Socio-Demographic Dynamics and Household Demand

This paper investigates the impact of changes in socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic characteristics of households on their expenditure pattern in the United States. Using Consumer Expenditure Survey dat a, it is found that the major item of expenditure, i.e., owner-occupied housing, depends only on household income. The price variables like education of the household, and taste variables like race, are observed to influence expenditures on more items than other observed characteristics of age, size, and region of location. Female employment increases expenditures on time-saving products like restaurant meals and child care at the expense of time-using items.

Protection of marine resources: the US Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the future of the maritime industry

Media coverage of 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in US coastal waters enhanced public awareness of marine pollution and made Alaskan natural resources valuable for more individuals. Consequently, political pressures led the US Congress to enact comprehensive legislation - the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA90), with the aim of reducing the number and the volume of accidental oil spills and also minimizing damage to marine and coastal natural resources. A methodology is proposed which incorporates the impact of oil pollution regulations, public awareness, navigational risk and oil spills on the cost of oil transfer to maritime industry. Estimated benefit-cost ratios of OPA90 regulations such as the double hull requirement and vessel response plans are found to be less than one even when natural resources are valued at post-Exxon Valdez levels.

DETERMINANTS OF CAPITAL FLIGHT FROM ARGENTINA, BRAZIL, AND MEXICO

This paper derives four alternative measures of "hot money" outflows of capital from Latin America's three major debtors-Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. These measures are based on two sources of quarterly data from 1977 to 1986: (i) the balance of payments statistics and (ii) changes in the U.S. bank deposits of non-banking entities in the debtor countries. The portfolio adjustment model then is used to specify the factors influencing capital flight. These factors are grouped into two types. The push factors relate to characteristics of the so-called source countries for capital flight and include the interest and inflation rates, the degree of currency overvaluation, and the environmental risks embodied in both frequent regime changes and the onset of the 1982 debt crisis. The pull factors include the interest and inflation rates in the host country, the United States. The principal findings of the paper show that the push factors alone are significant in explaining capital outflows from Argentina and Brazil. For Mexico, by contrast, the push factors as well as the pull factors are found to be relevant in explaining the behavior of flight capital, as measured by changes in the deposits of Mexican non-bank entities in the U.S. banking system. Copyright 1989 Western Economic Association International.

NEIGHBORHOOD DYNAMICS AND PRICE EFFECTS OF SUPERFUND SITE CLEAN-UP

Numerous hedonic price analyses estimate price effects associated with hazardous waste site remediation or other environmental variation. This paper estimates a neighborhood transition model to capture the direct price effect from Superfund site clean-up and the indirect price effects arising from residential sorting and changes in investment in the housing stock following clean-up. First-difference models of neighborhood change and a national sample are used. This approach fails to find consistent positive direct price effects. Positive indirect effects, however, may arise through residential sorting and neighborhood investment spurred by remediation. The findings can be sensitive to policy endogeneity and model specification. Copyright Blackwell Publishing, Inc. 2007