CHANGES IN LAND POLICY: HOW FUNDAMENTAL ARE THEY

Land Economics/Use,

Review of Philip Anderson, 2008, The Secret Life of Real Estate

Anderson establishes the reality of an 18-year cycle in real estate prices, 1800 to date, emphasizing the land element, mainly urban land and subsoil resources. He relates this to privatization, which he calls “enclosureâ€, although he does not trace the history back to the 16th Century enclosure movement in England, nor recommend undoing privatization. He supports his thesis with a wealth of data, surveying a wide literature of secondary sources. He finds the same sequence of leading and lagging indicators in each cycle. Other dips are trivial relative to those based on the real estate cycle, and he faults other economists for failing to notice this. The work is flawed in some particulars, but on the whole persuasive.

Empty Spaces

Construction is not the best use of capital when the objective is to make jobs, and loanable funds are scarce. Construction is more capital-intensive than labor-intensive. In addition, we presently have a glut of finished but unused buildings, the result of years of fiscal bias that has diverted investors from working capital to construction. Lenders have also been diverted by the use of soaring and volatile land values as collateral. The solution is to reverse the fiscal biases, which are identified, and apply selective credit controls to lenders, keeping them away from depending on real estate collateral.

DISSENT & DEVELOPMENT IN THE CULTURAL RENEWA OF BALKAN COMMUNITIES

Western governments and the International Monetary Fund deployed “austerity”policies in response to the financial crisis of 2008. The authors explain that, farfrom laying the foundations for sustainable growth, the austerity strategy isdeepening the crisis by eroding social cohesion without delivering fullemployment. Austerity is a method for short-term management of chaos in themarkets, with the high costs carried by the most vulnerable sections of society. The authors elaborate a financial model that would restructure the pricingmechanisms in both the public and private sectors on principles designed todiminish the cyclical booms and busts that are driven by the misallocation ofwhat Alfred Marshall called the “public value”. Fiscal policy is identified as theone viable strategy for restructuring the economies of Eastern European. Transition to a new financial settlement would empower people and theirenterprises to work towards balanced growth while simultaneously renewingtheir communities. This model is grounded in the classical thesis that, to achieveoptimum use of all productive endowments (land, labour and capital), peopleshould pay for the benefits which they receive from society. The practical effect would be to socialise economic rents, which enables policy-makers to privatiseearned incomes and the profits from saving and investing. Abolishing taxes thatdamage the health and wealth of nations is identified as the central remedy forpathologies that will otherwise remain as dangerous flashpoints for populations under stress

What Contribution Did Economic Evidence Make to the Adoption of Universal Newborn Hearing Screening Policies in the United States?

Universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS), when accompanied by timely access to intervention services, can improve language outcomes for children born deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) and result in economic benefits to society. Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) programs promote UNHS and using information systems support access to follow-up diagnostic and early intervention services so that infants can be screened no later than 1 month of age, with those who do not pass their screen receiving diagnostic evaluation no later than 3 months of age, and those with diagnosed hearing loss receiving intervention services no later than 6 months of age. In this paper, we first document the rapid roll-out of UNHS/EHDI policies and programs at the national and state/territorial levels in the United States between 1997 and 2005. We then review cost analyses and economic arguments that were made in advancing those policies in the United States. Finally, we examine evidence on language and educational outcomes that pertain to the economic benefits of UNHS/EHDI. In conclusion, although formal cost-effectiveness analyses do not appear to have played a decisive role, informal economic assessments of costs and benefits appear to have contributed to the adoption of UNHS policies in the United States

Autistic Traits Mediate Reductions in Social Attention in Adults with Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with difficulties in social and emotional functioning. A significant proportion of individuals with AN show autistic traits, which may influence social attention. This study examined attention to faces and facial features in AN, recovered AN (REC), and healthy controls, as well as relationships with comorbid psychopathology. One hundred and forty-eight participants’ eye movements were tracked while watching a naturalistic social scene. Anxiety, depression, alexithymia, and autistic traits were assessed via self-report questionnaires. Participants with AN spent significantly less time looking at faces compared to REC and controls; patterns of attention to individual facial features did not differ across groups. Autistic traits mediated the relationship between group and time spent looking at faces