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作者

来源

JOURNAL OF URBAN ECONOMICS,Vol.108,P.107-123

语言

英文

关键字

Panhandling; Public space; Charity; Labor; Poverty

作者单位

[Dordick, Gwendolyn] City Coll, New York, NY USA. [O'Flaherty, Brendan; Sinha, Srishti] Columbia Univ, New York, NY 10027 USA. [Brounstein, Jakob] Columbia Univ, Univ Calif Berkeley, New York, NY USA. [Yoo, Jungsoo] Univ Penn, Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA. O'Flaherty, B (reprint author), Columbia Univ, New York, NY 10027 USA. E-Mail: bo2@columbia.edu

摘要

We study panhandling in Downtown Manhattan. Surprisingly few people panhandle there at any given moment: about 8-10 people on average at a busy time, in a small area with an economy the size of Latvia's. The redevelopment of Ground Zero and the resulting surge in economic activity including the opening of North America's tallest building-changed where panhandlers operated within the neighborhood, but did not significantly increase panhandling overall. The response was muted because the labor supply of panhandlers appears to be inelastic. On the other hand, good places to panhandle are relatively abundant. Hence the benefits of the boom in economic activity accrued mainly to incumbent panhandlers themselves; as would the benefits of greater donor generosity.