Who Wins in an Energy Boom? Evidence from Wage Rates and Housing

This paper presents evidence on the distributional effects of energy extraction by examining the recent U.S. energy boom. The boom increased local wage rates in almost every major occupational category. The increase occurred regardless of whether the occupation experienced a corresponding change in employment, suggesting a more competitive labor market that benefited local workers. Local housing values and rental prices both increased, thereby benefiting landowners. For renters, the increase in prices was completely offset by a contemporaneous increase in income. The results indicate that bans on drilling have negative monetary consequences for a large share of local residents

Who Wins in an Energy Boom? Evidence from Wage Rates and Housing

This paper presents evidence on the distributional effects of energy extraction by examining the recent U.S. energy boom. The boom increased local wage rates in almost every major occupational category. The increase occurred regardless of whether the occupation experienced a corresponding change in employment, suggesting a more competitive labor market that benefited local workers. Local housing values and rental prices both increased, thereby benefiting landowners. For renters, the increase in prices was completely offset by a contemporaneous increase in income. The results indicate that bans on drilling have negative monetary consequences for a large share of local residents

Resource booms leave regions worse off once they fade out.

Communities that enjoy well-paid jobs and low unemployment during a natural resources boom need to plan carefully for the serious economic hardships that will follow the inevitable bust. That is the key lesson from new research by Grant Jacobsen and Dominic Parker, which looks at what happened to ‘boomtowns’ in the American West during the oil drilling boom-bust cycle of the 1970s and 1980s

Group experience with parents of preschool children with seizure disorders

A project using parent seminars in aiding parents of children with seizure disorders was designed at the request of Dr. James R. Schimschock, pediatric neurologist and director of the Clinic for Neurologically Impaired Children, Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center. The clinic provides a diagnostic and educational therapy for neurologically impaired children. In addition to providing multidiscipline diagnostic evaluation, clinic services include operating classrooms for preschool and school-age children. The classrooms function for children with any type of neurologic impairment who are either excluded from school due to their delayed academic performance, their physical or developmental delay, emotional or behavior problems, or the severity of their condition. Having the classroom located in the Good Samaritan Hospital complex provides immediate access to medical assistance if it is required. Information derived from classroom observation is available to the child’s physician. This information is valuable in the medical management of these children and is particularly useful with children having intractable seizure disorders

Investing in Well-being: An Analytical Framework

The NZ Treasury is currently engaged in a project to identify cost-effective interventions to improve outcomes for children and young adults in order to maximise the value of government expenditures across the social sector. The central aim of this paper is to provide an empirically-robust framework to compare intervention across a range of social sectors. There are two key components to the framework. The first is a life-course view of child development that emphasises that experiences and influences in childhood can affect well-being throughout life. The second component involves viewing social expenditures as investments addressed at achieving particular outcomes, typically directed at enhancing well-being. The paper presents evidence from a review of the literature on how the process and experiences of childhood have a later impact on wellbeing; how child development and outcomes are influenced by individual, family and communal factors and how risk and resilience can be used to indicate that an individual is at increased or decreased risk of negative outcomes. Case studies of youth suicide, teenage pregnancy, educational underachievement and youth inactivity provide evidence about what interventions work using key empirical findings from the literature.Well-being; social investment; life-course; child development; child and adult outcomes; portfolio; intervention

Are Building Codes Effective at Saving Energy? Evidence from Residential Billing Data in Florida

In response to the 1973 oil embargo, many states began passing building energy codes in order to promote energy efficiency. While the vast majority of states have energy codes in place, policymakers are now attempting to legislate energy codes at the federal level to help address more recent concerns about energy efficiency and climate change. Nevertheless, surprisingly little is known about whether energy codes are an effective way to reduce energy consumption in practice. This paper provides the first evaluation of an energy-code change that uses residential billing data on both electricity and natural gas, combined with data on observable characteristics of each residence. The study takes place in Gainesville, Florida, and the empirical strategy is based on comparisons between residences constructed just before and just after Florida increased the stringency of its energy code in 2002. We find that the increased stringency of the energy code is associated with a 4-percent decrease in electricity consumption and a 6-percent decrease in natural-gas consumption. The pattern of savings is consistent with reduced consumption of electricity for air-conditioning and reduced consumption of natural gas for heating. We also estimate economic costs and benefits and find that the private payback period for the average residence is 6.4 years. The social payback period, which accounts for the avoided costs of air-pollution emissions, ranges between 3.5 and 5.3 years.

Effects of Spin Fluctuations in Quasi-One-Dimensional Organic Superconductors

We study the electronic states of quasi-one-dimensional organic conductors using the single band Hubbard model at half-filling. We treat the effects of the on-site Coulomb interaction by the fluctuation-exchange (FLEX) method, and calculate the phase diagram and physical properties. The calculated pressure dependence of the Neel temperature coincides well with the experimental one. We also show that a pseudogap is formed in the density of states near the chemical potential and that d-wave superconductivity appears next to the antiferromagnetic state. Moreover the NMR relaxation rate increases on cooling in the low-temperature region.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to apprear in J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Superconductivity and Density Wave in the Quasi-One-Dimensional Systems: Renormalization Group Study

The anisotropic superconductivity and the density wave have been investigated by applying the Kadanoff-Wilson renormalization group technique to the quasi-one-dimensional system with finite-range interactions. It is found that a temperature (T) dependence of response functions is proportional to exp(1/T) in a wide region of temperature even within the one-loop approximation. Transition temperatures are calculated to obtain the phase diagram of the quasi-one-dimensional system, which is compared with that of the pure-one-dimensional system. Next-nearest neighbor interactions (V_2) induce large charge fluctuations, which suppress the d_{x^2 -y^2}-wave singlet superconducting (dSS) state and enhance the f-wave triplet superconducting (fTS) state. From this effect, the transition temperature of fTS becomes comparable to that of dSS for large V_2, so that field-induced f-wave triplet pairing could be possible. These features are discussed to comprehend the experiments on the (TMTSF)_2PF_6 salt.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Spin-Density-Wave Phase Transitions in Quasi-One-Dimensional Dimerized Quarter-Filled Organic Conductors

We have studied spin density wave (SDW) phase transitions in dimerized quarter-filled Hubbard chains weakly coupled via interchain one-particle hopping, $t_{b0}$. It is shown that there exists a critical value of $t_{b0}$, $t_{b}^\ast$, between the incoherent metal regime ($t_{b0}<t_{b}^\ast$) and the Fermi liquid regime ($t_{b0}>t_{b}^\ast$) in the metallic phase above the SDW transition temperature. By using the 2-loop perturbative renormalization-group approach together with the random-phase-approximation, we propose a SDW phase diagram covering both of the regimes. The SDW phase transition from the incoherent metal phase for $t_{b0}<t_{b}^\ast$ is caused by growth of the intrachain electron-electron umklapp scattering toward low temperatures, which is regarded as preformation of the Mott gap. We discuss relevance of the present result to the SDW phase transitions in the quasi-one-dimensional dimerized quarter-filled organic conductors, (TMTTF)$_2$X and (TMTSF)$_2$X.Comment: 19 pages, 13 eps figures, uses jpsj.sty, corrected typo in the text and figures, no changes to the paper, to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 68, No.8 (1999

MAESTRI Toolkit for Industrial Symbiosis: overview, lessons learnt and implications

This paper presents a structured approach to support the development of self-organized industrial symbiosis, the Toolkit for Industrial Symbiosis. Developed within MAESTRI project, it provides a set of tools and methods to help companies gain value from wasted resources and contributes to MAESTRI goal of advancing the sustainability of European manufacturing and process industry. A participatory approach was taken for its development. The ultimate objective of this work is to encourage companies to change their attitude and consider waste as a resource and potential source for value creation