An economic analysis of wind resistant construction

Reinforced construction and strengthened building codes have been demonstrated to reduce expected damage from hurricanes in a cost effective manner. We examine whether reinforced construction (e.g. anchor bolts, hurricane clips, directional nailing) can provide efficient mitigation of property damage from tornadoes, using a case study of homes damaged in the May 3 1999 Oklahoma City Tornado. We find that if a package of wind resistant construction measures that cost no more than $500 could reduce insured losses by 30%, wind resistant construction could have a positive net present value in the most tornado prone states. A 30% reduction in wind damage is in line with estimates of damage reduction for construction in hurricane winds. The expected property damage reduction falls off rapidly in less tornado prone states.     

An analysis of ethnic differences in UK graduate migration behaviour

In this paper, we analyse the employment–migration behaviour of 13,753 UK university graduates. In particular, we distinguish between five different types of sequential migration behaviour from domicile to higher education and on to employment. By controlling for a range of variables relating to human capital acquisition, local economic conditions and personal characteristics, we are able to identify the role of ethnicity in determining the interregional migration behaviour of university graduates.

An analysis of economic incentives in wetlands policies addressing biodiversity

This paper offers an economic analysis of economic incentives within the Habitat Conservation Plan and Wetlands Mitigation Bank policies. Both policies are relatively new policies for protection and restoration of ecosystems such as wetlands that support biodiversity. The components of the policies such as the measures of success, conversion of biological units into economic units, and timing of the actions by policymakers and landowners influence the incentives to carry out protection and restoration. A stochastic optimal control model is developed which incorporates ecological uncertainty of wetlands restoration. The model helps in examining the decisions of how much to invest in a wetlands mitigation bank or habitat conservation plan. The model is calibrated with data from California bioeconomic parameters. Numerical simulation of the model provides a sensitivity analysis of how model parameters of restoration costs, stochastic biological growth, discount rate, and the market value of credits affect the trajectory of investment and the optimal stopping state of wetlands quality when the investment ends. The analysis reveals that more restoration will occur when there is a reduction in restoration costs, an increase in biological uncertainty or an increase in the value of wetlands credits. Continued restoration is harder to justify at a higher discount rate and cost.     

Gendered histories: garment production and migration in Mexico

Data gathered in Aguascalientes during the 1990s are used to analyze how the garment industry in Mexico has responded to economic recession and trade liberalization. In particular, the relationship between industrial change and gendered patterns of migration are explored. The author concludes that "migration over recent years has increasingly allowed working women the possibility of entering a transnational labour force and given them important labouring and living experiences on both sides of the border."     

Inferring migration flows from the migration propensities of infants: Mexico and Indonesia

The need for methods of indirectly estimating migration flows is particularly important in developing countries, where migration data are often incomplete and inaccurate. This paper focuses on the use of an indirect internal migration estimation method applied to Mexican and Indonesian census data. It shows that the mobility propensities of infants can be used to infer the corresponding propensities of all other age groups. However, the promise of this method is reduced in instances of inadequate data, and great care must be taken to identify outlying values in the data and to correct obviously erroneous patterns. Future work increasingly will be directed to this issue.     

Single-place alternative opportunities in an economic model of migration

Inspired by Samuel Stouffer's work on alternative opportunities in the gravity model of migration, Levy and Wadycki developed a specification for incorporating this concept in an economic model of migration. Subsequent testing has confirmed the statistical relevance of the alternative opportunity concept across a number of countries and time periods.The present paper refines the definition of alternative opportunities so that the best alternative variables all come from the same location. In the original formulation, the best alternative variable is the optimum value within a circle determined by the origin and destination points. That formulation permits different locations to provide the best alternatives for the economic variables in the model. The single-place approach of the present paper is more consistent with the migrant's utility calculus which determines a single best alternative location. Using United States data for two time periods, we find that the empirical results support this new formulation.Research for this paper was supported by a University of Illinois Sabbatical Leave and by the services of the University of Illinois at Chicago Computer Center.     

Knowledge-based spatial differences in economic activity,job related migration and housing related migration

This paper analyzes the mutual effects of growth of cities and migration between cities. A model in which cities manufacture goods in a traditional sector and in a technological sector, and each city exhibits independently learning-by-doing in the latter sector is presented. The possibility that the development of one city prevents the development of the other is demonstrated. The higher wage in the developed city attracts the talented residents of the less developed city, to which less talented residents migrate in search of lower housing prices, thus creating bi-directional migration that reinforces the above result. An empirical analysis of the differences between job-related migration and housing-related migration in the U.S. is conducted, finding that these two streams are indeed in-line with the model’s prediction. Implications for regional development policies are discussed.     

Population migration and economic restructuring in the United States

"This article demonstrates that sectoral employment shifts associated with the migration pattern changes of the 1970s are very different than those for the period 1955-60 to 1965-70. Changing competitiveness for jobs in manufacturing and other traditional basic sectors of the economy cannot account for the greatly accelerated levels of core-periphery net outflow that have been the dominant characteristic of interstate movement during the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, an interconnected set of activities that includes government, services, trade, and construction is associated with the broadscale shifts in the geographic pattern of the United States' population. The causal linkage from migration to employment change assumed heightened importance during the 1970s."     

Crime and regional economic growth in Mexico: A spatial perspective

The aim of this paper is to examine the effects of crime on regional economic growth in Mexico. We estimate a growth model using a spatial panel data model and test for the presence and type of spatial interaction, as proposed by Elhorst. Our results suggest that a two‐way spatial Durbin model best fits the data, crime exerts a negative total effect on economic growth across Mexican states, particularly homicides and robbery, and significant spillover effects seem to reinforce the negative impact on regional growth.     

Elicitation of subjective probabilities for economic risk analysis: An investigation

This paper investigates three major issues regarding the elicitation of expert knowledge for economic risk analysis: (1) recognition of some of the implicit assumptions and beliefs; (2) development of an approach to elicit expert knowledge as accurate, calibrated and coherent subjective probabilities; and (3)a study to explore human ability to predict future events and the validity of the implicit assumptions and beliefs in the context of the expert judgements. The proposed elicitation approach combines the theoretical requirements for valid subjective probabilities with a practical process. The recognition that some of the implicit assumptions and beliefs in engineering risk analysis should be explored when dealing with the human ability to predict future events, and the inherent difficulties in developing experiments and methods to test such beliefs arc some of the benefits of the study. Directions for future work are suggested.     

The migration response to the economic turnaround in New England

"This paper is an investigation of the dynamics of interstate migration flows to and from New England since 1975. The main goal of the research is to study the timing and volume of the lagged migration adjustment to the regional economic turnaround and the temporal stability of patterns of regional inflows and outflows. The paper is an examination of the responsiveness of interstate migration to changing regional economic conditions based on annual interstate migration data and a set of cross-sectional destination-specific Poisson regression models." The data are from a series developed by the Bureau of the Census based on Federal income tax returns.     

Technological innovation and regional economic growth in Mexico: a spatial perspective

The aim of this investigation is to analyze the effect of technological innovation on Mexico’s regional economic growth during 1995–2007. It is argued that the inclusion of the spatial dimension in empirical analysis is still a rare practice in Mexico and even in international studies. Such inclusion allows studying the pattern of spatial interaction, the possible effects of spatial diffusion and the estimation of robust parameters. We apply the spatial data analysis methodology that has three components: (a) exploratory analysis, (b) visualization and (c) spatial econometric modeling. The main result suggests that technological innovation has a positive effect on Mexico’s regional economic growth. The empirical evidence also suggests that there is a positive effect coming from cross-border diffusion effects of technological knowledge. It also implies that states with stronger innovation activity benefited from spatial technological externalities and hence faster economic growth.     

An analysis of the economic rationale for public subsidization of sports stadiums

Proposals to provide public subsidy to sports stadiums are being debated in many locales. This paper examines a number of types of benefits asserted by proponents of subsidies: direct municipal revenues from stadium events; multiplier benefits increasing income and sales in the area; the attraction of unrelated business activity; and, intangible benefits. The business attraction argument is subjected to empirical test with regression analysis. In only a small fraction of the cases examined does manufacturing activity in an SMSA correlate significantly with the presence of a new or renovated stadium. We conclude that measurable economic benefits to area residents are not large enough to justify stadium subsidies and that the debate must turn to immeasurable intangible benefits like fan identification and civic pride.     

An economic analysis of industrial revenue bonds and the demand for labor

In this paper the standard theory of the derived demand for inputs for the firm has been used to examine the effect on employment of a subsidy to the capital input via an industrial revenue bond. While the effect theoretically is ambiguous in sign, an empirical examination of the industrial revenue bond program in Chicago suggests that, ceteris paribus, employment does increase in firms selected for the program. The estimates of the arc crosselasticity of demand for labor for the groups of firms that participated in the Chicago program range from –.27 to –1.07. Systematic variations in the cross elasticity of demand for labor are found.     

暖通建筑经济管理中的成本控制创新策略分析

对暖通建筑经济管理中的成本控制创新策略进行深入的分析,以便能够提高企业利润,优化资源配置,杜绝资源浪费,在不影响质量安全的情况下将成本控制到最低,从而全面促进我国社会经济和建筑行业的发展进步,有效地改善人们的生活质量,为人们提供更加理想和舒适的居住环境。     

Structural economic change,labour market segmentation and interregional migration

In the 1970s there were marked changes in internal migration in Australia, with the major metropolitan areas experiencing,for the first time, significant losses in their migration interchanges with other areas. Simultaneously, country regions recorded substantial reductions in their formerly high rates of net outmigration. This paper argues that these migration changes were largely a response to the changing location and structure of labour demand: the high degree of labour market segmentation in Australia, and changes in the industrial structure of employment, together provide an explanation for contrasts in the migration responses of different demographic groups.