Research

Job Market Paper

Your Room is Ready: Tourism and Urban Revival (Link)

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 over the period 2001-2010. I show that hotel openings have a positive impact on 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, the impacts vary between different economic sectors and areas within the city, with tourism-oriented businesses benefiting significantly while production-oriented activities experience negative impacts. In addition, the spatial impacts of tourism extend beyond the immediate vicinity, suggesting indirect economic spillover effects on job creation in more distant areas. Finally, economic effects extend to the real estate market, increasing rental prices and residential investment.

PUBLICATIONS



WORK IN PROGRESS



 

This paper investigates the impact of the arrival of Airbnb on local consumption amenities in Madrid. We exploit the exogenous variation created by the timing and the unequal distribution of Airbnb listings across the urban geography to identify its effects on food and beverage establishments. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we find positive local effects on both the number of restaurants

and their employees: an increase in ten Airbnb rooms in a given census tract translates into almost one more restaurant, and the same increase in a given neighborhood generates eight new tourist-related employees. The results are robust to specification and sample composition. This paper contributes to the literature on the economic impacts of the platform economy on urban areas by providing evidence of market expansion externalities from short-term rentals.




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.



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 

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

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