The Value of Residential Community Associations: Evidence from South Carolina

International Advances in Economic Research - This empirical study uses a hedonic pricing model and a dataset of Spartanburg, South Carolina homes from 2002 to 2005 to evaluate the effect of...     

REAL EXCHANGE RATE,MERCANTILISM AND THE LEARNING BY DOING EXTERNALITY

This paper examines the degree to which the learning by doing (LBD) externality calls for an undervalued exchange rate. We obtain mixed results. For an economy where the LBD externality operates in the traded sector, real exchange rate undervaluation may be used to internalize this externality, if the LBD calls for subsidizing employment in the traded sector. If the LBD externality is embodied in aggregate investment, the optimal policy calls for subsidizing the cost of capital in the traded sector, and there is no room for undervalued exchange rate policy.     

Socioeconomic adjustments and choice experiment benefit function transfer: Evaluating the common wisdom

It is often argued that attribute adjustments made possible within choice experiments have the potential to improve benefit transfer accuracy. These transfers, however, often omit socioeconomic adjustments; this reflects a limited presence of socioeconomic covariates in broader choice experiments. The lack of correspondence between common guidance that socioeconomic adjustments should be applied and simultaneous arguments for the advantages of choice experiment transfers leads to ambiguity for transfer practice. This paper contrasts the change in transfer performance resulting from an ability to adjust for policy attributes with that resulting from an ability to adjust for socioeconomic attributes. Results are illustrated for the case of agricultural land preservation. The goal is to provide evidence regarding the tradeoff faced by practitioners who seek to use choice experiments for benefit transfer but lack the ability to adjust for socioeconomic attributes.     

Financing investment in environmentally sound technologies: Foreign direct investment versus foreign debt finance

This paper develops a screening model to examine the relationship between alternative sources of private capital and investment in environmentally sound technologies (ESTs). In the model, a polluter (agent) must secure investment funds from the international financial markets in order to upgrade its production and abatement technology. The requisite capital can be obtained via either market loans (debt finance) or foreign direct investment (FDI). Under debt finance, the foreign financier supplies only capital and the relationship between the two parties is more ‘arms-length’. By contrast, under FDI, the investor delivers both capital and managerial skills. We use the model to derive the implications of debt finance for optimal investment decisions and compare them to those obtained under FDI. Investment incentives are more pronounced under debt finance.     

Does Antitrust Enforcement in High Tech Markets Benefit Consumers? Stock Price Evidence from FTC v. Intel

Antitrust enforcement efforts in the United States and abroad have been ramped up in high-tech industries, which has rekindled older and largely unresolved debates concerning the appropriate role of antitrust enforcement in high-tech markets. This paper evaluates the likely competitive effects of Intel’s conduct through two approaches: The conventional approach focuses on traditional antitrust metrics in product markets: prices and output. The second, alternative approach involves turning to financial markets for valuable information. Under either approach, the available data do not support the theory that Intel’s behavior harmed consumers.     

Food Insecurity and Hunger in the Kindergarten Classroom: Its Effect on Learning and Growth

This study investigates the correlation between food insecurity, educational achievement, and health among kindergarten children in the United States. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort are used to analyze educational achievement and physical growth of kindergartners faced with food insecurity. The results demonstrate that children begin to experience the effects of food insecurity even at the most marginal level of household food deprivation. Children in households with any signs of food insecurity score lower and learn less during the school year.     

The Sound of One Hand Clapping: The 2010 Merger Guidelines and the Challenge of Judicial Adoption

There is ample justification for the consensus view that the Horizontal Merger Guidelines have proven one of antitrust law??s great successes in the grounding of antitrust doctrine within economic learning. The foundation of the Guidelines?? success has been its widespread adoption by federal courts, which have embraced its rigorous underlying economic logic and analytical approach to merger analysis under the Clayton Act. While some have suggested that the Guidelines?? most recent iteration might jeopardize this record of judicial adoption by downplaying the role of market definition and updating its unilateral effects analysis, we believe that these updates are generally beneficial and include long-overdue shifts away from antiquated structural presumptions in favor of analyzing competitive effects directly where possible. However, this article explores a different reason to be concerned that the 2010 Guidelines may not enjoy widespread judicial adoption: the 2010 Guidelines asymmetrically update economic insights underlying merger analysis. While the 2010 Guidelines?? updated economic thinking on market definition and unilateral effects will likely render the prima facie burden facing plaintiffs easier to satisfy in merger analysis moving forward, and thus have significant practical impact, the Guidelines do not correspondingly update efficiencies analysis, leaving it largely as it first appeared 13 years earlier. We discuss two well-qualified candidates for ??economic updates?? of efficiencies analysis under the Guidelines: (1) out-of-market efficiencies and (2) fixed-cost savings. We conclude with some thoughts about the implications of the asymmetric updates for judicial adoption of the 2010 Guidelines.     

Rural women leaders

This research project was designed to study the determinants of leadership development in rural women. The first phase of the study involved individual interviews with women recognized as leaders within a rural community. Each of the 25 rural women leaders interviewed was raised on a farm or in a community with a population smaller than 2,000. The second phase of the study was administered via Survey Monkey to 133 women using a modified version of the Review of Personal Effectiveness with Locus of control (ROPELOC) instrument, which included the key domains of interest and was expanded to include additional questions focusing on unique challenges to leadership among women living in rural communities. The project used leadership‐related community groups as an entry point to identify women across rural Kansas for the survey. The results from these two methods identified six themes: lifelong learners, bias and discrimination, self‐efficacy and overcoming barriers, community influence and social capital, leadership mentors, and expression of leadership.     

Access Holidays and the Timing of Infrastructure Investment

For risky infrastructure investment, 'regulatory truncation' can diminish investment incentives. We model the truncation problem, showing the link to regulatory commitment, and derive optimal state-contingent access prices. If regulators cannot commit ex ante to specific ex post access prices then a regulatory commitment to a fixed period free of access – an access holiday – can improve investment incentives. We establish conditions under which an access holiday may improve investment timing and show how an optimal holiday depends on the underlying profit flows from the investment. In particular, we show that an optimal holiday may leave investors with positive expected economic profits.     

Long-term cost-effectiveness of home versus clinic-based management of chronic heart failure: the WHICH? study

Background: The cost-effectiveness of a heart failure management intervention can be further informed by incorporating the expected benefits and costs of future survival.

Methods: This study compared the long-term costs per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained from home-based (HBI) vs specialist clinic-based intervention (CBI) among elderly patients (mean age = 71 years) with heart failure discharged home (mean intervention duration = 12 months). Cost-utility analysis was conducted from a government-funded health system perspective. A Markov cohort model was used to simulate disease progression over 15 years based on initial data from a randomized clinical trial (the WHICH? study). Time-dependent hazard functions were modeled using the Weibull function, and this was compared against an alternative model where the hazard was assumed to be constant over time. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to identify the key drivers of cost-effectiveness and quantify uncertainty in the results.

Results: During the trial, mortality was the highest within 30 days of discharge and decreased thereafter in both groups, although the declining rate of mortality was slower in CBI than HBI. At 15 years (extrapolated), HBI was associated with slightly better health outcomes (mean of 0.59 QALYs gained) and mean additional costs of AU$13,876 per patient. The incremental cost-utility ratio and the incremental net monetary benefit (vs CBI) were AU$23,352 per QALY gained and AU$15,835, respectively. The uncertainty was driven by variability in the costs and probabilities of readmissions. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed HBI had a 68% probability of being cost-effective at a willingness-to-pay threshold of AU$50,000 per QALY.

Conclusion: Compared with CBI (outpatient specialized HF clinic-based intervention), HBI (home-based predominantly, but not exclusively) could potentially be cost-effective over the long-term in elderly patients with heart failure at a willingness-to-pay threshold of AU$50,000/QALY, albeit with large uncertainty.