IS NEW YORK CITY STILL PROPELLING GROWTH IN ITS SUBURBS?: A STUDY OF ECONOMIC SPILLOVER EFFECTS THROUGH SPATIAL CONTIGUITY

In this paper I investigate from a strict efficiency perspective whether or not New York City’s suburbs should be helping the city in its economic development efforts. By analyzing metropolitan New York City, I am able to take advantage of the area’s spatial size and the ready availability of a pool of economic data below the metropolitan level (counties). In particular I disaggregate New York City’s economy into three sectors and the suburban geography into three rings and four radial subregions. In the case of the employment equation, national city-based industry variables tended to have expected effects on suburban economic growth when they were significant at all. Greater articulation of the geography of analysis through the inclusion of fixed effects does change the nature of these findings slightly, however. More surprising was a swing in the direction of the influence on suburban economic growth of the City’s nonfinancial nonmanufacturing sector when the analysis was performed using earnings data. This differential effect is rationalized by the City’s ability to retain high-wage service workers who reside in the suburbs

Theories of practice and geography

Recent developments in theories of practice have seen place and space taken explicitly into account. In particular, THEODORE SCHATZKI’s ‘site ontology’ offers distinctive but as yet under-explored means of engaging with human geographies. By giving ontological priority to practices as constitutive of the social, this kind of practice theory provides an integrative conceptual framework that enables the analysis of diverse phenomena in relation to each other, over space and time, as they are constituted through practices. This article develops an outline agenda for bringing theories of practice, and particularly SCHATZKI’s ‘site ontology’, together with geographical inquiry. We elucidate this agenda through consideration of three contemporary preoccupations in human geography, comprising emotion, materiality and knowledge

Open Space Purchases, House Prices, and the Tax Base

This paper examines the effect of public acquisitions of open space on house prices and the municipal tax base. While a series of studies show that open space acquisitions raise values of nearby properties, no research to date appears to focus upon the effect of open space acquisitions upon local tax base. Existing studies focus on the effect of open space acreage on house prices. We examine the effect of open space expenditures on house prices at the municipal level. We find that a one-dollar increase in open space expenditures per housing unit is associated with average house prices that are about $13 higher and with a tax base that is about$15 lower per acre. Open space expenditures per housing unit also show a consistent positive effect on the percentage change in house prices over the period 1995-2000. However, we find no statistically significant effect from open space expenditures on the percentage change in the tax base over the period 1995-2000. Local funding (rather than state funding) for open space has a smaller impact on house prices but the effect is significant only in some specifications. Despite the negative effect of open space purchases on the tax base, we find that higher open space expenditures are associated with lower tax rates. In addition, we find that while higher tax rates are associated with a lower tax base, a larger tax base does depress tax rates. The percentage change in the general property tax rate over the period 1995-2000 shows a significant negative effect on the percentage change in the tax base per acre over the period.Open Space, Tax Base, Municipality, Tax Rate

Uncertain private benefits and the decision to go public

This paper focuses on the decision to go public when both seller and potential buyers have private benefits of control. The basic model by Zingales (1995) is extended to account for uncertainty of private benefits. This leads to new implications for the sales process, ownership structure, measurement of private benefits and the efficiency of takeover regimes. The optimal way to sell the company differs from the model with perfect information in that the incumbent always choses to go public instead of selling directly to a potential rival whenever the rival is expected to increase cash flow but not necessarily total firm value. IPO price and volume are lower than under perfect information which induces a socially non-optimal solution in takeover transactions. Imperfect information also explains post-IPO underperformance of firms which are not subject to control transfers. To compensate shareholders for potential losses during the sales process, the offering price has to be lower than under perfect information. This provides the basis for a differential stock price performance depending on the buyer taking over or not. Furthermore, an overestimation bias exists in prior estimates of control premiums, because some firms going public are never sold but nevertheless provide private benefits. Finally, mandatory tender offers in the form of a fair price rule and an equal opportunity rule are discussed, which indicate that the social superiority of either rule is strongly dependent on the empirical distribution characteristics of private benefits. --initial public offerings (IPOs),corporate control,private benefits,long-run performance,mandatory bid

Towards a More Holistic Understanding of American Support for Genetically Modified Crops: An Examination of Influential Factors Using a Binomial Dependent Variable

This paper is an investigation into the relative importance of a wide variety of factors in influencing whether members of the American public support or oppose the use of biotechnology in agriculture and food production. To accomplish this end, as well as to facilitate the examination of a large number of independent variables simultaneously, several statistical methods, including factor analyses, instrumental variables analysis, and probit and logistic regressions were performed. It was determined that people’s perceptions of risks and moral acceptability were important contributors to opinion formation in this regard. The effects of expected benefits, feelings of trust in information, and knowledge about biotechnology and genetics, were also investigated and found to exert varying levels of influence depending on the identity of the expected beneficiary or information source, as well as the kind of knowledge under consideration. The roles of religious and political party affiliation were also examined and determined to be significant.genetically modified foods, biotechnology, public opinion

Expression of the neural cell adhesion NCAM in endocrine cells of the ovary

In the adult mammalian ovary morphogenesis and differentiation processes are under hormonal control and, thus, occur in a highly regulated way during the sexual cycle. Cell-cell interactions, such as cell adhesion and cell separation, are crucial during these events. Here we show that the ovarian endocrine cells, which are prototypes of steroid-producing cells, express neural cell adhesion molecules (NCAMs). The combined use of in situ hybridization histochemistry, immunocytochemistry at the light and electron microscope levels, S1 nuclease protection assays, and Western blotting revealed that in the ovary of the adult rat during the estrus cycle and pregnancy, NCAM mRNA and the 140-kDa isoform of this protein are expressed mainly in granulosa cells of growing preantral and antral follicles and in corpora lutea. Since the granulosa cells lining the forming antrum and the antral fluid were strongly immunoreactive, a role for NCAM in the formation of the follicular antrum is proposed. The expression of NCAM was also associated with luteal cells of the active corpus luteum, indicating a role for NCAM in the morphogenesis of this endocrine compartment. Moreover, thecal cells of large follicles and hypertrophic thecal cells of atretic follicles expressed NCAM, as did interstitial cells, which are derived from thecal cells of atretic follicles. We propose that the adhesion molecule, NCAM, is an important factor involved in the recognition and intercellular interaction of ovarian endocrine cells and, thus, participates in the regulation of the cyclic remodeling processes of the ovarian endocrine compartment

Biproportional Techniques in Input-Output Analysis: Table Updating and Structural Analysis

This paper is dedicated to the contributions of Sir Richard Stone, Michael Bacharach, and Philip Israilevich. It starts out with a brief history of biproportional techniques and related matrix balancing algorithms. We then discuss the RAS algorithm developed by Sir Richard Stone and others. We follow that by evaluating the interpretability of the product of the adjustment parameters, generally known as R and S. We then move on to discuss the various formal formulations of other biproportional approaches and discuss what defines an algorithm as “biproportionalâ€. After mentioning a number of competing optimization algorithms that cannot fall under the rubric of being biproportional, we reflect upon how some of their features have been included into the biproportional setting (the ability to fix the value of interior cells of the matrix being adjusted and of incorporating data reliability into the algorithm). We wind up the paper by pointing out some areas that could use further investigation.Input-Output Economics; RAS; data raking; iterative proportional fitting; estimating missing data

Interregiona;Decomposition of labor productivity differences in China, 1987-1997

The literature on regional disparities in China is both broad and deep. Nonetheless much of its focus has been on the effects of trade liberalization and national policies toward investment in interior provinces. Few pieces have examined whether the disparities might simply be due to differences in industry mix, final demand, or even interregional trade. Using multiregional input-output tables and disaggregated employment data, we decompose change in labor productivity growth for seven regions of China between 1987 and 1997 into five partial effects—changes in value added coefficients, direct labor requirements, aggregate production mix, interregional trade, and final demand. Subsequently we summarize the contributions to labor productivity of the different factors at the regional level. In this way, we present a new perspective for recent causes of China’s interregional disparity in GDP per worker.Decomposition; input-output analysis; productivity; regional disparity; China