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It Works on TV - Do Property Rehabs Drive Up Prices in Surrounding Neighborhoods?

When a house is distressed, the negative impact tends to ricochet around its surrounding neighborhood. Distressed homes (e.g. foreclosures) can significantly bring down the value of other homes in the area, as these properties are often poorly maintained and then typically sold at discounted prices In the past, and particularly in the wake of the 2008 subprime crisis, federal and local governments sought to mitigate this negative effect by incentivizing the rehabilitation of distressed properties through programs like the Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP). Until now, there has been some skepticism as to whether or not these kinds of initiatives actually work. New research by Goizueta Foundation Term Associate Professor of Finance Gonzalo Maturana and Goizueta’s Assistant Professor of Finance Rohan Ganduri might change the narrative definitively. They have analyzed new data that shows that rehabilitation projects not only help to stabilize housing prices in affected neighborhoods but can also actually increase the value of neighboring properties by as much as four percentage points. Using highly robust, non-parametric statistical analysis methods, Maturana and Ganduri parsed more than 10 years of information on rehabilitated property transactions and real estate prices across the United States. The effect of renovating dilapidated or derelict houses in these areas pushes prices up between 2.3 and four percentage points in their surrounding blocks, they find. And that’s not all. While the average amount spent by authorities on these renovations comes in at roughly $36,000, their study estimates a societal welfare gain of $134,000 per rehabilitated property—almost four times the cost of the rehabilitation. These insights should provide interesting food for thought for the U.S. Congress and local governments, Maturana notes. After the housing crash in 2008, Congress allocated $6.9 billion in funding to the NSP to help stabilize communities affected by high vacancy and foreclosure rates, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development didn’t find any positive impact on local housing markets at the time. “Our findings suggest that rehabilitation projects do drive a positive uptick in prices that can help revitalize distressed neighborhoods,” says Maturana. “And they provide very timely support for policy interventions, such as President Biden’s infrastructure spending program which proposes an allocation of $20 billion to rehabilitate 500,000 single-family homes in low-income neighborhoods in the United States.” With the current economy facing some uncertain times - this is a topic that is important for everyone.  And if you're a reporter looking to know more then let us help. Gonzalo Maturana is an associate professor of finance at the Goizueta Business School. He is an expert in the areas of corporate, household and real estate finance. Rohan Ganduri's research interests include banking, credit risk, real estate, household finance, and corporate finance. Both Gonzalo and Rohan are available to speak to media regarding this topic – simply click on either icon now to arrange an interview today.

Georgia Southern faculty secure $1.8 million federal grant to promote inclusive excellence in health informatics

Faculty from Georgia Southern University’s Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health (JPHCOPH) have secured a federal grant totaling more than $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote inclusive excellence in health informatics and health equity. With the goal of empowering minority students through education, JPHCOPH’s Professor and Department Chair Gulzar Shah, Ph.D., as principal investigator, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Nandi Marshall, DrPH, as co-investigator, received the grant as part of the $7.98 million award for the TRIUMPH (Training in Informatics for Underrepresented Minorities in Public Health) consortium, which included three other universities and four public health organizations. “This initiative will help our college foster collaborations and community engagement involving influential public health agencies, academic institutions, community organizations and public health agencies,” stated Shah. “It will assist with paid practical experience for students and the practicum sites, and better prospects of job placements for the graduates. The grant will also involve health informatics capacity-building in the current public health workforce in Georgia.” In addition, the grant will help facilitate a new fully online concentration in public health informatics within the University’s existing Master of Public Health (MPH) program. This concentration will feature new courses focused on health information systems, data analytics and public health data visualization for evidenced-based practice. The courses will also be available as elective options for students in the Doctor of Public Health program. As well, the award also provides several graduate assistant opportunities to support students enrolled in the new MPH concentration. If you're a reporter looking to know more about this important topic - then let us help with your coverage and stories. JPHCOPH’s Professor and Department Chair Gulzar Shah, Ph.D, is available to answer your questions - simply reach out to Georgia Southern Director of Communications Jennifer Wise at jwise@georgiasouthern.edu to arrange an interview today.

Expert Insight: Properties on Confederate-named U.S. Streets Sell for Less

Houses on streets that are named after Confederate figures or themes sell for 3% less than similar properties in neighboring areas, says a new study led by John W. McIntyre Professor of Finance, Clifton Green. For an average property worth $240,000, the mean discount works out to around $7,000. Not only that, these homes take considerably longer to sell than comparable houses on streets that are named for secessionists. Green and his co-authors reviewed data from home sales across 35 states in the U.S., analyzing nearly 6,000 transactions between 2001 and 2020. Their data set looked at properties located on streets named after Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, as well as the more generic options of “Confederate” and “Dixie.” The majority of these streets are located in former Confederate states, though some are also found in California and Massachusetts, as well as a number of Midwestern and Western states that had not been created before the U.S. Civil War. To be certain of their findings, Green et al looked at homes with similar features and characteristics such as lot size, age, building type, and the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. The findings are unequivocal, says Green, although the effect is not equally distributed across states. What is the Confederate Discount? “The discount in prices for homes of Confederate-named streets is geographically variable. In those states that make up the former Confederacy, the effect is more muted at around two percent,” he notes. “And in some states where you find the most Lost Cause memorials, there may even be a fraction of a percentage point boost in sales for properties on streets with secessionist names.” Beyond the South, the “Confederate discount” effect is notably more visible. The debate around changing street names in the U.S. has gathered momentum in recent years, with some 1,400 streets still named after Confederate figures. Much of the discussion, however, has focused on what Green calls the “principled reasons” for name changes–arguments that may or may not stack up favorably against the cost of changing signs. This new study lends more economic clout to the cause of revising street names in the U.S.–albeit that the effect is more pronounced in Democratic-voting areas or areas with a higher share of Black or highly-educated residents. “In these places, sales on streets with Confederate names dipped even further, going for eight percent less on average, and this is particularly noticeable after events that have shone a spotlight on race inequity or white supremacy in the U.S.” Interested in knowing more? Get in touch today. T. Clifton Green is a Professor of Finance at the Goizueta Business School. He is an expert in the areas of market microstructure, with an emphasis on behavioral finance and his research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Financial Times, and on CNBC.

Housing bubbles, student debt, stagnant salaries – America need a reset?

There’s an old saying we all know about those who don’t pay attention to history … they’re doomed to repeat it. Over and over and over sometimes. One would think after the 2008 housing crisis that nearly decimated the American and global economy – that we’d all be somewhat wiser. According to some, that may not be the case. America is once again approaching the same cliff it took a decade to climb up from. The measures that were put in place to prevent massive amounts of foreclosures a decade ago are now coming home to roost. “This massive problem of underwater homeowners could not be resolved only by shutting off the spigot of foreclosures. That is why a total of 25 million permanent mortgage modifications and other so-called 'workout plans' were put in place from 2008 until June 2018 according to data provider Hope Now.   Modifying mortgages as an alternative to foreclosure just kicked the can down the road. It succeeded in bringing these delinquent homeowners into current status. Yet millions of them are re-defaulting on these modified mortgages. The number of re-defaults is increasing relentlessly around the U.S. Worse yet, many re-defaulters are on their second- or third mortgage modification.” - MarketWatch Mortgages once again are vulnerable as the housing market remains painfully out of sync with the rest of the economy. As well, with millennials facing massive student debt, a shortage of new builds means fewer people can enter the market nor can they afford to. Combine that with salaries flatlining and not keeping pace with the rising price of goods – it’s not a sunny forecast. Are you covering this potential financial crisis? What will America have to do to course correct and ensure we don’t have a repeat of the 2008 meltdown? And how did the country’s leaders allow this to happen? Did no one see this coming? There are a lot of questions and that’s where an expert from New Jersey Institute of Technology can help. Professor Michael Ehrlich's research focuses on financial markets and institutions, with an emphasis on market failures. He has written about the unintended consequences of financial market innovation and is Associate Director of the Leir Center for Financial Bubble Research. To reach Michael, simply click on the button below.

The demands of fast fulfillment

Consumers now expect packages to arrive in hours, perhaps days but not weeks. Amazon fueled this demand with the promise of speedy delivery of nearly everything you can buy online. Indeed, your doorstep now rivals the loading dock as the main destination for goods. Supply chains are the key to such quick turnarounds: in short, how items move from manufacturers to distributors to consumers. Any hiccups along the way exasperates our increasingly demanding consumers. In short, they want fulfillment to be as easy as clicking to buy something online. Through years of research and experience, NJIT’s Sanchoy Das has become an expert on fast fulfillment, even writing a book on it. It continues to evolve, however, with the prospect of drone deliveries on the horizon. He’s versed on that as well, making him an ideal source for stories that explain how goods and services are delivered in our on-demand economy. Specifically, Sanchoy can explain Logistics Breakdowns in supply chains Industrial engineering Business operations management Data-driven technology To interview him, simply click on the button below.

What big data tells us – in health care, cybersecurity, sustainability and elections

Every day sees more data created around the world than every day before, with a staggering 64 billion terabytes amassed in 2020 alone. Big data leaves large organizations wondering how to manage their share and individuals concerned about how to be heard. And both groups fret about information overload, privacy and security. NJIT’s David Bader is adept at discussing these issues as a nationally recognized data scientist who seeks new ways for companies to analyze massive data streams that arrive in real-time. He’s also a pioneer of Linux supercomputing who’s developing software to bring the power of supercomputers to regular people. Additionally, as director of NJIT's Institute for Data Science, Bader seeks powerful solutions to myriad global challenges. As he explains: “We personalized health and medicine. We look at cyber security applications. We look at urban sustainability. We even look at things like, how do we ensure trustworthy elections?” To interview him, simply click on the button below.

Aston University cyber expert to appear at FinTech event in Birmingham

'FinTech Secured – Next Generation' will showcase the work of leading stakeholders in the research and development of financial technology (FinTech) and security Professor Vladlena Benson will offer insight on illicit money flows and trends in Financial Security Registrations are now open for the event on 7 June 2022 at The Compound, Birmingham. The director of the Cyber Security Innovation (CSI) Centre at Aston University is set to appear at a networking event around financial technology (FinTech). Following the success of their first flagship event of 2022 ‘Secure by Design, Advanced Manufacturing’, Midlands Cyber will launch 'FinTech Secured – Next Generation' on the 7 June 2022. The event will be the first face to face event after the pandemic in Birmingham, bringing together thought leaders and service applications specialists for an evening of industry networking. Professor Vladlena Benson, who also serves on the EU’s Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) task force defining the Cybersecurity Skills Framework at the European level, will be joined by contacts from within the cryptocurrency sector and offer insight on illicit money flows and trends in financial security. The event will also showcase the work of leading stakeholders in the research and development of FinTech and financial security. FinTech’s academic innovators, CEOs and company founders, entrepreneurs, contractors, investors and policymakers are encouraged to register now to discuss, participate, network and put their questions to our panel of industry experts. Professor Vladlena Benson, an industry-recognised expert in cybersecurity risk management and director of CSI Centre at Aston Business School, said: “Financial services are core to the UK economy and continue to be a common target for cyber criminals. Challenges to the insurance sector and cyber crime prosecution when crypto assets are involved are emerging and at the CSI we are working to provide forensic and data integrity solutions which help secure the FinTech sector.” User of contactless Europay, Mastercard, and Visa (EMV) may be interested in the insights of Tom Chothia, reader in cyber security at the University of Birmingham, on how the vulnerabilities of Apple Pay and Visa could enable hackers to ’Take £1000 from a locked iPhone’. Registrations are now open to join the cluster at 18:00 hrs on the 7 June 2022 at The Compound, Birmingham.

Studying glaciers . . . from Florida

By Emma Richards On the surface, the University of Florida seems an unlikely place to find cutting-edge research on ice sheets. But Emma “Mickey” MacKie says this is the perfect place for her work — thanks in large part to HiPerGator, one of the fastest supercomputers in higher education. MacKie, an assistant professor of geological sciences and glaciologist, joined UF in August 2021 and said her decision hinged largely on access to HiPerGator and the university’s focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. MacKie uses machine learning methods to study subsurface conditions of glaciers in polar regions and access to a powerful supercomputer is crucial given the large data sets her research generates. “I'm very happy to be in a place with lots of people who are working on different types of problems and are interested in developing these different tools,” MacKie said. “There are a number of members of my department in geology who are studying glacial geology through different lenses. And so, there's all of this complementary geological and machine learning knowledge at UF that I'm very excited to bring together.” MacKie has set up the Gator Glaciology Lab, where she and a team of seven undergraduate students from the fields of geology, computer science, physics, math and data science are using AI to analyze what lies beneath glaciers and how they are moving and melting. “Our work is part of a bigger effort in the glaciology community to start working on quantifying our uncertainty in future sea-level rise projections so that we can give policy makers this information.” It’s a very difficult challenge, MacKie said, because of limited access to polar regions and the miles-thick ice covering the ground. Then there is the scale of ice sheets; Antarctica, for example, is the size of U.S. and Mexico combined. Measurements of the topography below such glaciers are gathered using radars mounted on airplanes to “see” through ice. Her team then uses HiPerGator to simulate realistic looking topography in places where there are gaps or blank spots in the measurements. They generate hundreds of maps to represent different possible ice sheet conditions, which could be used to determine numerous possible sea level rise scenarios. “Our work is part of a bigger effort in the glaciology community to start working on quantifying our uncertainty in future sea-level rise projections so that we can give policy makers this information,” she said. Earlier this spring, MacKie swapped out her flip-flops for snow boots to study subsurface glacial conditions in Svalbard, which is next to northeastern Greenland. Visiting Svalbard will help her test and develop data collection and analysis techniques that could be applied to Antarctica or Greenland, which both contain large ice sheets that could have serious environmental impacts if they experience significant melting. In Svalbard, MacKie and Norwegian researchers from the University of Bergen and the University Centre in Svalbard took seismic and radar measurements of glaciers that will be used to make estimates about conditions beneath the ice. Among glaciers of concern is the Thwaites “Doomsday Glacier,” which is losing the most ice of any glacier in Antarctica. There are signs showing Thwaites’ ice shelf could start to break in the next few years. MacKie said it will likely be a few hundred years before the glacier could undergo significant collapse and jeopardize the West Antarctica Ice Sheet, leading to several meters of sea level rise. The effects of Thwaites and other ice sheet melts in Antarctica and Greenland will become apparent in decades to come, with the potential for a meter of sea level rise by the end of the century, which MacKie and other researchers hope to predict more accurately. “The state of Florida has the most to lose when sea level rises,” she said in an episode of the From Florida podcast. “And so, I think we have a lot of skin in the game and it’s really important to be studying this question here in Florida.” To hear more about MacKie’s work, listen to From Florida at this link.

Villa Vision receives £20K from Wesleyan to measure impact of child eye health project

Villa Vision programmes provide access to eye health care for children from deprived areas of Birmingham. 5,500 children have been reached so far. The Wesleyan Foundation and Aston University’s five-year partnership is valued at over £250K The findings of the evaluation will be shared with the Villa Vision team and all partners including participating schools, parents and children. Villa Vision, a project that delivers eye health care to children from deprived areas of Birmingham, has received £20,000 from the Wesleyan Foundation. The money will help evaluate the impact of the project to date which has reached approximately 5,500 children across the West Midlands. Villa Vision programmes are designed to increase access to eye health education, eye screening, eye examinations and to dispense glasses to children who need them with the aim of providing them with the visual foundation to succeed. The Villa Vision project is a collaboration between the Aston Villa Foundation, Aston University and optical lens supplier Essilor Vision For Life. The money donated by Birmingham based Wesleyan, alongside the Aston University funding of almost £15,000, will pay for research assistants to evaluate the first three years of the project. The objectives of the impact evaluation are to: • Review how many children have been screened, detail the coverage of the programme and its reach within the city • Analyse Villa Vision’s data recording children’s eye screening tests and eye examinations • Examine the potential impact on student’s performance on tasks that require attention to detail after being given glasses • Work with children to explore their experience of the Villa Vision programme to help develop the educational part of the programme • Work with teachers to examine the potential impact of corrected vision on children’s classroom behaviour (their integration into class, their reading at distance and close-up, their English and maths) • Work with parents to understand the impact of Villa Vision on their eye health knowledge and the quality of life of the children involved in the programme and the family more generally. The findings of the evaluation will be shared with the Villa Vision team and all collaborating partners as well as participating schools, teachers, parents and children. The findings will also be published in peer-reviewed journals, online and in newsletters to reach interested audiences. Dr Rachel Shaw, a health psychologist in Aston Institute for Health & Neurodevelopment, and project lead, said: “Villa Vision is an inspirational project offering children eye care in their schools. Not only that, Nik Sonpal and Zak El Khalifi from the Villa Vision team, have created an educational, entertaining, and imaginative workshop helping children to understand the importance of eye health, bringing it to life with the help of Aston Villa and a footballing theme.” Leon Davies, professor of optometry and physiological optics in the School of Optometry at Aston University and Vice President of the College of Optometrists said: “The team led by Dr Rachel Shaw with support from Dr Laura Shapiro, Esra Yeter, Sidratul Kazi and myself will provide robust evidence to demonstrate the impact and value of Villa Vision on children’s eye health and education in Birmingham, which we believe will help secure Villa Vision’s long-term future.” Nathan Wallis, Chief of Staff at Wesleyan said: “We are proud to be supporting Villa Vision and its research, they are making a huge difference to the lives of so many primary school children across the West Midlands. It is vital for all children to be given access to good eye care, not just to improve engagement in the classroom but for their overall quality of life and self-confidence. “As a financial service mutual for teachers and doctors it is important to us that we support the things that matter most to our customers and supporting Villa Vision is a great example of this.” Nikhil Sonpal, Villa Vision Project Manager and optometrist at Aston Villa Foundation, said: “Villa Vision and the Aston Villa Foundation are incredibly excited to have the support of both the Wesleyan Foundation and Aston University in helping to establish a deeper understanding of our eye health project. "Not only will this evaluation help unearth the level of impact our intervention is having within the community, but it will also allow us to discover ways to develop our provision further and strengthen our reach when trying to address local inequalities in eye care.”

Metaverse...have you met AcceleRoute?

The Internet is a testament to the power of evolution. But there's a bigger picture looming. A discontinuity. Driven by a new breed of application environments including the Metaverse, multi-player gaming, VR and more. Will this drive the need for a "new Internet"? Many believe, as a minimum, networking will need a serious upgrade. Moore's Law can cover us for throughput for awhile, but latency is a different story. The speed of light creates the limit. No getting around that. There is only one solution. Park the services closer to the users. And that ushers in a new architectural paradigm in the form of Edge Data Centers. Those facilities will operate in global federations, serving tight geographies while hot-syncing with each other. A tidy solution. Job done, right? Not so fast. If people only cared about what and who is geographically close to them, we might be ok. Remember we need to park the services AND THE DATA close to the users. We're not talking about old slow data like websites, but the fast stuff like fast-twitch gaming, or VR, or avatar movements in the Metaverse. How can a byte in Tokyo stay in "white-hot" sync with a byte in London? Predictive caching, that's how. The new frontier. The geography-buster. Let's say you’re VR-interacting with someone across the planet, there will be a lag. It won't feel real. But what if the application servers use laws of physics to predict far-end movement for local render, with algorithms to reconcile laggy incoming real-position data. Done right, that might feel real. Take that example and scale it in all directions. That's the future. Can incrementally-evolved networks handle that? Its anybody's guess what the future of networking will look like but let's try anyway. Some believe this brave new application world will be the catalyst for significant infrastructure change. Not the " N+1" kind, but the "all-new" kind. The kind we thought we'd never need because incremental upgrades were getting it done. But that was before the Metaverse discontinuity. AcceleRoute is a forward-thinking next-generation network architecture designed for this category of challenge. All-new thinking. Designed from the ground up around a bufferless core architecture, AcceleRoute achieves network throughput and latency on a scale not seen before. Bufferless means no hops. Essentially an endless supply of instantly provisioned virtual direct links, each with as much dynamic bandwidth as needed at any point in time. Incorporating novel paradigms like network fusion and expansion by constellations, AcceleRoute can scale to new orders of magnitude, all while embracing absolute simplicity for network control and management. An infinitely-expandable network, based on new principles, that can glue CPUs/DPUs/GPUs to globalized data with one seamless fabric. Perhaps a full AcceleRoute solution won't be required, but it’s likely the pursuit of network optimizations will be relentless. AcceleRoute represents 2 decades of invention embodied by 36 patents with over 700 claims and more on the way. That's a massive starting position for anyone playing the long game.