New Labour and the Modernisation of British Local Government: A Critique

The modernisation agenda for local government is based on questionable political assumptions. It has the attributes of a theological concept. This paper examines the concept of modernisation of local government by focusing on three dimensions (1) governance, (2) management and (3) finance. This analysis suggests the modernisation agenda is limited in scope and vision.     

Urban structure,gas prices,and the demand for transportation

This paper investigates how the characteristics of demand for space help determine the response of aggregate automobile mileage to increased gasoline prices. A typical monocentric model is considered in which household heads commute to work at the center of city. Precise results are derived under the assumption that all households have the same income and that transportation is a small item in the typical budget. Finally, a numerical projection is made based on estimates of the relevant parameters.     

An ideal Kyoto protocol: emissions trading, redistributive transfers and global participation

We demonstrate that an interregional policy scheme featuringtrading of carbon dioxide emissions, redistributive resourcetransfers and global participation, a scheme which we call ‘IdealKyoto Protocol’, yields an efficient equilibrium allocationfor a global economy. An altruistic international agency—say,the Global Environment Facility—should operate the resourcetransfer mechanism. In addition, regional governments shouldbe able to make independent policy commitments regarding howto control regional emissions of carbon dioxide in anticipationof the redistributive transfers. Our efficiency result suggeststhat the USA should be ‘bribed’ to reverse its decisionof not participating in the Kyoto Protocol.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of monetary reforms

Using a monthly model of the economy, containing a detailed financial sector, various monetary reforms are evaluated in a stochastic setting. The setting is stochastic because parameters must be estimated from finite data sets and because unexplained residuals exist. The objective function is a single-period, simple quadratic function in income. The problem then reduces to finding the opportunity locus (mean-variance curve) corresponding to each reform; the more effective the reform the more favorable the mean-variance tradeoff. The general finding is that most of the reforms considered are effective, but their impact is not very significant.