Did Office Market Size Matter in the 1980s? A Time-Series Cross-Sectional Analysis of Metropolitan Area Office Markets

Recent contributions to the literature have resulted in a standard modelling of office markets. The models provide considerable insight into the working of office markets. • Nonetheless, a major difficulty is the use of data for a single city or aggregate data for the U.S. The latter implicitly assumes that model structure is invariant across cities. In this article we test for structural differences in office markets by size class. Rental data from REIS Reports for twenty-one metropolitan areas for the time period 1981 to 1990 are used to model office market behavior. Results suggest market outcomes vary by city size, larger markets are better modelled using standard procedures, and Manhattan behaves quite differently from the other markets.     

Office Rent Processes: The Case of U.S. Metropolitan Markets

This paper synthesizes elements of the traditional and contemporary theory of real estate markets to formulate an empirical framework for exploring metropolitan office rent processes. Such a framework is then applied to the analysis of office rents across 18 U.S. office markets during 1986–1995. The empirical results underscore the sluggishness of rental adjustments, highlight the extent of rental disequilibria across markets, and uncover the role of office employment factors (such as size, diversity, spatial organization, growth rates, and volatility), construction costs, interest rates, amenities, and zoning in shaping interarea differentials in the equilibrium component of office rents.     

The Integration of Mortgage Markets and Capital Markets

In this paper, we develop a model to predict the impact of deregulation in the form of relaxing interest rate control on the integration between the mortgage credit market and the general credit market. The model is tested through the examination of the long-term Granger-like equilibrium relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates in the pre-1980 regulated vs. the post-1980 deregulated periods. It is shown that the level of regulation, in the form of targeting general interest rate levels, contributes to the segmentation of the mortgage market from the capital market. To test this model, we compare the relationship between mortgage interest rates and general interest rates around 1980 where major control on interest rate levels in capital markets was lifted. Using Engle and Granger's procedure to overcome the estimation problem from nonstationarity in the interest rate series, we are able to find that the two interest rates were cointegrated after 1980 but not before. More importantly, it appears that the two markets were already integrated before the full development of the secondary mortgage markets between 1984 and 1987. Therefore, we conclude that the bulk of the integration between the mortgage and capital markets was completed as a result of the removal of interest rate controls around 1980, in contrast with previous studies that find integration occurred during the mid-1980s primarily as a result of the rapid development of the secondary mortgage markets.     

Allocating Control over Firms: Stock Markets versus Membership Markets

The theory of the firm must explain howdecision-making powers are allocated between suppliersof capital and labor. Most large enterprises awardformal control to investors rather than workers. Isuggest here that this asymmetry can be traced in partto differences between stock markets and membershipmarkets as institutional mechanisms for allocatingcontrol over firms. The attractive theoreticalproperties of membership markets are examined, alongwith some factors that may account for their rarity inpractice. These practical difficulties help explainthe rarity of labor-managed firms themselves, alongwith various facts about their design, behavior, anddistribution across industries.     

Markets without boundaries

Western economies, and the US in particular, are experiencing a dramatic diversification and proliferation of information activities which will effect all aspects of leisure and business. Against this background, Manley Irwin considers the nature of market entry, the reasons why markets are changing so rapidly, and the implications for both public and private sectors. He concludes that the blurring of market boundaries will defuse and decentralize economies, spur competition and encourage entrepreneurial activity.     

产品市场与金融市场的战略互动与经济增长

产品市场与金融市场作为信息集散和企业监控机制在功能上具有一定的替代性；同时，当事人在两个市场上的战略行动又会产生溢出效应，从而形成两个市场间的战略互补关系。两市场间的这种相互作用客观上弱化了各自的协调失灵问题。进一步引入不确定性，发现当事人知识的差异性也会导致专业分工，从而刺激具有不同专业知识的人采取有溢出效应的战略行动，结果导致了两市场之间的战略互补关系。这种不确定性引发的两市场战略互补对经济增长有重要影响，并且其中也有乘数效应。     

The Impact of Labour Markets on Specialist Manpower

ABSTRACT A major problem to be faced in the coming decade is ensuring an adequate supply of trained staff to innovate and exploit new technologies. Historically this has often been defined as a macroeconomic supply-demand issue, to do with generating people from the educational sector with the appropriate mix of expertise in the numbers required to meet demand in the industrial sector. In this paper the author makes the case that the concept of 'expertise' is not as simple as a supply-demand view assumes. The definition of what is appropriate expertise for given jobs—technical and managerial—seems to be heavily influenced by who is trying to gain control over whom, a phenomenon that can also be seen at work in situations as diverse as shopfloor demarcations and the behaviour of professional bodies. If this is the case, the solution to the supply-demand problem may well lie in the hands of the individual firm and its manpower policies, rather than in the overhaul of national systems of education.     

电力市场信息新视角

电力企业在市场经济中能否获得成功,很大程度上取决于竞争力的优劣。竞争力的优劣,一方面来源于产品质量,另一方面是赢得广大客户的忠诚。而赢得广大客户忠诚的必要条件是企业和客户之间的相互沟通。因此,电力市场的信息就显得尤为重要了。电力市场信息是电力企业参与市场竞争的指南,是发现潜在需求的线索,是制定企业发展战略和营销策略的依据,也是我们电力企业与客户沟通的桥梁。电力市场信息的类别与发展状况对大多数企业来讲,市场信息大致可分为三类：第一类是垄断的信息,也就是其他人无法得到的信息;第二类是专利性的信息,是…     

Effects of Housing Codes on Local Housing Markets

Housing codes are typically instituted in order to raise the average level of housing quality in a community. However, in doing so, the institution of a housing code likely has effects on other housing characteristics. Using data from municipalities in North Carolina, this study finds that municipalities with housing codes have higher average occupancy densities among all households and lower homeownership rates among low-income households, but housing codes have no statistically discernible effect on housing values and expenditures. The results suggest that housing codes are not costless; most importantly, codes force consumers to trade housing quantity for quality.