HOUSING, SPRAWL, AND THE USE OF DEVELOPMENT IMPACT FEES: THE CASE OF THE INLAND EMPIRE

This article is concerned with the economics of excessively large and socially costly suburban expansion and attempts to summarize and organize the main economic arguments associated with sprawl due to single-family residential home construction. We also apply standard welfare economics and price policy instruments to the issue of suburban sprawl in order to suggest ways in which economics can participate in and inform the debate over sprawl. The article uses the Inland Empire, which includes the valley regions of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in Southern California east of Los Angeles, as a case study. ( JEL R11, R14, Q24)     

POLITICS AND THE NEW RESOURCE ECONOMICS

Two competing theories generally used, at least implicitly, to justify and analyze public resource management are scientific management and pluralism. We briefly review these theories and compare them to the new resource economics, an emerging body of theory which revises resource economics by introducing concepts from Austrian economics, property rights theory, and public choice. We argue that the new resource economics is superior to these traditional theories and then present specific policy proposals for the national forests, wilderness areas, and the public grazing lands. We also criticize new resource economists for not clearly distinguishing ideology from science, for emphasizing efficiency as a criterion for policy analysis, and for lacking political strategies for implementing their proposals     

Family Structure and Family Earnings: The Determinants of Earnings Differences among Family Types

Mean total family earnings differ greatly by family structure (the number, age, and gender of adults, and the presence or absence of children and dependent elders). This study classifies families into seven major types by structure, and analyzes inequality in mean earnings among these types. Differences in mean earnings among types depend primarily on the amount of labor supplied to the labor market. The quantity of labor supplied, in turn, while reflecting in part differences in the head's characteristics (such as human capital), is largely determined by family structure. Earnings changes by family type over time from 1973 to 1987 are also discussed.