Research

Job Market Paper

[New Paper] Your Room is Ready: Tourism and Urban Revival (Link)  Accepted at Regional Science and Urban Economics

Press coverage (El Economista, La Vanguardia, La Razón)

Tourism is an essential sector of the global economy, contributing significantly to GDP and employment. Despite its importance, our understanding of its impact on urban economic activity remains limited. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of tourism on urban transformation using a dataset of hotel openings in Madrid from 2001-2010. I show that hotel openings positively impact the number of establishments and employment by using the number of protected buildings as an instrumental variable to account for the non-random distribution of hotel openings. Interestingly, hotel openings contribute to changes in the composition of the economic activities and the business structures, enhancing tourist-oriented corporate-owned businesses over other individual-owned companies. Finally, economic effects extend to the real estate market, increasing rental prices and residential investment.

PUBLICATIONS

• The Effect of Short-Term Rentals on Local Consumption Amenities: Evidence from Madrid (with Massimo Riccaboni and Francisco J. Velázquez) [Slides] [Video][Poster]  Journal of Regional Science  (2024)

Press coverage: [Nada es gratis] [El Pais] [Telemadrid]

• When local business faded away: the uneven impact of Airbnb on the geography of economic activities (with Massimo Riccaboni and Francisco J. Velazquez).  [Accepted version (full text)] [Slides] [Video] Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2023)

Press coverage: [La Ser] [Infolibre] [El Confidencial] 

• Does hotel management matter to overcoming the COVID-19 crisis? The Spanish case (with David Martín-Barroso, Juan A Nunez-Serrano, Jaime Turrión and Francisco J. Velázquez). [Slides] [Poster] [Video] [Press coverage] Tourism Management (2022). 

• COVID-19, social distancing and guests' preferences: impact on peer-to-peer accommodation pricing (with Massimo Riccaboni, Armando Rungi, Francisco J. Velázquez).  [Slides] [Poster] [Video]  Current Issues in Tourism  (2021)

WORK IN PROGRESS

1. The uneven geographic impact of COVID-19 on the economic crisis and the recovery (with David Martín-Barroso, Juan A Núñez-Serrano, Jaime Turrión and Francisco J. Velázquez). 

This paper investigates the regional economic disparities in the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Spain. Using data from social security records and Google Trends, we develop a novel methodological approach to account for the different sources and channels through which the pandemic has affected employment dynamics, used as a proxy for economic activity. The main results show the important negative effect of restrictions and the relevant role of government actions to attenuate its geographically adverse economic effects. These findings highlight the need for coordination among different levels of administrations because COVID-19 spillovers exceed the administrative borders.

2. Job Safety and Import Competition. Evidence from worker-level data (with Anna D’Ambrosio, Roberto Leombruni, Tiziano Razzolini, and  Francesco Serti)

While prior research explored the effects of IC on wages and employment, less is known about its influence on non-pecuniary aspects of jobs like safety. The authors argue that unlike wages (regulated in Italy), injuries can better reveal a decline in working conditions due to IC. They analyze data on Italian workers in the manufacturing sector (1994-2005) to assess the link between IC and workplace injuries. The findings suggest no significant change in total injuries but an increase in severe injuries for workers exposed to high IC. This implies a potential worsening of safety conditions and underreporting of injuries in these sectors .

3. The taller, the better? Agglomeration determinants and urban structure (with Federico Curci)

This paper explores how building height plays an important role in firms’ agglomeration and its consequent effects on productivity and overall urban structure. I do this by looking at the role of skyscrapers in influencing the concentration of establishments in U.S. cities. I identify the agglomeration effects of tall buildings instrumenting the completion of new skyscrapers by the interaction between the distance to bedrocks in one ZIP area with the past Global steel price. Results suggest that tall buildings affect the location of firms inside a city. Tall buildings increase both agglomeration of firms in the surrounding areas and their productivity. The effect of newly completed skyscrapers on agglomeration differs between sectors. The attraction of establishments to ZIP codes where tall buildings are built has an important anticipatory component. Exploiting the variation of firms’ density produced by tall buildings, I estimate that firms’ productivity elasticity to establishment density is 0.05, while the additional productivity elasticity if firms locate in a skyscraper is 0.01.

WORKING PAPERS

Political instability and Tourism. The case of Arab Spring (with David Martin-Barroso and Francisco J. Velazquez)

COVID-19 and Guests' Preferences in Short-Term Rentals: Evidence from Madrid (with Massimo Riccaboni, Armando Rungi, Francisco J. Velázquez)

CONFERENCES 

2024

Workshop  The effects of short-term rentals on residential markets (IEB, Barcelona School of Economics, Spain)

2023

Workshop on Regional and Urban Economics, Barcelona, Spain; 64th annual conference of the Italian Economic Association, L'Aquila, Italy; 2nd NSE PhD and Postdoc Workshop, Naples, Italy; European Regional Science Association conference (ERSA), Alicante, Spain;  57th Canadian Economic Association Conference. Winnipeg, Canada; 11th PhD-Student Workshop on Industrial and Public Economics. Reus, Spain; American Economic Association (ASSA meeting). New Orleans, USA.

2022

47th Symposium Spanish Economic Association (SAE). Valencia, Spain; 6th CEnSE Urban and Regional Economics Workshop. Goteborg, Sweden; Spanish Section: XLVI International Conference on Regional Science. Granada, Spain;  European Regional Science Association conference (ERSA), Pecs, Hungary; Jornadas de Economia Industrial, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; 11th European Meeting Urban Economics Association, London, UK.    

2021

46th Symposium Spanish Economic Association (SAE). Barcelona, Spain; 47th European International Business Academy Conference (EIBA). Madrid, Spain; Spanish Section: XLVI International Conference on Regional Science. Madrid, Spain; International Conference Regional Economics in Times of Crisis. Leon, Spain; 13th World Congress of Regional Science Association International (RSAI), Virtual Conference.

2018-2016

12th World Congress of Regional Science Association International (RSAI), Goa, India;  XLIII  International Conference on Regional Science (AECR), Sevilla, Spain; XLII International Conference on Regional Science (AECR), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

 SEMINARS

Internal seminar Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), Brown Bag Seminar in Economics and Finance at Jonkoping University (Sweden), Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy), The Institute of Economic Analysis at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), Internal seminar at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca (Italy), PhD-Economics Virtual Seminar,  Internal seminar Université du Quebec a Montreal (Canada), Applied Young Economist Webinar,