9,081 research outputs found

    Urban decline and housing reinvestment: the role of construction costs and the supply side

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    Negative demand shocks have afflicted many American cities in the 20th century and are the main explanation for their decaying housing markets. But what is the role of housing supply? Rational entrepreneurs should not invest in new buildings and renovation when home values are below replacement cost. Households with an investment motive should behave similarly. Empirically, the authors find that construction costs are not very sensitive to building activity but do vary with local income, unionization rates in the construction sector, the level of local regulation, and region. They also document that the variance in building costs generates substantial variance in renovation expenditures across cities. Owner-occupied homes with market values below replacement costs spend about 50 percent less on renovation than similar homes with market values above construction costs. The authors also report on the distribution of the ratio of house value-to-construction cost across markets. The distribution is relatively flat in a number of declining cities, especially older manufacturing areas. In these places, a relatively modest 10 percent decline in replacement costs would find between 7-15 percent of the local housing stock moving from being valued below cost to above cost. Even though modest declines in construction costs are unlikely to change basic urban trends, the authors' results suggest they can be an important factor in determining whether various neighborhoods in declining cities will experience any significant reinvestment. In this respect, declining cities truly cannot afford to be expensive cities in terms of replacement costs: urban scholars and policy makers should begin to pay more attention to the cost side of cities.Urban economics ; Construction industry ; Supply-side economics

    Alternating gradient photodetector

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    A far infrared (FIR) range responsive photodetector is disclosed. There is a substrate of degenerate germanium. A plurality of alternating impurity-band and high resistivity layers of germanium are disposed on the substrate. The impurity-band layers have a doping concentration therein sufficiently high to include donor bands which can release electrons upon impingement by FIR photons of energy hv greater than an energy gap epsilon. The high resistivity layers have a doping concentration therein sufficiently low as to not include conducting donor bands and are depleted of electrons. Metal contacts are provided for applying an electrical field across the substrate and the plurality of layers. In the preferred embodiment as shown, the substrate is degenerate n-type (N++) germanium; the impurity-band layers are n+ layers of germanium doped to approximately the low 10(exp 16)/cu cm range; and, the high resistivity layers are n-layers of germanium doped to a maximum of approximately 10(exp)/cu cm. Additionally, the impurity-band layers have a thickness less than a conduction-electron diffusion length in germanium and likely to be in the range of 0.1 to 1.0 micron, the plurality of impurity-bands is of a number such that the flux of FIR photons passing therethrough will be substantially totally absorbed therein, the thickness of the high resistivity layers is such compared to the voltage applied that the voltage drop in each the high resistivity layers controls the occurence of impact ionization in the impurity-band layers to a desired level

    The Pricing of Embedded Options in Real Estate Lease Contracts

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    Leases and rental agreements often have options attached or embedded in them. These options sometimes depend on a number of economic variables such as the consumer price index (CPI), a real estate index and/or the value of real estate underlying the agreement. The evaluation of these options often involves the solution or approximation to a partial differential equation (PDE). This study analyzes the appropriate PDEs which model the situation where the lessee is granted an option to either purchase the property or to renew the lease at a price (rent) indexed to the CPI or some other readily measured economic variable. The PDEs that result from the usual contingent claim asset-pricing framework are derived and numerically solved using the finite difference method with absorbing boundaries. The value of an embedded option to renew a five year lease on class A office space in each of the ternty-five markets for which the National Real Estate Index reports quarterly rental data is estimated. An evaluation of the model’s "Greeks" confirm that the model conforms to financial intuition which provides support for the accuracy of the estimates.

    Evaluating the Real Estate Journals: The Mainstream Finance Perspective

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    This study examines the real estate journals and discipline from the unique perspective of mainstream finance faculty. The entire academic membership of the Financial Management Association (FMA) is surveyed resulting in a 29.6% response rate. They were queried on their personal characteristics (enrollment, number of tenure track faculty, department, rank, area of expertise, number of articles published, and real estate courses offered). But more importantly, they were asked to rank real estate journals by perceived quality and to compare the quality of the real estate journals to five mainstream finance journals. Lastly, they were asked about the support for including real estate courses in the curriculum of the finance department.

    Alien Registration- Albert, Joseph (Caribou, Aroostook County)

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    https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/25921/thumbnail.jp

    Alien Registration- Albert, Joseph (Augusta, Kennebec County)

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    https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/18373/thumbnail.jp
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