Hazardous Waste Hits Hollywood: Superfund and Housing Prices in Los Angeles

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate concerning the effect of various actions taken by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under CERCLA, commonly known as the Superfund Program, on housing prices. This study uses a housing transaction panel dataset encompassing the five major counties of the Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area to estimate the program’s influence on the local housing market. Using house and time-varying census tract fixed effects, I am able to avoid many of the endogeneity problems seen in previous research attempting to measure the Superfund treatment effect. An estimate of the effect on housing prices is given for each of the major events that occur under a typical Superfund remediation. After controlling for confounding correlated unobservables, I find a 7.3 % increase in sales price for houses within 3 km of a site that moves through the complete Superfund program. The analysis gives evidence of positive price appreciation for housing markets and serves as a lower bound for measuring remediation benefits.     

Analysis of prices in tradable emission markets: an empirical study of the regional clean air incentives market in Los Angeles

The Regional Clean Air Incentives Market is an emissions trading programme, which is expected to help in reducing oxides of nitrogen and sulphur from stationary sources in the Los Angeles area. This paper uses econometric techniques to determine the factors that can explain the development of the price of emission permits. By controlling for various characteristics of the trades, the regression results allow one to isolate the impact of each factor and conduct a detailed analysis of the implications of this factor on price. The results show that the price of permits is affected by institutional factors such as the trading rules and regulations governing the permit programme. The permits are priced higher in the coastal zone, higher for trades recorded in 1997 as compared to 1994 or 1995 and are affected by the trader category. Brokers are involved in well over half of the trades and have acquired a substantial inventory of permits. Facilities buying from brokers pay higher prices than if they buy from another facility. The price of trades beyond 2003 is higher than for current trades, which could be indicative of expectations of high growth rates in the Los Angeles region or due to expectation of more stringent regulations in the future.     

A bivariate probit approach to the determination of employment: a study of teen employment differentials in Los Angeles County

Following a bivariate probit approach and using the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) for Los Angeles County, this study shows that the employment of teenage workers depends on both the worker's participation decision as well as the employer's hiring decision. Omission of the role of participation decision from the estimation of employment probability yields misleading evidence of hiring discrimination against Blacks. This evidence, however, disappears when the participation and hiring equations are estimated jointly in a bivariate framework. The study finds no evidence of discrimination against females and Latinos. In addition, the study shows that family, household and neighbourhood characteristics play significant roles in the determination of teen employment.     

The Telecommunications Act at three years: an economic evaluation of its implementation by the Federal Communications Commission

The competitive free-for-all that Congress envisioned in the 1996 Telecommunications Act has for the most part not appeared. The Act calls for two forms of regulatorily-assisted entry into local markets: lease of network elements and resale. The FCC has decreed that the charges for those elements and the resale discounts must emulate the costs of an ideally-efficient firm. This standard is in fact not efficient, and the FCC’s attempt to jump-start the entry of competitors in this way has short-circuited the competitive process itself and jeopardized achievement of the goals of the Act.     

Case management: key to access, quality, and financial success

Several strategic, organizational, and operational variables drive successful case management programs. Organizational goals and accountability for support by administrative and medical staff leaders set the stage for a comprehensive program. The integration of utilization review, discharge planning, and other functions into the role of the case manager improves productivity and continuity. Choosing a model for assigning patients, a variable unique to the institution, should be carefully considered. Regardless of the power of strategic goals or the creative selection of a model, daily practices that promote daily review and communication will reveal all of the opportunities for improved performance. Complications are avoided one patient at a time and patients deserve vigilance. Length of stay is shortened 1 day at a time and we can no longer afford to miss these opportunities. In the period of high census, an unnecessary day for one patient at the end of his/her stay may mean another patient being diverted to another hospital away from his/her physician and past medical records. Creating constructive physician partnerships and cooperative relationships with postacute care providers can bring a case management program to higher level of performance. While many organizations have employees called "case managers," fewer have a comprehensive approach that has the potential to drive so many important indicators of performance.     

Regulation of network infrastructure investments: an experimental evaluation

This paper reports the results of an experiment evaluating three regulatory schemes for network infrastructure, in terms of their ability to generate efficient levels of capacity investment. We compare the performance of (1) price cap regulation, (2) a regulatory holiday for new capacity, and (3) price cap regulation with long term contracts combined with a secondary market. The setting is one in which network users can benefit from acting strategically, and are better informed than the network operator about demand growth. We find that the regulatory holiday creates an incentive to underinvest relative to optimal levels. Long term contracts also fail to improve on single price-cap regulation, and may reduce investment by providing noisier signals about future demand.     

The three webs: an attempt at an understanding of the future

This article poses questions about the significance of increased internationalization of science which has developed since the cold war. It deals with three different aspects of present-day science: particle ptpsics, nanotechnology and space exploration. In a simple way, research can be divided into three different froms: information (which, by definition, I call public), knowledge (that is, covered by intellectual property rights (IPR)) and training. Further, I assume that innovation is commercial and thus has a profit motive, in contrast with the scientific goal of enlarging our view of the universe. There is, however, a more fundamental issue which is the realization that the type of accounting economy we have is too naive to develop our society further. Consider figures form the US Department of Commerce-if research is one cost unit, engineering to protogpe is three and full production 20, or even 50 for pharmaceuticals. These figures indicate the present importance placed on rates of return on capital in assessing the effectiveness of research.     

Telecommunications Regulation and New Services: A Case Study at the State Level

This study introduces methodology to quantify the effects that regulation has on the innovation and the introduction of new products, and compares state-regulated services in Indiana under rate of return regulation (RoRR) and under alternative regulation. The econometric model comprises a count process (for innovation) followed by a duration process with selection (for regulatory delay). When the firm is released from RoRR, the rate of service creation triples and expected approval delays nearly disappear. The firm may have introduced up to 12 times as many services to consumers if the alternative regulation had been in place the entire time.     

Structural changes in exports of an emerging economy: Case of Turkey

This paper indicates that Turkish exports are subject to structural changes as Turkey integrates into global production networks. Integration, which leads vertical specialization in production and changes in the commodity composition of Turkish exports in favor of non-traditional commodities, paces up during economic reform periods. As the export shares of non-traditional commodities, which have higher import and income sensitivity but lower real exchange rate elasticity, increases, coefficients of the aggregate export function change accordingly. Nevertheless, high import and income elasticity of exports imply that the global growth pattern plays a significant role in determining exports of Turkey.     

The fiscal outlook in Austria: an evaluation with Generational Accounts

During the next few decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older and older as a result of the low fertility rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. Generational Accounting which was introduced in the early 1990s, can illustrate the effects of this ageing process on a country’s fiscal situation and on the intergenerational redistribution. Austria’s age dependency ratio will more than double over the next four decades in most official projections. In our paper we quantify for Austria how unsustainable its public finances are due to the demographic development. We show that despite recent reforms of the pension and health systems the demographic development produces a major problem for Austria’s coffers. Furthermore we compare our results to similar calculations for Germany and Switzerland.     

西部民族地区休闲农业发展研究——以宁夏为例

休闲农业以农业为基础,以城市游客为目标、以休闲为目的、以服务为手段,充分利用了现有的农业条件和设施、农业生产与经营方式、农村的自然环境和人文资源,是将农业和旅游业相结合的新型农业。在认识休闲农业本质及特征基础上,结合宁夏休闲农业现状和发展环境条件,探讨了宁夏休闲农业发展的理论基础、战略选择和具体措施,为西部民族地区休闲农业发展提供一些思路和对策。     

Nonlinear target adjustment in corporate liquidity management: an endogenous thresholds approach

We provide new empirical evidence on nonlinear liquidity management in Dutch firms. Our results reveal that liquidity adjustment from below the target is significantly faster than from above. We find no evidence for bands of inaction around the target.     

Concentration and Wage Earnings in an Open Economy: A Case Study of Korea

The object of this paper is to increase our understanding of the effect of output market power (the degree of concentration in an industry) on wage earnings in Korea. We conduct a series of econometric investigations based on the traditional human capital theory and find that workers in a more concentrated industry are paid higher. This wage premium is not explained in terms of the differences in the quality of labor and/or compensating factors. It suggests to us that the conventional estimates of the misallocation of resources due to the output market power are underestimated since this source of higher unit costs is disregarded. [820]