Casinos,casino size,and crime: A panel data analysis of Michigan counties

Growth in legal gaming in the United States over the past quarter century or so is well-documented. One important factor fueling this growth was the passage of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, which permitted Native American tribes to establish, under agreements or “compacts” with the states in which they are located, casinos offering what is known as Class III gaming: slot machines, blackjack, roulette, and other games. Since the passage of the Act, there have been 21 Native American casinos established in Michigan. Also, three non-Native American casinos opened in Detroit in 1999 and 2000. This growth in the number of casinos has sparked a wide-ranging debate over the social and economic impacts of casino development.The purpose of this research is to focus on the crime issue in the broader casino debate. We investigate the impact of these Michigan casinos on the rates of burglary, robbery, larceny and motor vehicle theft (property crimes) in casino host counties as well as in nearby counties. We employ a panel data set with annual observations on all 83 Michigan counties for the period 1994–2010. The dataset includes crime rates taken from the FBI crime data series, variables for the presence of a casino in a county or in a nearby county, the scale of a casino's operations as measured by revenues, and a variety of control variables suggested by the broader literature investigating the factors that determine crime rates generally.Our results suggest that in most cases the property crime rates studied are not affected by the presence or size of a casino in a county or in a nearby county. The largest such impact, which is negative, is for motor vehicle theft. The size of a casino does have a small positive effect on the motor vehicle theft rate.     

The impact of flood dynamics on property values

There is evidence that environmental amenities and dis-amenities may be nonlinearly related to property valuation. This would bring inconsistency in estimating environmental variables of the hedonic price model. To explore the linearity of the relationship this study analyses spatial and temporal variation impacts of the 2011 Brisbane flood on property markets using semi-parametric estimation. The results show that most environmental variables impacts on property values nonlinearly, and in particularly distance to the river, indicating that the amenity value of being close to a river outweighs the flood risks. The estimation of the combined impact of elapsed time and neighbourhood income indicates that the flood risk impact on property markets disappears over time.     

Land-property markets and planning: A special case

Land use policy often intervenes in land-property markets. This raises a question that may have critical implications for land use policy: are these normal markets? This paper addresses that question: are land and property ordinary market goods, or do they lack some of the preconditions necessary for markets to work properly? We find that land-property has limited substitutability, due to the critical factor of location; qualified by location, land is limited and sometimes unique. These attributes make land and property investment assets risking speculation, warranting public intervention to mitigate negative social consequences. Land-property markets need market or administrative support to work, which planning provides through public and private agents. The paper reviews the different forms of planning and development control in land-property markets.     

Credit market frictions and political failure

We study how an excessively favorable regulatory environment for banks could arise even with a perfectly competitive credit market in a median voter world. In our occupational choice model with heterogeneous wealth endowments, market failure due to unobservability of entrepreneurial talent endogenously creates a misalignment between surplus maximizing reforms and reforms that are preferred by the median voter, who is a worker. This is in contrast to the world without market failure where the electorate unanimously vote in favor of surplus maximizing institutional reforms. This paper illustrates how market failure could lead to political failure even in the benchmark political system that is free from capture by interest groups.     

Sustainability and Land tenure: Who owns the floodplain in the Pantanal,Brazil?

In seeking to achieve poverty alleviation and environmental conservation, public policy has often centred on guaranteeing land titles to local peoples. However, such approaches have brought unintended outcomes, replacing small-scale economies and natural areas by intensive exploitation of resources with no clear improvement in local people’s wellbeing. To understand this, we go beyond a general political ecology framing to consider relations between sustainability and land tenure, focusing on the intersection of economics, ecology and anthropology to understand how land tenure, property and use play out on the ground. We draw together different concepts including bundle of rights, de facto and de jure resource use, property regimes, density-dependence and non-equilibrium theory. The significance of this three-discipline view is illustrated through a case study of the Pantanal wetland, Brazil, where conservationists, the government and the local population contest ownership of the Paraguay River floodplain. Government sought to address conflicts around tenure and access through a narrow view of property, which failed to encompass the overlapping layers of land tenure, property and use on the ground and only served to create further legal battles. This article concludes that a more complex view combining the three perspectives is needed in the case of the Pantanal, and in other cases of contested property rights, in order to resolve conflicting claims and foster sustainability. We dissect both the power plays involved between different groups competing for control of a valuable resource, and the legal frameworks which can and should provide checks and balances in the system. The more nuanced grasp that emerges of local systems of tenure and access, of how these diverge from western property concepts, and of their environmental implications favours a better understanding of local realities, allowing for better management policy and consequently contributing more effectively towards poverty alleviation and environmental protection.     

数据生产理论——数据资源权利配置的基础理论

人类正在进入数据驱动的时代,数据成为社会的基础资源,但数据一直被认为处于公共领域并妨碍着数据权利化,困扰着数据资源利用秩序的建立。描述特定对象的数据并不是天然存在的,而是被生产出来的,并将数据价值（预测分析、发现新知）的实现过程界分为原始数据生产（采集）、数据集生产（汇集性处理）和数据分析（分析性处理）三种行为,并将前两个行为称为数据生产,提出数据生产理论。数据生产理论首先应区分数据生产和数据分析,原始数据的生产是建立在分析原材料提供者基础之上,应承认其价值并配置适当权利,以满足各种分析目的的数据集的生产。同时,数据生产还应区别数据来源,来源于个人的数据并不一定是个人生产的,只有个人在提供或创制了数据时才是数据的生产者。因此,数据生产理论是在将数据视为一种资源的情形下为数据上权利配置提供理论支撑,通过配置相应权利,构筑从原始数据生产者到数据集生产者,再到数据分析者的数据利用秩序。     

知识产权、技术标准与平台生态系统竞争力研究

现代企业之间的竞争逐渐演化成商业生态系统之间的竞争,而平台生态系统是应用最为普遍的一种商业生态系统。平台生态系统竞争的本质在于创新,以创新为基础的知识产权和技术标准成为决定平台竞争力的关键要素。在界定知识产权和技术标准内涵的基础上,从设计方法视角阐述平台生态系统竞争力形成过程,揭示知识产权和技术标准对于平台生态系统竞争的影响,分析两者对平台生态系统的作用机理。研究表明,知识产权和技术标准是形成平台竞争力的源泉,影响平台网络外部性,其中知识产权是建立技术标准的基础,技术标准是推动知识产权创造的动力,二者之间的互动和演进构成平台生态系统外部竞争力。     

生态资源环境公共产权的经济学分析

在产权制度的界定和规范引导下,生态资源经济才能实现环境友好型、可持续为主题的科学发展。历史上“公有地的悲剧”的启示不单是对产权问题的反思,而是通过设立一套巧妙的制度,以达到“量体裁衣”之功效。生态资源环境公共产权的产生是源于其稀缺性及非排他性的特质。但随着计量这种产权成本与收益的难度不断加深,环境资源体系的经济价值就越来越大。必须考虑在有效利用的前提下,重新界定产权来保证市场与主体效率目标的实现。作为现代产权制度体系的最重要的组成部分——资源类产权,它有别于企业产权制度,且它涉及利益主体的范围之广。涵盖的意义也极其深远。本文对生态资源环境这一较为特殊公共物品的产权问题用产权经济学的思维框架进行研究,从政府、企业、市场、制度四个层级,相应提出构建此类公共产权的四层规制模式,以求破解在生态环境规制过程中出现的产权失灵现象及界定不清的困局。     

企业技术创新的虚拟与实体产权激励

企业技术创新激励制度的核心是保护创新者的利益,产权激励制度是一种合理的方式。企业技术创新的产权激励制度设计原则是保证创新收益与风险的均衡。知识产权激励是产权激励的重要内容。对技术创新的产权激励不仅仅是企业内部人员的激励或者外围环境的激励,本文力图建立一个以企业作为分析边界的产权激励模式。对技术创新的产权激励从产权形式角度划分为虚拟和实体产权。企业主体虚拟产权包括以品牌价值增值权为体现的声誉收益权,企业内部成员虚拟产权体现为以影子股票或者股票期权等形式的远期剩余索取权。从企业边界角度,内部产权激励中股权激励包括虚拟股权激励和现实股权激励,外部产权激励包括政府的知识产权制度。此外,企业技术创新的产权界定与保护制度是虚拟与实体产权激励制唐的保证．     

农地流转对土地使用权分配的影响研究

本文利用2006年中国综合社会调查问卷中的农户数据分析了农地流转对土地使用权分配的影响。通过计算农地流转前后的土地分配基尼系数,测度了农地流转影响土地使用权分配的结果,研究显示:农地流转促进了土地使用权的集中,但集中的速度并不快,各区域之间存在差异。在市场化农地流转中,土地较少而又贫穷的农民缺乏能力和优势转入土地,导致土地使用权集中。农地流转难以解决公平问题,农民获取土地仍然主要依靠村组集体的初次分配和二次调整。在符合农民认同、规则明确稳定的条件下,村组内部的土地调整能做到公平与效率相容。因此,村庄集体需要积极培育民主、发展农民自治组织;基层政府需要抑制自己调整土地的冲动,同时在一定程度上认同、支持和监督村组内部的土地调整。