Research Applications of the Multifamily Housing Institute's Apartment Database

Data on the financial performance of multifamily rental housing has not been available nearly as long as such information for single-family housing. It is believed that this lack of information has increased the cost of debt and equity capital to apartment housing and thus has increased the rents paid by apartment residents. Data on apartments, which is now becoming available through an industry-sponsored initiative, has the potential of narrowing this information gap. This article has several objectives: to describe this new database, AptData^TM, to housing researchers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of AptData^TM for housing market and policy research, to compare estimates from AptData^TM with those from other sources, and to offer several potential research applications of this new data resource.     

INNOVATIONS IN PARTITIONING A SHARE OF STOCK

This paper presents a synthesis of innovations in the slicing and dicing of cash flows of a share of a firm's common stock. It begins by discussing PRIMEs and SCOREs, then Unbundled Stock Units (USUs), and finally three proposed hybrid equity options called DIVS, OWLS, and RISKS.
Decomposing a share of stock into components that can be traded separately allows investors to choose between the different investment attributes constituting the underlying share. An investor who desires only cash dividend income may buy only DIVS, and another who values capital appreciation but not current income can purchase only the residual claim.
Derivatives seem to go through a developmental process that is analogous to the biological phenomenon of natural selection and adaptation. The engines that drive this evolutionary process are changing domestic and international market conditions, international tax and regulatory arbitrage, and, of course, the financial innovators who learn from their own mistakes, and from the experience of others. These innovators continually develop new products that represent improvements over the old, if only by their ability to adhere more closely to the guidelines laid down by the regulators. The histories of PRIMEs and SCOREs, of USUs, and, most recently, of DIVS, OWLS and RISKS together provide a nice illustration of this developmental process.     

Import Competition, Employment Risk, and the Job-Search Outcomes of Trade-Displaced Manufacturing Workers

This study examines the underlying relationships that exist among import competition, employment risk, and worker earnings. In addition, we consider how such competitiveness and risk experienced on a prior job will affect, under both equilibrium and disequilibrium interpretations of the labor market, alternative postdisplacement job-search outcomes. Econometric models of predisplacement earnings and postdisplacement outcomes (jobless duration, reemployment, and earnings) provide insights on these relationships and in turn on the comparative job-search success of trade-displaced and "other" displaced workers.     

The deductibility of provincial business taxes in a federation with vertical fiscal externalities

Should provincial business taxes be deductible under a federal profit tax? We show that the ‘optimal deductible,’ which neutralizes the vertical fiscal externality between the federal and provincial government, is the change in the federal tax base per dollar of tax revenue collected by the provincial government. The optimal payroll tax deductibility rate depends on the extent to which it is shifted to workers and on the difference between the federal tax rates on profits and on labour income. Two apparently contradictory positions – full deductibility of a payroll tax and non‐deductibility – are special cases of our model. La déductibilité des taxes provinciales imposées aux entreprises dans une fédération où il y a des externalités fiscales verticales. Est‐ce que les taxes provinciales imposées aux entreprises devraient être déductibles de l'impôt fédéral sur les profits? Les auteurs montrent que l'optimum de déductibilité qui neutralise les externalités fiscales verticales entre le fédéral et les provinces est le changement dans la base d'imposition fédérale par dollar de revenu fiscal collecté par le gouvernement provincial. Le taux de déductibilité optimal d'un impôt sur les salaires dépend de la portion du fardeau fiscal qui est déportée vers les travailleurs et de la différence entre les taux d'imposition du fédéral sur les profits et sur le revenu du travail. Deux positions apparemment contradictoires – pleine déductibilité d'un impôt sur les salaires et déductibilité nulle – sont des cas spéciaux du modèle général.     

Motivators of market mavenism in the retail environment

This study examines relationships between market mavenism and five other consumer characteristics. We conceptualize three of these characteristics as broad marketplace concepts at the same (or higher) level of abstraction as mavenism. The remaining two variables are involvement with specific product categories: mobile phones and clothing. The data come from a survey of 258 US student consumers. The results show that mavenism is positively associated with brand engagement in self-concept, status consumption, and materialism. Mavenism is also positively associated with involvement with mobile phones and with clothing. This pattern of relationships enriches the nomological network of market mavenism by describing possible motivators and consequences of this unique aspect of consumer behaviour.     

Contests with Multi-tasking*

The standard contest model in which participants compete in a single dimension is well understood and documented. Multi‐dimension extensions are possible but are liable to increase the complexity of the contest structure, mitigating one of its main advantages: simplicity. In this paper we propose an extension in which competition ensues in several dimensions, and a competitor that wins a certain number of these is awarded a prize. The amount of information needed to run the contest is hence limited to the number of dimensions won by each player. We look at the design of this contest from the point of view of maximising effort in the contest (per dimension and totally), and show that there will be a tendency to run small contests with few dimensions. The standard Tullock model and its results are encompassed by our framework.