Understanding Business Improvement District formation: An analysis of neighborhoods and boundaries

Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) provide supplemental services to urban commercial corridors using funds from member assessments. They have become a very popular urban revitalization tool, but their formation is still largely unexplained. Theory implies that BIDs will form if they add to aggregate welfare and if the marginal net benefit of membership is positive. I test this for the neighborhood overall and at the BID boundary. Using unique, micro-level and longitudinal data from New York City, I employ survival analysis methods to estimate the likelihood of a neighborhood forming a BID. I then estimate the likelihood of the marginal property’s BID membership by comparing the characteristics of properties located immediately inside and outside of the BID boundaries. I find that BIDs are more likely to form when there is more commercial space over which the BID benefits can be capitalized and when there is homogeneity in service and spending preferences across properties. BIDs also tend to form in neighborhoods that possess signs of appreciation and growth. Generally, BIDs are more likely to form in neighborhoods with higher valued properties with the exception of very wealthy areas. The BID boundary, however, is comprised of relatively less valuable properties.     

Household production, full consumption and the costs of children

Recent work criticises both the logic and relevance of the theoretical basis of the approach to estimating the costs of raising children adopted in much of the economics literature. This tends to be restricted purely to models in which the household members consume market goods with given household income. The “costs of children” are perceived essentially as market consumption costs. This ignores the fact that an important, possibly preponderant element of child costs takes the form of parental time, which must be diverted from alternative uses such as market work, other household production activities, and leisure, to care for children. The studies also ignore the question of the differential incidence of child costs on adult members of the household. In this paper, we first of all argue that a satisfactory theoretical approach to modelling child costs must simultaneously incorporate an “individualistic” formulation of the household and a formal treatment of household production. We then provide such a model. Using data from a time use survey we estimate specialised versions of the model for families with two children and use the results to derive the intra-family distribution of resources and implied child-rearing costs.     

On the equivalence of location choice models: Conditional logit, nested logit and Poisson

It is well understood that the two most popular empirical models of location choice - conditional logit and Poisson - return identical coefficient estimates when the regressors are not individual specific. We show that these two models differ starkly in terms of their implied predictions. The conditional logit model represents a zero-sum world, in which one region’s gain is the other regions’ loss. In contrast, the Poisson model implies a positive-sum economy, in which one region’s gain is no other region’s loss. We also show that all intermediate cases can be represented as a nested logit model with a single outside option. The nested logit turns out to be a linear combination of the conditional logit and Poisson models. Conditional logit and Poisson elasticities mark the polar cases and can therefore serve as boundary values in applied research.     

A political economy model of road pricing

In this paper, we use a simple majority voting model to study the introduction of urban congestion tolls. The model allows for different types of uncertainty and considers different uses of the toll revenues. The following results are obtained. First, we show that individual uncertainty with respect to modal substitution costs may imply that a majority votes against road pricing ex ante, although a majority would have been in favor after its introduction ex post. Moreover, if a majority is against road pricing ex ante, there will also be no majority for organizing an experiment that would take away the individual uncertainty. Second, political uncertainty with respect to the use of the revenues corroborates the finding that ex ante more voters will be against the introduction of tolls. Third, both types of uncertainty suggest that fewer voters are against road pricing when toll revenues are used to subsidize public transport than when they are redistributed to all voters. Importantly, the results of this paper are consistent with a number of recent empirical observations on efforts to introduce road pricing, including the systematic rejection of road pricing in referenda, the more favorable attitudes towards road pricing after than before its introduction, and tying the toll revenues to support public transport.     

New results on the effect of maternal work hours on children's overweight status: Does the quality of child care matter?

Existing empirical research on child overweight derives mainly from North America and points at rising maternal employment as an explanation for the increasing trend in child weight. These results cannot be replicated in Denmark, where an increase in maternal work hours does not increase the likelihood of weight problems for their children. This paper tests four possible explanations for this difference: (1) the effect of maternal employment on child obesity is heterogeneous and varies according to the country's weight distribution; (2) the quality of child care is on average higher in Denmark; (3) the counterfactual care provided by Danish mothers is of lower quality; and (4) Danish fathers contribute significantly to their children's health. This paper finds evidence consistent with the hypotheses that Danish child care and fathers play a significant role in explaining the absence of a significant relationship between maternal work hours and children's overweight status.     

Relative deprivation of temporary agency workers in the public sector: The role of public service motivation and the possibility of standard employment

Although public service organisations have increasingly relied on nonstandard employees, little research has investigated their work experiences and job attitudes. This paper examines the mechanism by which temporary agency workers' experience of relative deprivation affects their organisational attachment toward their client firm in the public sector. Based on data collected from temporary help agencies working with an international airport in Korea, we found that the perceived likelihood of standard employment mediated the negative relationship of relative deprivation to organisational attachment. Moreover, the indirect relationship of relative deprivation with organisational attachment via perceived likelihood of standard employment was strong and significant among those with high public service motivation but was not significant for those with low public service motivation. We discuss the implications of this study in building a better understanding of relative deprivation and nonstandard work arrangements in the public sector.     

CordNet: Toward a distributed behavior model for emergency response coordination

Existing studies of coordination theory in human networks have looked at coordination problems requiring stable working relationships with no environmental uncertainties. With emergency response management demanding distributed coordination in volatile situations, the designs of existing models are useful as a building block, yet flawed for application. We hypothesize that changes to interconnectedness of nodes in the network may have implications on the potential to coordinate. To test our hypotheses, we investigate survey data from state law enforcement, state emergency services, and local law enforcement by performing agency‐based (macro) and cross‐agency (micro) analysis to identify attributes of each network and coordination.     

Income and Expenditure Switching Among the Impoverished During Structural Adjustment in India1

The impoverishment during 1991–1993 was largely a result of policy reforms. In the absence of income switching, the impoverishment would have been greater. The patterns of income switching differed among the three Indian states, viz. Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Confining the analysis to household expenditure on food, medical care and education, however, little, if any, expenditure switching occurred. To some extent, the effects of household expenditure cuts were compounded by cuts in public expenditure. But, given the aggregate expenditure categories, there is a risk of overstating the effects on the poor. A more fundamental concern nonetheless remains. Given the acute deprivation of a large segment of the rural population, it is imperative that public provision of basic goods and services is strengthened. A case in point is the public distribution system for food (PDS). Despite the revamping, the benefits to the poor have not increased while the subsidy has. Short of drastic reforms, it is unlikely that the cost-effectiveness of the PDS will improve.     

Heterogeneous effects of child disability on maternal labor supply: Evidence from the 2000 US Census

Previous research has documented a negative relationship between child disability and maternal labor supply. Because of data limitations, most studies in this literature use broad measures of disability, which may obscure important differences among children with limiting health conditions. This paper presents new evidence on the labor supply of women with disabled children, exploiting disability information provided by 2000 US Census. This large nationally representative sample allows us to test for differences across different types of disabling conditions. We find that accounting for this heterogeneity in conditions is important. Using a broad definition of disability results in small differences between women with and without a disabled child. When we use a more detailed classification, we find larger labor supply reductions for mothers of children with physical disabilities or limitations in their ability to care for themselves. There is less evidence that having a child with either mental or emotional limitations or a sensory impairment is negatively related to employment or weekly hours. We also test for heterogeneous effects related to child age and maternal education. We find no clear pattern with respect to age and some evidence that the relationship between child disability and maternal labor supply is stronger for less educated mothers.     

An econometric approach to estimating support prices and measures of productivity change in public hospitals

In industry sectors where market prices for goods and services are unavailable, it is common to use estimated output and input distance functions to estimate rates of productivity change. It is also possible, but less common, to use estimated distance functions to estimate the normalised support (or efficient) prices of individual inputs and outputs. A problem that arises in the econometric estimation of these functions is that more than one variable in the estimating equation may be endogenous. In such cases, maximum likelihood estimation can lead to biased and inconsistent parameter estimates. To solve the problem, we use linear programming to construct a quantity index. The distance function is then written in the form of a conventional stochastic frontier model where the explanatory variables are unambiguously exogenous. We use this approach to estimate productivity indexes, measures of environmental change, levels of efficiency, and support prices for a sample of Australian public hospitals.     

Modeling mobile health service delivery to Syrian migrant farm workers using call record data

A significant number of Syrian refugees under temporary protection in Turkey work in agriculture seasonally in various rural areas during several months a year. These migrant farm workers and their families are deprived of access to the regular health care system and preventive services due to their remote locations. The government supports the delivery of different types of mobile health care services, such as vaccination for children, reproductive health and screening services. While planning the mobile health care service delivery, it is critical to know where the refugees will work during what time frame; hence the demand for the services. By analyzing the call record data of a major mobile network operator in Turkey, we quantify the increase in the volume of calls made by Syrian refugees in various agricultural areas during the harvesting season of local crops. This information helps us to forecast spatial and temporal distribution of demand for mobile health care services at a fine granularity. Taking demand over multiple periods as input into a mathematical programming model, we optimize the routing of mobile clinics that visit locations close to where refugees are concentrated over the given planning horizon. We consider three hierarchical objectives. Given the availability of a number of mobile clinics at community health centers in the districts, the first objective aims to maximize the percentage of refugees that can benefit from each service type within pre-defined close distances. The second objective minimizes the number of clinics needed while covering the maximum percentage of refugees. The third objective minimizes the total travel distance of the clinics, while keeping the maximum coverage level using a minimum number of clinics to achieve this level. We quantify the benefits of centralized planning (by the province directorate) over decentralized planning (by each district separately). We also show the trade-off between the required number of clinics and coverage of potential patients.     

Does public transit reduce car travel externalities? Quasi-natural experiments' evidence from transit strikes

One of the unanswered questions in the field of urban economics is to which extent subsidies to public transit are justified. We examine one of the main benefits of public transit, a reduction in car congestion externalities, the so-called congestion relief benefit, using quasi-natural experimental data on citywide public transit strikes for Rotterdam, a city with mild congestion levels. On weekdays, a strike induces travel times to increase only marginally on the highway ring road (0.017 min/km) but substantially on inner city roads (0.224 min/km). During rush hour, the strike effect is much more pronounced. The congestion relief benefit of public transit is substantial, equivalent to about 80% of the public transit subsidy. We demonstrate that during weekends, travel time does not change noticeably due to strikes. Furthermore, we show that public transit strikes induce similar increases in number of cyclists as number of car travelers suggesting that bicycling-promoting policies to reduce car congestion externalities might be attractive in combination with first-best congestion pricing.     

Programme Evaluation with Unobserved Heterogeneity and Selective Implementation: The Mexican PROGRESA Impact on Child Nutrition

This paper considers the impact of Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación ( PROGRESA ), a large Mexican rural anti-poverty programme that had an evaluation sample in which overall treatment was randomly assigned to some communities but not others, on child nutrition. When we examine the impact of PROGRESA based on the presumption of randomized allocations, we find that PROGRESA had no or even a negative impact on child nutrition. However, not all children designated to receive nutritional supplements actually did so. Our preferred estimates – child fixed-effects estimates that control for unobserved heterogeneity that is correlated with access to the supplement – indicate a significantly positive and fairly substantial programme effect of the nutritional supplements on children 12–36 months. They imply an increase of about a sixth in mean growth per year for these children and a lower probability of stunting. Effects are somewhat larger for children from poorer communities but whose mothers are functionally literate. The long-term consequences of these improvements are non-trivial; its impact working through adult height alone could result in a 2.9% increase in lifetime earnings.     

Do Private Prisons Really offer Savings Compared with their Public Counterparts?

Private contracting of public services has been alleged to reduce costs. We address the critical question of whether private contracting really saves money, using the US prison privatisation experience as an example. Although the consensus in the literature identifies such savings, we raise economic issues of incomplete contracting, asymmetric information and moral hazard, which complicate matters. We discuss explicit, implicit, and agency costs that show that measuring the savings and quality impact of private contracting is more challenging than the literature suggests, and often inconclusive. This may suggest caution in designing solutions to cost pressures.     

Determinants of spatial knowledge spillovers in Italian provinces

Statistical evidence suggests that the relevance of knowledge spillovers has increased over time. In this paper we focus on regional knowledge spillovers and adopt a new econometric transformation that allows inference on potential inter-regional knowledge spillovers, accounting for spatial interdependencies.Determinants of inter-regional knowledge spillovers are explained with a sample of 103 Italian provinces. We find that a region’s absorptive capacity, measured by local R&D expenditure and social capital, implies a reduction of outward knowledge spillovers.Identification is based on the use of Two Stages Least Squares and Fixed Effects estimates.     

The effect of CEO compensation structure on the early internationalization of newly public firms

This study suggests the incentive perspective as an antecedent of early internationalization. We argue that early internationalization is a risky strategy for a CEO in a relatively young firm and that a potential agency problem arises between a CEO and shareholders in such a context. By drawing on agency theory, we theorize that the CEO compensation structure plays a critical role in the early internationalization decision. In a sample of 145 newly public U.S. firms, we find that the likelihood of early internationalization is negatively associated with the CEO’s secured cash pay and positively associated with the CEO’s equity-based compensation. In addition, we find that the positive association between equity-based compensation and the likelihood of early internationalization becomes stronger as the CEO’s tenure increases. These findings show that the interest alignment between a CEO and shareholders affects the strategic decision of early internationalization. Our study contributes to the literature on corporate governance and international business by underscoring the importance of the compensation structure as a significant driver of value-creating strategic initiatives and by identifying incentive factors that spur firms to internationalize early.     

Voluntary contributions to multiple public goods in a production economy with widespread externalities

In a production economy, multiple public goods are produced by firms in competitive markets, and provided by the government together with contributions from consumers. There are widespread externalities: all consumers’ consumption and contributions and all firms’ production enter into utility functions. Public goods can be imperfect substitutes or complements, and they can be local public goods or club goods. Zero bounds that require consumers to make nonnegative contributions complicate the differentiable approach. Applying the transversality theorem for smooth economies in a regular parameterization, we obtain the existence of equilibrium in such an economy, and generically equilibria are regular and locally unique.     

The location of public services considering the mode of travel

By reason of their generally longer travel times, transit users are not so well-served by many public facilities as are automobile drivers. This paper investigates the implications of this fact for the location of a specific type of service, public child day care. A location-allocation model is employed to determine the most accessible locations for a set of centres in Edmonton, Canada, for users of both modes. Transit is found to be capable of providing only 51% of the accessibility of the automobile, at 2.4 times the average travel time. The argument is advanced that in order to reduce the inequality of service to a minimum, public facilities should be located with the accessibilities of transit users in mind. The optimal systems are compared with Edmonton's present system which is found to be spatially inefficient and quite discriminatory in its inefficiency against transit users. This is attributed to the city's piecemeal planning policy and an inadequate understanding of the notion of accessibility. The paper concludes by recommending improvements which would improve our simple diagnostic model to the level of a useful planning device.     

A model for measuring the need for services in a district

Administrators of social programs are often faced with decisions regarding how to distribute available funds. An important factor in this decision is the geographic location of the population in need of the agency's services. One would assume that those areas of the community where there are more people in need of the agency's support would receive a larger portion of the budget. However, in many cases, dollars are apportioned without adequate knowledge of what parts of the community are in the greatest need of services.This paper presents a method that can be used by most agencies for making a determination of the service need in different parts of the community. The agency used in the model construction is the Office of Community Services (OCS). The mandate of OCS is to implement a comprehensive plan for the delivery of social services in New York City. The “community” (New York City) is divided into forty Human Resource Districts (HRD's). In each of these districts there are outstations that provide a range of social services.In the past, misleading population characteristics of the districts were used to represent the need for OCS services. The characteristics were misleading because they did not represent the number of persons who would be in need of the services. For example, the number of persons receiving public assistance would not adequately represent the number of persons who needed child health services. This is especially true because some persons who are not eligible for public assistance are eligible for child health services.     

公交实时信息化服务对乘客出行行为意向影响

为了解城市公交信息化服务对公交乘客出行方式转移的影响,以上海市杨浦区为例,进行关于公交信息化服务下乘客出行方式转移的调查,获取个人属性、公交出行经历、公交出行评价、出行方式转移意向以及公交信息服务需求等信息。从公交信息使用者角度,重点关注公交信息化服务对乘客出行方式转移的影响,分别构建信息化服务情境下(公交到站时间与计划出发时间相差过大和车辆未在提示的时间内到达)的公交出行方式转移二项logit模型。模型结果表明:乘客平均候车时间、是否经常使用公交到站服务、是否有道路拥挤车辆未按时进站等原因而产生出行延误的经历、公交信息准确性评价与是否有必要提示同公交线路连续班次的到站时间等因素对不同情景下的乘客出行方式转移具有显著影响。