Small Cities Matter, Too: The Impacts of an Airport and Local Infrastructure on Housing Prices in a Small Urban City

Cities with small populations tend not to receive as much attention in housing hedonic studies as do large metropolitan areas despite their similar economic development goals (quality of life improvements for their citizens, etc.). However, small cities, with their relatively smaller number of amenities and features, tend to have fewer numbers of variables that operate to determine house prices. Therefore, hedonic prices can be estimated adequately for a single neighborhood in a small city with publicly available data, particularly for local officials who do not have the time or financial resources to complete detailed studies of their cities. In this study, a general model is estimated that uncovers the impacts of airport-related noise, local recreational amenities, public transportation services, and schools on housing prices in a small city in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The implications and usefulness of this approach to local economic developers and city planners will be discussed.     

Export Activity,Firm Size and Wage Structure: Evidence from Taiwanese Manufacturing Firms*

This study adopts a semiparametric smooth coefficient model to evaluate the export–wage premiums, firm size–wage premiums, and the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor. Particular focus is placed upon widespread evidence indicating that pay levels in ‘large’ and ‘export‐oriented’ firms are higher than in their ‘small’ and ‘domestic‐oriented’ counterparts. Applying the firm‐level data for Taiwanese manufacturing firms, we find a positive export–wage premium for skilled workers and a negative export–wage premium for unskilled workers. The hypothesis of a constant export premium across firm size is rejected. While most of the export–wage premiums for skilled labor can be attributed to the small and medium firms, the large exporting firms have a significant adverse effect on wages for unskilled labor. Moreover, our results suggest that the firm size–wage premiums for skilled workers are larger than those for unskilled workers. The wage gap between the two skill groups is also sensitive to size categories.     

Boorstin's consumption community concept: A tale of two countries

The concept of consumption community, first proposed by historian Daniel Boorstin, claims that in the modern era of high mobility, people look not only to neighborhood as a basis for feelings of community but also to communality of consumption behavior (e.g., drinking the same brand of beer). The idea was tested cross-nationally by administering a newly devised psychological sense of community (PSC) scale to more than 100 adult respondents in Belgium and a like number in the U.S. The findings support Boorstin in that for both national samples, PSC values for consumption items were generally positive and consistent with social science theoretical expectations. Implications of the study findings are discussed for theory and social policy.

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Zusammenfassung Das Konzept der Konsumgemeinschaft von Boorstin: Eine Geschichte von zwei Ländern. Das Konzept der Konsumgemeinschaft, erstmals durch den Historiker Daniel Boorstin vorgestellt, behauptet, da\ im heutigen Zeitalter hoher Mobilität der Einzelne sein Gemeinschaftsgefühl nicht nur durch seine Beziehung aus der direkten Nachbarschaft bezieht, sondern auch aus der Gemeinsamkeit bestimmter Konsumverhaltensweisen (z. B. das Trinken derselben Biermarke). Diese Idee wurde empirisch geprüft durch eine ländervergleichende Untersuchung, in der eine neu entwickelte psychologische Skala für den Gemeinschaftssinn bei jeweils einer Stichprobe von mehr als 100 erwachsenen Personen in Belgien und in den USA angewendet wurde. Die Ergebnisse stützen Boorstin insofern, als beide Länderstichproben zu Skalenwerten führen, die mit den theoretischen sozialwirtschaftlichen Erwartungen übereinstimmen.

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Koen De Vos is a Research Assistant at the same institution.     

Should the Central and Eastern European Accession Countries Adopt the EURO Before or After Accession?

I analyse the option of unilateral euroisation for Central and Eastern Europe. The thorny questions of losing seigniorage and losing the lender of last resort are explicitly addressed. It is found that the option of unilateral euroisation might be quite inviting for some countries. This is certainly the case if one takes into account the difficulties thrown up by the Maastricht–criteria. It is argued that unilateral euroisation provides an elegant way out of the catch of the official EMU-accession path. The EU has, however, expressed explicitly its enmity against euroisation. I think this is a policy error. It should be at least a genuine policy option for all countries concerned. At best the EU should stimulate euroisation by embedding it in a broader and more embracing framework that would support integration and ultimately accession to the EU of the whole of Central and Eastern Europe.     

Innovation-Oriented Culture in the Public Sector: Do managerial autonomy and result control lead to innovation?

This article examines the effect of specific new public management (NPM)-related characteristics to explain innovation-oriented culture within public sector organizations. According to NPM doctrines, an enhanced managerial autonomy combined with result control will stimulate a more innovation-oriented culture in such organizations. Using multi-country survey data of over 200 public sector agencies, we test for the influence of organizational autonomy, result control and their interactions, on innovation-oriented culture. High levels of managerial autonomy and result control have independent and positive effects. However, the interaction between high personnel management autonomy and high result control has a negative effect.     

Towards a pre-service technology teacher education resource for New Zealand

The Pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource (PTTER) was developed as a cross-institutional resource to support the development of initial technology teacher education programmes in New Zealand. The PTTER was developed through collaboration involving representatives from each of the six New Zealand university teacher education providers, Massey University, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, Victoria University and University of Waikato, working with the National Technology Professional Development Manager. The framework for PTTER is built on four key elements considered to be essential to the education of technology teachers. The four elements are: philosophy of technology, rationale for technology education, technology in the New Zealand curriculum, and teaching technology. The PTTER is a web-based resource aimed at assisting technology teacher educators in the development of their teacher education programmes. The framework is a statement of shared philosophy, purpose and intent and is located on the Techlink website (www.techlink.org.nz). PTTER contains a range of teaching resources and strategies located within an overall framework for initial technology teacher education programmes. This paper describes the rationale for the PTTER framework, the process through which it was developed, explanation of each of the framework’s elements, and concludes with discussion of the framework’s implementation and future development.     

Modeling economic and agro-environmental dynamics of potato production systems

Crop rotation and other input management practices are of particular interest for their potential impacts on economic and agro-environmental components of potato production. Although crop yield and experimental impacts of rotations of grains, oilseed and legume crops have been published for several experimental studies in Canada there are few models related to the economic and environmental dynamics of potato production. We describe a dynamic model which integrates environmental and economic processes in potato production. The potato rotation model consists of interconnected modules of irrigation and precipitation, soil characteristics, soil erosion, soil water, phosphorus, nitrogen, soil organic matter, farming operations, crop yield and the related calculation of economic return. While not all aspects of crop production have been interlinked, including nitrogen carry-over, this model is the first step in the analysis of experimental data for irrigated potato rotations conducted in southern Manitoba.      

How Do Investment Banks Value Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)?

Abstract:  We investigate the valuation and the pricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) by investment banks for a unique dataset of 49 IPOs on Euronext Brussels in the 1993–2001 period. We find that for each IPO several valuation methods are used, of which Discounted Free Cash Flow (DFCF) is the most popular. The offer price is mainly based on DFCF valuation, to which a discount is applied. Our results suggest that DDM tends to underestimate value, while DFCF produces unbiased value estimates. When using multiples, investment banks rely mostly on future earnings and cash flows. Multiples based on post-IPO forecasted earnings and cash flows result in more accurate valuations.