Service Delivery in Substance Abuse Treatment: Reexamining "Comprehensive" Care

Outlines findings on organizational characteristics linked with comprehensive services -- core diagnosis and treatment and wraparound services, including transportation and childcare assistance or legal, financial, employment, or medical resources

CAPITALIZATION OF FARMLAND PRESERVATION PROGRAMS INTO FARMLAND PRICES

This paper examines whether permanent farmland preservation programs are capitalized into farmland prices. We consider the landowner's decision to voluntarily participate and correct for sample selection bias in our estimation of sales prices. Initial results suggest development restrictions resulting from participation in these programs are fully capitalized into farmland prices.Demand and Price Analysis, Land Economics/Use,

FACTORS INFLUENCING PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURAL LAND PRESERVATION PROGRAMS

We analyze the factors influencing participation in Maryland's farmland preservation programs using data from a survey of agricultural landowners and spatial data on individual parcels. Factors influencing participation included distance from a major city, proximity to preserved parcels, length of family ownership, whether a child plan to continue farming and share of income from farming.Land Economics/Use,

"Fear" and Offshoring: The Scope and Potential Impact of Imports and Exports of Services

Commentators, including Princeton University's Alan Blinder, estimate 40 million jobs could be at risk of being offshored over the next 20 years and suggest American workers should specialize in services that can be delivered face-to-face. In contrast, Jensen and Kletzer expect the process of globalization in services will proceed much as it has in manufacturing: They estimate only 15-20 million jobs are at risk of being offshored to low-wage, labor-abundant countries; approximately 40 percent of these jobs will be in the manufacturing sector, long considered "at risk." They expect these losses to be offset by job gains in high-wage activities from services exporting. The United States will retain its comparative advantage in high-skill, high-wage production and increase these activities in tradable service industries as trade barriers diminish. While the loss of low-wage activities that are offshored and the gain from high-wage service exports will cause dislocation, the globalization of services production is likely to have productivity-enhancing effects similar to the impact of globalization in the manufacturing sector, offering significant potential to improve living standards in the United States and around the world.

Neighborhood school characteristics: what signals quality to homebuyers?

Popular wisdom and economic research suggest that the quality of the neighborhood school should be an important determinant of housing values. Many researchers have found that housing values are higher where school spending or student test scores are higher. However, few economists consider these characteristics good indicators of school quality. Meanwhile, no one has examined whether the economists' notion of school quality-the school's marginal effect on students-is a school characteristic that matters to homebuyers. ; Using a model of new home purchases and historical data on homes in the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), Kathy Hayes and Lori Taylor demonstrate that property values do reflect the characteristics of the neighborhood school. They present evidence that property values reflect student test scores but not school expenditures. Interestingly, they also find that the relationship between test scores and property values arises from an underlying relationship between property values and the marginal effects of schools. Thus, their analysis suggests that homebuyers and economists share the same definition of school quality.Education ; Property tax

Tradable Services: Understanding the Scope and Impact of Services Outsourcing

We develop a new empirical approach to identify tradable service activities. Contrary to conventional views of service activities as nontradable, we find a significant number of service industries and occupations that appear tradable and substantial employment in these tradable activities. Workers employed in tradable service activities differ from those employed in tradable manufacturing and nontradable services. Workers in tradable service activities have higher skill levels and are paid higher wages than manufacturing workers or workers in nontradable service activities. In general, we find little evidence that tradable service activities have lower employment growth than other service activities. However, evidence suggests lower employment growth at the lowest end of the skill distribution. There is also evidence of higher worker displacement rates in tradable services. Workers displaced from tradable service activities are different from displaced manufacturing workers: Displaced tradable service workers have higher skills and higher predisplacement earnings than displaced manufacturing workers.services, offshoring, trade, labor, information technology, jobs