Telecommunications, the Transition from Regulation to Antitrust

In recognition of the fact that the competition among telecommunications platforms that demands deregulation is not ubiquitously effective, I endorse and expatiate on the objective 'bright line' test proposed by the Canadian company TELUS for determining when and within what geographic market boundaries to deregulate. In accordance with that test, I then discuss the nature of the antitrust policy upon which falls responsibility for preserving the competition that is the logical surrogate for direct regulation. Following the rule of reason prescribed by the United States Supreme Court 95 years ago, I would have that policy concentrate on the behavior of the incumbent access providers and the intent that may logically be inferred from it. Finally, applying the two preceding expositions to the highly politically charged, largely ideological demands for a legislatively imposed rule of "network neutrality," I contend that if the two previously recommended policies are followed, such a legislative mandate would be both supererogatory and counterproductive.Technology and Industry, Regulatory Reform

Network Neutrality

Much of the advocacy of legislatively-mandated network neutrality is based on a simple fallacy, namely, that differing charges to suppliers of content to the Internet for correspondingly differing speeds of delivery are inherently discriminatory. They are not; and an attempt to prohibit them would prevent the Internet's offering a full range of services, with widely diverging tolerances for latency. Preservation of the open end-to-end character of the Internet may well, however, require vigilant prohibition of vertical squeezes and other unfair methods of competition and authority of an antitrust agency to compel interconnections.

California Voting and Suburbanization Patterns: Implications for Transit Policy, MTI Report 12-05

Public transit is an environmentally friendly transportation mode that usually focuses on transporting people within and to the city center. However, over the last 60 years, population and employment has been suburbanizing. As the median voter lives further from the city center, and thus enjoys fewer benefits from accessing public transit, does this reduce such a voter’s propensity to support public investment in public transit improvements? We analyze voting patterns on 20 transit-related ballot propositions from state-wide elections in California between 1990 and 2010. Controlling for demographic, socio-economic and political ideological factors, we focus on the role of suburbanization as a possible causal factor in determining public support for public transit investment. The results provide a rich picture of the attitudes towards transportation policy among California voters, and will help policy makers to better understand citizen preferences and to better predict how future trends will shift support towards or against transit. Finally, we suggest ways policy makers can use urban land markets to increase support for trans

The Impact of Center City Economic and Cultural Vibrancy on Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Transportation, Research Report 11-13

Urban planners and scholars have focused a great deal of attention on understanding the relationship between the built environment and transportation behavior. However, other aspects of the urban environment – including the vibrancy and quality of life in urban areas – have received little attention. This report seeks to close this gap by analyzing the effects of both land-use and urban vibrancy on transportation patterns. Analysis of data from a variety of sources suggests that in addition to the built-environment, the vibrancy of the urban environment also affects transportation behavior. Moreover, vibrancy affects land-use patterns. By integrating objective measures of center-city quality of life into transportation choice models, our new statistical results inform public policy. We discuss specific public policy options for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing public transit use

Estimating Housing Demand with an Application to Explaining Racial Segregation in Cities

We present a three-stage estimation procedure to recover willingness to pay for housing attributes. In the first stage, we estimate a non-parametric hedonic home price function. Second, we recover each consumer's taste parameters for product characteristics using first order conditions for utility maximization. Finally, we estimate the distribution of household tastes as a function of household demographics. As an application of our methods, we compare alternative explanations for why blacks choose to live in center cities while whites suburbanize.

EXPERIMENTAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC POWER GENERATOR UNDER DC ARC PLASMA

The generation of electric power through the conventional systems (thermal and hydroelectric) is no longer sufficient to meet the increasing industrial and commercial usage. Therefore, an alternative energy conversion system is currently being sought. The aim of the presented study is to develop a direct energy conversion system (Magnetohydrodynamics, MHD generator) to generate electric power using plasma. Additionally, the generator electric response is investigated based on the Faraday’s principle of electromagnetism and fluid dynamics. For this purpose, a rectangular MHD generator prototype with segmented electrodes was constructed and subjected to continuous plasma from a DC arc source at test facilities available in the Western Cape region (South Africa). Subsequently, the terminal voltages at the middle-electrodes were measured one after another across 1, 100 and 470 Ω load resistors. In all experiments, the absolute time-averages of the measured terminal voltage across each load resistor were similar, which indicates a generation of power. The maximum power of the order 0.203mW was obtained when 1 Ω resistor was connected to the middle-electrodes. Conclusively, these results validate the measurement approach of the MHD generator with segmented electrodes and could be used to design a large MHD unit that can be incorporated to the existing conventional thermal plant to improve their cyclic thermal efficiency

From John Lindsay to Rudy Giuliani: the decline of the local safety net?

This paper was presented at the conference "Unequal incomes, unequal outcomes? Economic inequality and measures of well-being" as part of session 4, "Economic inequality and local public services." The conference was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on May 7, 1999. The authors contend that the future scope of city-based redistributive policies is limited. An important way in which policymakers work to reduce inequality is by redistributing income from the wealthy to the poor, channeling income tax revenue into spending on welfare and other services. The authors suggest, however, that New York City and other cities have had to scale back their redistributive policies. New York City's evolution from a manufacturing city to a service city accounts for more than one-third of the reduction in redistribution, because businesses in the service sector are more mobile and are therefore harder to tax than those in manufacturing. In addition, the authors document a more general decline in the relationship between land area and redistribution. In 1970, cities with greater land area tended to redistribute more income, but by 1990, this connection was no longer evident. The authors attribute this change to an erosion in the market power of large cities and observe that increased mobility and the existence of edge cities have contributed to a decline in the monopoly power once enjoyed by large cities.Public policy ; Public welfare ; Income distribution ; Income

Decentralized Employment and the Transformation of the American City

This paper examines the decentralization of employment using zip code data on employment by industry. Most American cities are decentralized--on average less than 16 percent of employment in metropolitan areas is within a three mile radius of the city center. In decentralized cities, the classic stylized facts of urban economics (i. e. prices fall with distance to the city center, commute time rise with distance and poverty falls with distance)no longer hold. Decentralization is most common in manufacturing and least common in services. The human capital level of an industry predicts its centralization, but the dominant factor explaining decentralization is the residential preferences of workers. Political borders also impact employment density which suggests that local government policies significantly influence the location of industry.