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"With more than half of today's global GDP being produced by approximately four hundred metropolitan centers, learning about the economics of cities is vital to understanding economic prosperity. This textbook introduces graduate and upper-division undergraduate students to the field of urban economics and fiscal policy, relying on a modern approach that integrates theoretical and empirical analysis. Based on material that Holger Sieg has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Urban Economics and Fiscal Policy brings the most recent insights from the field into the classroom. Divided into short chapters, the book explores fiscal policies that directly shape economic issues in cities, such as city taxes, the provision of quality education, access to affordable housing, and protection from crime and natural hazards. For each issue, Sieg offers questions, facts, and background; illuminates how economic theory helps students engage with topics; and presents empirical data that shows how economic ideas play out in daily life. Throughout, the book pushes readers to think critically and immediately put what they are learning to use by applying cutting-edge theory to data."

We develop a new dynamic equilibrium model with heterogeneous households that captures the most important frictions that arise in housing rental markets and explains the political popularity of affordable housing policies. We estimate the model using data collected by the New York Housing Vacancy Survey in 2011. We find that there are significant adjustment costs in all markets as well as serious search frictions in the market for affordable housing. Moreover, there are large queuing frictions in the market for public housing. Having access to rent-stabilized housing increases household welfare by up to $65,000. Increasing the supply of affordable housing by10% significantly improves the welfare of all renters in the city. Progressive taxation of higher-income households that live in public housing can also be welfare improving.

This paper shows how to identify and estimate, using standard semi-parametric techniques, a class of dynamic games with perfect monitoring, that have been at the frontier of recent research in political economy. The empirical analysis provides novel quantitative insights into the trade-off that voters face between ideology and ability, the differences in ability and ideology among parties and states, and the differences in preferences between political candidates and voters. We analyze the consequences of term limits and quantify their relative importance. Specifically, we characterize conditions under which term limits improve voters' welfare. (JEL C57, C73, D72)

Plastics are used ubiquitously and have become part of our everyday life. The global production of plastics is rising, which in consequence is leading to increasing amounts of plastics being released into the environment. Recently, the issue of human exposure to micro‐ and nanoplastic particles and potentially resulting toxicological consequences has been broached, triggered by the discovery of microplastics in foodstuff. In addition to dietary exposure via contaminated food and beverages, other exposure paths such as via air and cosmetics, have to be considered. Currently there is no legislation for microplastics and nanoplastics as contaminants in food. Substantial data gaps with respect to exposure as well as toxicity of such particles impede the risk assessment. Within this EU‐FORA fellowship project, a comprehensive data mining approach was followed, focusing on up‐to‐date knowledge on the occurrence and possible toxic effects associated with micro‐ and nanoplastics after oral exposure, especially via food products and beverages, in order to provide a basis for risk assessment and to identify important research gaps. The fellowship project was further complemented by practical work aimed at the determination of in vitro toxicity of micro‐sized polylactic acid particles.