study the relationship between labour market accessibility and housing prices in... more In this paper we study the relationship between labour market accessibility and housing prices in a Norwegian region. Through a hedonic approach we estimate implicit prices for a location with a marginally improved labour market accessibility. We test alternative measures of spatial separation between residential location alternatives and job opportunities. Gravity based accessibility measures in general improve model performance compared

Research paper thumbnail of Relationships between housing prices and commuting flows

It has been argued that gravity models are the most popular mathematical description of human int... more It has been argued that gravity models are the most popular mathematical description of human interaction (Sheppard, 1984). In relation to housing prices, gravity based accessibility measures have been suggested as a generalization of modern polycentric labour market structures (Heikkila et al. 1989). Empirical applications of gravity based accessibility measures are, however, fairly resource-demanding. As a determinant of housing prices, one aim of this paper is therefore to compare the performance of one such gravity based measure with simpler measures of mobility. In contrast with the gravity based measures which account for the potential of interaction, the measures introduced in this paper are based on actual commuting patterns. The paper shows that the relationship between housing prices and patterns of commuting is fairly complex and we use a range of different methods to obtain robust conclusions. Finally we try to analyse the effect of long term changes in population on hou...

Research paper thumbnail of Alternative methods for quantifying commuting-related benefits of new transport infrastructure

A variety of methods have been developed which allow the estimation of benefits likely to arise f... more A variety of methods have been developed which allow the estimation of benefits likely to arise from new transport infrastructure. In this paper, we concentrate on measuring commuting-related benefits. We compare and contrast two different approaches. The first relies on using data on commuting flows and the gravity model. The second approach uses the relationship between labour market accessibility and house prices. We use both methods to quantify these benefits, and discuss some of the potential reasons why they may give different estimates. We take as our case study a large infrastructure project in south-west Norway.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatial Impacts, Local Labour Market Characteristics and Housing Prices

Urban Studies, 2013

This paper takes as a starting-point a model where spatial variation in housing prices is explain... more This paper takes as a starting-point a model where spatial variation in housing prices is explained by urban attraction and labour market accessibility effects. Using data from a region in south-west Norway, estimation results are found to be encumbered, however, with significant spatial effects. The spatial Durbin model is used to account for this and to provide estimates of direct and indirect impacts. In addition, hypotheses are tested that some of the spatial variation in housing prices reflects local labour market characteristics. Some support is found for a hypothesis that a model specification should account for sub-centres located at some distance from the central parts of the region. The indirect impacts estimated in the spatial Durbin model suggest that spatially related misspecifications of implicit elasticities in the ordinary least squares model are mainly due to negative externalities close to areas of high labour market accessibility.

Research paper thumbnail of Describing Inequalities in Access to Employment and the Associated Geography of Wellbeing

Urban Studies, 2013

This paper addresses three questions. How unequal is access to urban employment and the wellbeing... more This paper addresses three questions. How unequal is access to urban employment and the wellbeing associated with it? What is the monetary value consumers place on access? How does the inequality of access correspond to the geographical pattern of unemployment? A novel approach is developed using the Osland and Pryce house price model to estimate the monetary value of access welfare (MVAW)—the wellbeing associated with living a given distance from employment, taking into account the negative externalities associated with centres of employment and the complexities that arise from the existence of multiple employment centres of varying size. It is found that: MVAW is considerably more unequal than house prices or income; MVAW contributes around 13 per cent of the average value of a house; and the spatial pattern of unemployment rates is highly inelastic with respect to both MVAW and employment, suggesting no evidence of a spatial mismatch.

Research paper thumbnail of On an Equal Footing? Comparing Commuting Patterns Across Space and Gender

Investigating Spatial Inequalities, 2019

Geographical mobility is often considered fundamental to a well-functioning labour market, and th... more Geographical mobility is often considered fundamental to a well-functioning labour market, and thus to the economy as a whole. Typically, geographical mobility can be achieved either through commuting or through migration. Commuting can be considered important for households to have access to job market opportunities and for business to access labour, skills and competencies. Previous research has found commuting patterns to differ between men and women, for example, in the sense that women travel shorter distances and rely more on public transport. However, we also know that factors such as higher education can influence an individual’s decision to commute, possibly because of specialization and a higher salary. As women’s education level approaches, or surpasses, that of men’s, one would expect to see more similarities between the travel behaviour of the two genders. In this study, we analyse gender patterns of commuting in Norway, Serbia and Sweden. We specifically address the issue of gender gap in commuting. Findings show that though there are signs of convergence, there are large regional variations. The gender gap is decreasing primarily in the more urban regions, while it is decreasing less, and even increasing, given the various levels of aggregation, in the more rural areas.

Research paper thumbnail of Estimating the impact of the Norwegian Introduction Programme on integration using a Regression Kink Design (RKD): Pre-registration

The Introduction Programme offers language, employment and cultural training for new migrants in ... more The Introduction Programme offers language, employment and cultural training for new migrants in Norway. Attendance on the programme is mandatory for most refugees and family reunification migrants (with non-Nordic spouses). Migrants are given a special benefit for attendance (calculated by hours). The amount changes based on an age cut-off: under 25s earn benefits at 2/3 the rate of those over 25. Benefits are calculated per hour of programme attendance.The benefit age cut-off can be used to measure the effects of cash incentives on programme attendance and its knock-on effect on integration outcomes such as education and employment. We propose a Regression Kink Design (RKD) to answer our primary research questions:RQ1: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on programme participation?RQ2: What is the effect of the age-cut off (via benefit rate) on integration outcomes inclusive of employment status, wages, and further education/ training?RQ3: What is the direct e...

Research paper thumbnail of Den hedonistiske metoden og estimering av attributtpriser

Artikkelen presenterer teorigrunnlaget for den hedonistiske metoden og klargjør forutsetningene f... more Artikkelen presenterer teorigrunnlaget for den hedonistiske metoden og klargjør forutsetningene for at de implisitte prisene kan tolkes som marginal betalingsvillighet. Metoden anvendes til estimering av hedonistisk prisfunksjon og implisitte priser på boligmarkedet i Haugesund for perioden 1980 til 1987. I denne perioden finnes lite offisiell boligmarkedstatistikk i Norge. Boligareal, tomteareal, boligens alder og avstand til sentrum bidrar mest til å forklare variasjoner i boligpris. Resultatene er i tråd med økonomisk teori og andre analyser. Dette kan tyde på at det finnes fellestrekk i strukturen på boligmarkedet.

Research paper thumbnail of Commuting, Migration, Housing and Labour Markets: Complex Interactions

Research paper thumbnail of The importance of unobserved attributes in hedonic house price models

International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, 2013

Research paper thumbnail of Housing Prices and Multiple Employment Nodes: Is the Relationship Nonmonotonic?

Housing Studies, 2012

Standard urban economic theory predicts that house prices will decline with distance from the cen... more Standard urban economic theory predicts that house prices will decline with distance from the central business district. Empirical results have been equivocal, however. Disjoints between theory and empirics may be due to a nonmonotonic relationship between house prices and access to employment arising from the negative externalities associated with proximity to multiple centres of employment. Based on data from Glasgow (Scotland), we use gravity-based measures of accessibility estimated using a flexible functional form that allows for nonmonotonicity. The results are thoroughly tested using recent advances in spatial econometrics. We find compelling evidence of a nonmonotonic effect in the accessibility measure and discuss the implications for planning and housing policy.

Research paper thumbnail of A bridge over troubled waters: valuing accessibility effects of a new bridge

Accessibility Analysis and Transport Planning

Research paper thumbnail of Capitalization of neighbourhood diversity and segregation

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2019

In this paper, we study how concentrations and diversity of different groups of households were r... more In this paper, we study how concentrations and diversity of different groups of households were reflected in the housing prices of neighbourhoods in the Oslo urban area, Norway. The focus is primarily on the settlement pattern of immigrants, but the analysis controls for socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Based on a hedonic conditional autoregressive spatial model formulation, we find that households on average prefer neighbourhoods with a high concentration of natives, many immigrants from Western countries, and, at the same time, a diverse, thin representation of neighbours from a wide range of countries. We do not find that immigrants from specific countries or continents have a substantial negative impact on housing prices in a neighbourhood.

Research paper thumbnail of Do area-based intervention programs affect house prices? A quasi-experimental approach

Journal of Housing Economics, 2017

Area-based initiatives (ABI) remain a popular approach to combating urban decline. In this paper ... more Area-based initiatives (ABI) remain a popular approach to combating urban decline. In this paper we examine one such spatially concentrated effort in Oslo, Norway, to test whether the program has succeeded in making the targeted neighborhoods more attractive as measured by house prices. The Oslo ABI is an interesting case as it distinguishes itself by its extensive emphasis on improving the social fabric of distressed neighborhoods. Place-based policies generate spatial discontinuities in program implementation. We exploit this in a quasiexperimental difference-indifference approach, enabling a systematic pre/post comparison of house prices in treatment and control areas. We find that in two target areas there is a significant rise in housing prices, while in one target area there is no significant effect. Finally, one area experiences significant negative effects. Hence, the results are mixed which is not inconsistent with the existing literature. The estimated coefficients are remarkably stable

Research paper thumbnail of A comparison of estimation methods for multilevel models of spatially structured data

Research paper thumbnail of Accounting for Local Spatial Heterogeneities in Housing Market Studies

Journal of Regional Science, 2016

We adopt a novel method to deal with omitted spatial heterogeneities in hedonic house price analy... more We adopt a novel method to deal with omitted spatial heterogeneities in hedonic house price analysis. A Gaussian variant of the conditional autoregressive (CAR) model is used to study the impact of spatial effects. In a general linear modeling framework, we include zone‐specific random effects that are allowed to interact spatially with neighboring zones. The results demonstrate that this estimator accounts for missing spatial information, producing more reliable results on estimated spatially related coefficients. The CAR model is benchmarked against a fixed effects model. Socioeconomic neighborhood characteristics are found to have only modest impact on spatial variation in housing prices.

Research paper thumbnail of Rural depopulation, labour market accessibility and housing prices

Accessibility, Equity and Efficiency

Research paper thumbnail of Putting a price on your neighbour

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 2016

Neighbourhood population composition affects the willingness to pay for housing units. This paper... more Neighbourhood population composition affects the willingness to pay for housing units. This paper utilises a large and rich data set and hedonic regression techniques to disentangle the effect that neighbourhood affluence and presence of inhabitants with an immigrant background have on home prices. Furthermore, we specify an empirical model in a way that also enable us to test for the effect of diversity, both in terms of income levels and of the composition of the immigrant population of a neighbourhood. The hedonic model can be viewed as a variety of an amenity interpretation of the population composition of a neighbourhood. Estimation of effects of population composition is not straightforward as there is good reason to believe that population composition is both endogenously determined together with house prices and that area level omitted variables could bias estimates. This is addressed by lagging the composition measures and by formulating two different models that address these difficulties in different ways. We estimated one random effects model that instruments within neighbourhood variation in population composition and one fixed effects model that control for omitted variables. We find that coefficient estimates are robust across these specifications.

Research paper thumbnail of Testing for the Impact of Local Labour Market Characteristics on House Prices

Ersa Conference Papers, Sep 1, 2006

The starting point of this paper is a hedonic regression model where house prices are explained a... more The starting point of this paper is a hedonic regression model where house prices are explained as a result of urban attraction and the accessibility to job opportunities in the region. The basic hypothesis is that house prices reflect that households in addition value accessibility to job opportunities in the neighborhood. We propose several measures of local labor market characteristics, and test for the impact on house prices. The alternative measures do not add considerably to the explanatory power. Still, some characteristics contribute significantly, and affect the size and interpretation of the relationship between local labor market conditions and house prices.

Research paper thumbnail of The spatial transferability of labour market accessibility and urban attraction eects between housing markets

The relationship between proximity to a central business district and house prices has

Research paper thumbnail of The impact of labour market accessibility on housing prices

In this paper we study the relationship between labour market accessibility and housing prices in... more In this paper we study the relationship between labour market accessibility and housing prices in a Norwegian region. Through a hedonic approach we estimate implicit prices for a location with a marginally improved labour market accessibility. We test alternative measures of spatial separation between residential location alternatives and job opportunities. Gravity based accessibility measures in general improve model performance compared

Research paper thumbnail of Relationships between housing prices and commuting flows

It has been argued that gravity models are the most popular mathematical description of human int... more It has been argued that gravity models are the most popular mathematical description of human interaction (Sheppard, 1984). In relation to housing prices, gravity based accessibility measures have been suggested as a generalization of modern polycentric labour market structures (Heikkila et al. 1989). Empirical applications of gravity based accessibility measures are, however, fairly resource-demanding. As a determinant of housing prices, one aim of this paper is therefore to compare the performance of one such gravity based measure with simpler measures of mobility. In contrast with the gravity based measures which account for the potential of interaction, the measures introduced in this paper are based on actual commuting patterns. The paper shows that the relationship between housing prices and patterns of commuting is fairly complex and we use a range of different methods to obtain robust conclusions. Finally we try to analyse the effect of long term changes in population on hou...

Research paper thumbnail of Alternative methods for quantifying commuting-related benefits of new transport infrastructure

A variety of methods have been developed which allow the estimation of benefits likely to arise f... more A variety of methods have been developed which allow the estimation of benefits likely to arise from new transport infrastructure. In this paper, we concentrate on measuring commuting-related benefits. We compare and contrast two different approaches. The first relies on using data on commuting flows and the gravity model. The second approach uses the relationship between labour market accessibility and house prices. We use both methods to quantify these benefits, and discuss some of the potential reasons why they may give different estimates. We take as our case study a large infrastructure project in south-west Norway.

Research paper thumbnail of Spatial Impacts, Local Labour Market Characteristics and Housing Prices

Urban Studies, 2013

This paper takes as a starting-point a model where spatial variation in housing prices is explain... more This paper takes as a starting-point a model where spatial variation in housing prices is explained by urban attraction and labour market accessibility effects. Using data from a region in south-west Norway, estimation results are found to be encumbered, however, with significant spatial effects. The spatial Durbin model is used to account for this and to provide estimates of direct and indirect impacts. In addition, hypotheses are tested that some of the spatial variation in housing prices reflects local labour market characteristics. Some support is found for a hypothesis that a model specification should account for sub-centres located at some distance from the central parts of the region. The indirect impacts estimated in the spatial Durbin model suggest that spatially related misspecifications of implicit elasticities in the ordinary least squares model are mainly due to negative externalities close to areas of high labour market accessibility.

Research paper thumbnail of Describing Inequalities in Access to Employment and the Associated Geography of Wellbeing

Urban Studies, 2013

This paper addresses three questions. How unequal is access to urban employment and the wellbeing... more This paper addresses three questions. How unequal is access to urban employment and the wellbeing associated with it? What is the monetary value consumers place on access? How does the inequality of access correspond to the geographical pattern of unemployment? A novel approach is developed using the Osland and Pryce house price model to estimate the monetary value of access welfare (MVAW)—the wellbeing associated with living a given distance from employment, taking into account the negative externalities associated with centres of employment and the complexities that arise from the existence of multiple employment centres of varying size. It is found that: MVAW is considerably more unequal than house prices or income; MVAW contributes around 13 per cent of the average value of a house; and the spatial pattern of unemployment rates is highly inelastic with respect to both MVAW and employment, suggesting no evidence of a spatial mismatch.