Open space, residential property values, and spatial context

We use hedonic analysis of home transaction data from the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area to estimate the effects of proximity to open space on sales price. We allow the effects of proximity to vary with demographic and location-specific characteristics and include fixed effects to control for observed and unobserved neighborhood characteristics. We find that the value of proximity to open space is higher in neighborhoods that are dense, near the central business district, high-income, high-crime, or home to many children. Using the metropolitan area's average value may substantially overestimate or underestimate the value of open space in particular neighborhoods.     

State and local tax competition in a spatial model with sales taxes and residential property taxes

This paper presents a theoretical model with a uniformly populated line that is divided into local jurisdictions (and/or states). If one level of government imposes sales and residential property taxes, and if the spatial extent of each taxing jurisdiction is positive and finite, then (in Nash equilibrium) the sales tax rate is less than residential property tax rate, housing consumption is suboptimal, and the public good is underprovided in each jurisdiction. If a very large state (or country) is divided into local jurisdictions, and if both levels of government choose tax rates endogenously, then under some assumptions there is an efficient outcome.     

Looking across borders: A test of spatial policy interdependence using local government efficiency ratings

Spatial patterns in (local) government taxation and spending decisions have received a lot of attention. Still, the focus on taxation or expenditure levels in previous studies may be incomplete. Indeed, (rational) individuals are likely to consider the level of spending on (or taxation for) public goods provision simultaneously with how much public goods they actually receive—thus assessing the ‘price/quantity’ of government policies. Therefore, the present paper argues that incumbents may want their ‘price/quantity’ ratio to be close to that in neighbouring regions. Analysing Flemish local governments' efficiency ratings for the year 2000 (which relate total spending to the quantity of locally provided public goods), we confirm the existence of neighbourhood effects in local government policies.     

Looking across borders: A test of spatial policy interdependence using local government efficiency ratings

Spatial patterns in (local) government taxation and spending decisions have received a lot of attention. Still, the focus on taxation or expenditure levels in previous studies may be incomplete. Indeed, (rational) individuals are likely to consider the level of spending on (or taxation for) public goods provision simultaneously with how much public goods they actually receive—thus assessing the ‘price/quantity’ of government policies. Therefore, the present paper argues that incumbents may want their ‘price/quantity’ ratio to be close to that in neighbouring regions. Analysing Flemish local governments' efficiency ratings for the year 2000 (which relate total spending to the quantity of locally provided public goods), we confirm the existence of neighbourhood effects in local government policies.     

Development of spatial ability extra tasks (SAET): problem solving with spatial intelligence

Quality & Quantity - Spatial ability contributes to performance in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Spatial skills and creativity are required for engineering studies....     

Quantifying entrepreneurship and its impact on local economic performance: A spatial assessment in rural Switzerland

Regional and rural development policies in Europe increasingly emphasize entrepreneurship to mobilize the endogenous economic potential of rural territories. This study develops a concept to quantify entrepreneurship as place-dependent local potential to examine its impact on the local economic performance of rural territories in Switzerland. The short-to-medium-term impact of entrepreneurship on the economic performance of 1706 rural municipalities in Switzerland is assessed by applying three spatial random effects models. Results suggest a generally positive relationship between entrepreneurship and local development: rural municipalities with higher entrepreneurial potential generally show higher business tax revenues per capita and a lower share of social welfare cases among the population, although the impact on local employment is less clear. The explanatory power of entrepreneurship in all three models, however, was only moderate. This finding suggests that political expectations of fostering entrepreneurship to boost endogenous rural development in the short-to-medium term should be damped.     

Mieszkowski and Saper's estimate of the effects of airport noise on property values: A comment

This comment demonstrates that Mieszkowski and Saper, in their article recently published in this journal, overestimated the social cost of noise at Toronto airport because they misinterpreted noise contour data. A substantially lower reestimate is provided. Furthermore, their approach to the policy problem of whether to expand the existing Toronto airport or to build a second one is static. A dynamic analysis of the problem supports their skepticism about the justification for a second Toronto airport.     

A geometric property of indifference curves in the (mean-standard deviation) plane

We prove that the slope of the indifference curve through point (m σ) of the (meanstandard deviation) plane must be smaller than the ratio (1+m)/σ. We show that the indifference curves corresponding to a quadratic utility function do actually satisfy that inequality; and prove, by the way, that these curves are not quarters of circles (as it is usually asserted), but smaller parts of them.

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Riassunto Si prova che, nel piano (media-scarto quadratico medio), l'inclinazione della curva d'indifferenza per il punto (m, σ) deve essere minore del rapporto (1+m)/gs. Si mostra che le curve d'indifferenza corrispondenti ad una funzione d'utilià quadratica soddisfano di fatto tale limitazione; e si prova, a questo proposito, che tali curve non sono — come generalmente asserito — quarti di circonferenze, ma archi più piccoli delle medesime.

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The second part of this article was stimulated by an observation of E. Castagnoli. The author gratefully acknowledges this to him.     

Predicting loss given default (LGD) for residential mortgage loans: A two-stage model and empirical evidence for UK bank data

With the implementation of the Basel II regulatory framework, it became increasingly important for financial institutions to develop accurate loss models. This work investigates the loss given default (LGD) of mortgage loans using a large set of recovery data of residential mortgage defaults from a major UK bank. A Probability of Repossession Model and a Haircut Model are developed and then combined to give an expected loss percentage. We find that the Probability of Repossession Model should consist of more than just the commonly used loan-to-value ratio, and that the estimation of LGD benefits from the Haircut Model, which predicts the discount which the sale price of a repossessed property may undergo. This two-stage LGD model is shown to perform better than a single-stage LGD model (which models LGD directly from loan and collateral characteristics), as it achieves a better R² value and matches the distribution of the observed LGD more accurately.     

Post local forms of repair: The (extended) situation of virtualised technical support

We address the seemingly implausible project of moving the technical support of complex organisational technologies online. We say ‘implausible’ because from the point of view of micro-sociological analysis and the influential work of Orr (1996) there is a consensus that the diagnosis and resolution of technical failures is an intrinsically ‘localised affair’ (i.e., rooted within a specific place and time). Notwithstanding this view, technology producers have been pushing in the recent period to develop online forms of support. Today, and particularly in the area of organisational software, many technical failures are now repaired at a distance. How is this possible given the consensus amongst sociologists? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a major software producer we show how repair work has been recast and inserted in a new geographical and temporal regime. This has implications for how sociologists of technology conceptualise the nature and practice of technical failure but also the time and situation in which it occurs. We attempt to refocus understandings of technical problems from a preoccupation with their rootedness onto how they are lifted out of local contexts and passed around globally distributed offices in search of requisite specialist expertise. Importantly, whilst virtualisation appears a seemingly effective means to resolve failures it also has negative consequences. Whereas in more traditional types of technical support place-based social relations are seen to bear the burden of controlling and regulating support, in online forms other means have to be found. Our conceptual aim is to move away from a view of repair revolving exclusively around the situation conceived of as a ‘small place’. Rather, since support work is increasingly ‘stretched out’ across a global network of labs connected up by technologies, it now takes place across an extended situation. We work up this notion first to highlight how aspects once seen as central to localist forms of analysis are no longer the only organising features as technical work moves online and second to demonstrate the various ways in which the locales for this work are now mediated by technology.     

Owner-managers,clusters and local embeddedness: small firms in the Sheffield (UK) metal-working cluster

The primary objective of this paper is to explore the ways in which the characteristics of owner-managers influence the extent to which their firms are embedded within local clusters of economic activity. Data are drawn from an interview survey of a random sample of small metal-working firms in Sheffield, UK. The data are analysed using non-parametric statistical methods to test bivariate relationships. Owner-manager attributes are found to have no influence on the extent of the use of local material supply networks but they do influence the extent of dependence on local markets. Owner-managers born and bred in the local region with limited formal education, working as an operative (rather than executive) prior to start up and with many years experience are more likely to rely on local markets. Owner-manager characteristics are also linked to participation in business networks. Those with most experience and those previously working for large firms are more likely to participate. It is concluded that owner-manager attributes can be important in explaining the level of embeddedness of small firms in a cluster of economic activity and that such attributes need to be built into theories of cluster behaviour.     

Determinants of corporate hedging: A (statistical) meta-analysis

While literature provides several hedging theories, evidence on the corporate incentives to hedge remains ambiguous. We synthesize data of empirical studies via statistical meta-analysis to test different hedging hypotheses. To our knowledge, this constitutes the first application of such a methodology in financial economics. Our results imply that financial distress costs induce firms to hedge. We find weak evidence that the underinvestment problem and the dependence on costly external financing influence hedging behavior. Taxes and agency conflicts do not show explanatory power. Because statistical and narrative reviews yield different outcomes, we see various other application possibilities for meta-analysis in financial economics.     

Job Insecurity and Labour Market Lemons: The (Mis)Management of Redundancy in Steel Making,Coal Mining and Port Transport

Redundancy provisions in Britain have failed to promote organizational regeneration or labour mobility from declining to expanding firms/industries. On the contrary, as human resources are wantonly discarded through the (mis)management of redundancy, job security and X-efficiency in the internal labour market has been severely eroded. In external labour markets, many redundant workers, the so-called `lemons' of the labour market, are consigned to long-term unemployment because employers are wary of hiring a worker that another firm does not want. These deleterious outcomes are elaborated through detailed case studies from steel-making, coal-mining and port transport, where mass redundancy has proved instrumental in the process of industrial restructuring. In order to re-establish trust and security in the internal labour market, alternative methods of managing changing labour market requirements, based on reconversion rather than redundancy, are considered in the concluding section.     

现代标准化前治——"模块化"研究报告(8)

本期发表李春田教授的重要论著《现代标准化前沿——"模块化"研究报告》的第八章。该章重点讲述模块化对产品设计方法创新的重要作用。模块化设计为企业建造了一个开发新产品和个性化产品的平台。模块化平台采用"不变部分 可变部分"的方法,为企业不断开发新产品、降低成本、提高效率、缩短开发周期创造了条件。     

George Raymond Geiger (1903-1998): A Rich Life

ABSTRACT George R. Geiger, professor of Philosophy at Antioch College for fifty years, died March 19, 1998. He was a founding member of the editorial council of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology (1941-1998) and of the Antioch Review (1941-1998). He was also an advisor to and consulting editor of the Humanist (1955–59). He was the son of the founder of the Henry George School of Social Science of New York City and John Dewey's last doctoral student at Columbia University. Early on in his career he took up his father's cause, that of land value taxation; later he took up a defense of the contributions of his mentor, Dewey, and became in his own words a journalist of philosophy.