Intra-metropolitan shifts in labor demand and the adjustment of local markets

I offer new evidence on the adjustment of local labor markets to geographic shifts in labor demand within US metropolitan areas using a unique data set in which metropolitan subregions are geographically matched across the 1970–1980 and 1980–1990 decades. The evidence uncovered paints the following picture. Workers, especially those with less education, make incomplete adjustments within metropolitan areas in response to intra-metropolitan demand shifts. Although blacks may not make especially limited adjustments, they have disproportionately suffered deleterious effects from job movements because the demand shifts have tended to be away from their places of residence.     

The effect of home-ownership on labor mobility in the Netherlands

In various macro-studies, home-ownership is found to hamper job mobility and to increase unemployment. This paper addresses similar issues, but uses a micro-econometric framework where both individual job mobility, as well as the probability of being homeowner are modeled simultaneously. Using a panel of individual labor and housing market histories for the period 1989–1998, we estimate a nonparametric model of both job durations and home-ownership. We do not find homeowners to change less from jobs than tenants. Instead, our results suggest that the housing decision is driven by job commitment, and not the reverse. We do however find homeowners to be less vulnerable to unemployment.     

Delayed integration as a possible remedy for the race to the bottom

It has been a long-standing concern in the literature that household mobility implies a serious threat to redistributive taxation. This paper considers the effects of delayed integration of migrants into the redistributive system of the target country. We argue that delayed integration may introduce a time consistency problem into governments' tax plans that reduces a region's incentive to undercut other regions' tax rates and can bring tax competition to a halt. Due to delayed integration, rich migrants cease to benefit from the lower tax rate in the current period. At the same time, the region's promise of a low rate in the future lacks credibility, since delayed integration locks in migrants once they are settled. We also explore the case where poor recipients of social assistance are mobile, while the rich are immobile.     

Diagnostics for evaluating the value and rationality of economic forecasts

A number of studies have sought to determine whether economic forecasts had predictive value. These analyses used a single statistical methodology based on the independence of the actual and predicted changes. This paper questions whether the observed results are robust if alternative statistical methodologies are used to analyze this question. Procedures suggested by Cumby and Modest as well as rationality tests were applied to two data sets. Sometimes the conclusions differ depending on the procedures that are used. The results yield a guideline for the diagnostics that should be employed in testing for the value of economic forecasts.     

Just-in-time inventory systems innovation and the predictability of earnings

Firms that adopt just-in-time (JIT) inventory practices do so in order to realize cost savings and improve product quality, but an unexpected benefit to such firms could be a more predictable earnings stream. We examine the relationship between implementation of just-in-time inventory practices and the predictability of future quarterly earnings for a matched-pair sample of 82 firms, half of which have publicly announced that they have adopted JIT inventory practices. We find that one- and four-step-ahead forecasts of quarterly earnings, using either a Brown–Rozeff [Journal of Accounting Research (1979) 179–189] ARIMA or a seasonal random walk expectation model, are more accurate for the firms that have adopted JIT.     

Airport expansions and property values: the case of Chicago O'Hare Airport

The paper adds to the empirical literature by providing up-to-date estimates of the effect of airport noise on property values around one of the world's busiest airports, Chicago O'Hare. The results indicate that home values were about 9% lower within a 65 dB noise contour band of O'Hare in 1997. Opponents of airport expansions argue that increased noise will reduce property values and lower tax bases. The results of this paper suggest that aircraft are becoming so much quieter that the airport can be expanded without causing a drop in local property values or tax bases. Estimates suggest that house prices may rise by as much as $284.6 million in the densely populated area around O'Hare after a new runway is added to the airport.     

Predicting the geo-temporal variations of crime and disorder

Traditional police boundaries—precincts, patrol districts, etc.—often fail to reflect the true distribution of criminal activity and thus do little to assist in the optimal allocation of police resources. This paper introduces methods for crime incident forecasting by focusing upon geographical areas of concern that transcend traditional policing boundaries. The computerised procedure utilises a geographical crime incidence-scanning algorithm to identify clusters with relatively high levels of crime (hot spots). These clusters provide sufficient data for training artificial neural networks (ANNs) capable of modelling trends within them. The approach to ANN specification and estimation is enhanced by application of a novel and noteworthy approach, the Gamma test (GT).     

Nash-implementation of the weak Pareto choice rule for indecomposable environments

A feasible mechanism is constructed which weakly Nash-implements the weak Pareto choice rule over a certain class of indecomposable pure-exchange environments, where there may be no private goods whose consumption has no external effects. Received: 30 November 1995 / Accepted: 24 June 1997