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Stephan Whitaker |

Research Economist

Stephan Whitaker, Research Economist

Stephan Whitaker is a research economist in the Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. His current research focuses on the political economy of private activity municipal bonds. Stephan is also studying the impacts of vacant properties and land banks on neighborhoods. He has a background in program evaluation and worked on the evaluation of the Illinois Going Home prisoner reentry project.

Stephan earned his PhD in public policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago. He holds an MS in statistics from Colorado State University and a BA in economics from Columbia University. Before earning his doctorate, Stephan served for four years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

  • Fed Publications
  • Other Publications
  • Work in Progress
Title Date Publication Author(s) Type

 

 March, 2012 ; Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV; Economic Commentary
Abstract: Swelling REO inventories are the latest fallout of the housing crisis, costing lenders money and contributing to neighborhood blight. Yet lenders could avoid taking on so much REO if they could more accurately estimate the value of the homes they foreclose on, especially in weak housing markets. Correcting this apparent misunderstanding of the market could speed the clearing of REO inventories, save lenders money, and help stabilize housing markets.
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 September, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 1123R ; Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV; Working Papers
Abstract: In this empirical analysis, we estimate the impact of vacancy, neglect associated with property-tax delinquency, and foreclosures on the value of neighboring homes using parcel-level observations. Numerous studies have estimated the impact of foreclosures on neighboring properties, and these papers theorize that the foreclosure impact works partially through creating vacant and neglected homes. To our knowledge, this is only the second attempt to estimate the impact of vacancy itself and the first to estimate the impact of tax-delinquent properties on neighboring home sales. We link vacancy observations from Postal Service data with property-tax delinquency and sales data from Cuyahoga County (the county encompassing Cleveland, Ohio). We estimate hedonic price models with corrections for spatial autocorrelation. We find that an additional property within 500 feet that is vacant, delinquent, or both reduces the home's selling price by at least 1.3 percent. In low-poverty areas, tax-current foreclosed homes have large negative impacts of 4.6 percent. In high-poverty areas, we observe positive correlations of sale prices with tax-current foreclosures and negative correlations with tax-delinquent foreclosures. This may reflect selective foreclosing on better-maintained properties or better maintenance by tax-paying foreclosure auction winners. The marginal medium-poverty census tracts display the largest negative responses to vacancy and delinquency in nearby nonforeclosed homes.
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 July, 2011 ; Economic Commentary
Abstract:

The national foreclosure crisis has caused there to be millions more vacancies in our housing stock than before. Vacant homes lower their community’s property values and quality of life. Neighbors and public officials know foreclosed homes sit empty for months, but precise measures of foreclosure-related vacancy are rare. Using data from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, I trace the rise and fall in the vacancy rates of homes during the 18 months following their foreclosure. Ominously, the data suggest that foreclosure may permanently scar some homes. Foreclosed homes still have higher vacancy rates than neighboring houses two to five years after a sheriff’s sale.
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 June, 2011 ; Economic Commentary
Abstract: In their search for strategies to spur economic development, one statistic civic leaders and researchers invariably use to identify the cities to emulate is the share of college graduates. That is because the college degree share of a region is highly correlated with its economic performance. But too narrow a focus on the graduates can lead to misguided policies. A more thorough analysis suggests that the reason some areas pull ahead and some fall behind in their college degree shares may be due to trends in nongraduate population growth that regional leaders either cannot or would not directly address with public policies.
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 April, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 11-10 ; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper proposes and tests a structural model reflecting the process of authorizing private-activity municipal bond issuance. Private-activity municipal bonds offer tax-exempt financing for programs including industrial development, utilities, low-income housing, and student loans. The Federal tax code sets annual caps on the total tax-exempt issuance within each state, so authorization becomes a scarce resource distributed via a political process. Interviews with program administrators in several states suggested the authorization process involves prioritizing categories of use, authorizing bonds for high-priority uses first, and then authorizing bonds for lower-priority uses until the cap is exhausted. A model representing this process suggests variables to include in reduced-form estimations and an alternative interpretation of the coefficients. The fit of the model can be improved by adding measures of political influence and imposing a structure that reflects the political prioritization process. In general, industrial development and utilities appear to be the highest priority uses of private-activity municipal bonds. Mortgage revenue bonds are the residual category most frequently.
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 September, 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper, no. 10-13 ; Working Papers
Abstract: State governments allocate authority, under a federally imposed cap, to issue tax-exempt bonds that fund “private activities” such as industrial expansion, student loans, and low-income housing. This paper presents political economy models of the allocation process and an empirical analysis. Due to an idiosyncrasy of the tax code, the annual per capita volume cap varies widely across states. I estimate that, on average, there is an additional $0.80 per capita per year of borrowing for each additional dollar per capita of volume cap. This confirms that the cap is a binding constraint in most cases, and authority to issue tax-exempt bonds is a scarce resource. I find that mortgage revenue bonds and student loan bonds are the most responsive to differences in the cap. The gross state product and employment in manufacturing and utilities drive allocations to industrial development bonds and utilities bonds. While controlling for the size of the education sector, I find campaign contributions from educational interests are associated with higher authorizations for student loans. One result runs counter to the theoretical models. Higher campaign contributions from utilities interests are associated with lower utilities borrowing. Unions do not have an independent effect on allocations.
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 May, 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Policy Discussion Paper, no. 29 ; Policy Discussion Papers
Abstract: A conference organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland engendered an informative discussion of consumer protection in financial products markets. Anticipating significant changes in financial regulation, the conference asked the question, “How could regulators successfully protect consumers?” It intentionally looked beyond the existing institutions. The first of three panels discussed how consumers gather information and process it to make purchase decisions. Lessons learned from research on food labeling and shopping were discussed. Another panel examined the roles of professionals who guide consumers through a marketplace. Panelists discussed the legal obligations of brokers and rating agencies. The final panel focused on product preapproval processes like the FDA’s regulation of pharmaceuticals and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s post-market tracking of injuries. This Policy Discussion Paper summarizes the presenters’ material and draws out themes that point a way forward for efficient, competitive financial product markets that are safe for consumers. [NOTE: This issue is available only on-line. It was not printed. Also, the publication of Policy Discussion Papers ended with this issue.]
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 December, 2009 Vol. 1, No. 1 ; Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV; Daniel A Littman; Forefront
Abstract: In the wake of the mortgage meltdown, policymakers are discussing how best to protect consumers in financial product markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland hosted a seminar, “Consumer Protection in Financial Product Markets,” in September 2009 to exchange ideas with other regulators about consumer protection and the role of the courts.
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 December, 2009 Vol. 1, No. 1 ; Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV; Daniel A Littman; Forefront
Abstract: Watch economists with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland discuss their takeaways from the September 11, 2009, seminar on consumer protection.
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Title Date Publication Author(s) Type
The Impact of Legalized Abortion on High School Graduation through Selection and Composition

 

 April, 2011 Economics of Education Review, vol. 30, no. 2, pp. 228-246. ; Journal Article
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An Effective Method for Selecting the Number of Components in Density Mixtures

 

 January, 2007 Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, no. 77, vol. 10, pp. 907-914. ; Thomas C. M. Lee; Journal Article
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Title Date Publication Author(s) Type
Gains from Demolition? An Evaluation of Modern Land Banking

 

 October, 2011 ; Thomas J Fitzpatrick IV; Unpublished manuscript
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