Using Drew Carey in the Classroom

This teaching note describes how to use Drew Carey’s short public policy documentaries in the classroom, and as part of a writing assignment for an introductory microeconomics class. Students are challenged to identify the core microeconomic concepts that are relevant to real-world policy matters, including healthcare, immigration and jobs

ECON 1B: Microeconomics Course Redesign

Poster summarizing course redesign activities for ECON 1B: Microeconomics.https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/davinci_itcr2014/1005/thumbnail.jp

Benefit-Cost Analysis for Transportation Planning and Public Policy: Towards Multimodal Demand Modeling

This report examines existing methods of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in two areas, transportation policy and transportation planning, and suggests ways of modifying these methods to account for travel within a multimodal system. Although the planning and policy contexts differ substantially, this report shows how important multimodal impacts can be incorporated into both by using basic econometric techniques and even simpler rule-of-thumb methods. Case studies in transportation planning focus on the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), but benchmark California’s competencies by exploring methods used by other states and local governments. The report concludes with a list and discussion of recommendations for improving transportation planning models and methods. These will have immediate use to decision makers at Caltrans and other state DOTs as they consider directions for developing new planning capabilities. This project also identifies areas, and lays groundwork, for future research. Finally, by fitting the planning models into the broader context of transportation policy, this report will serve as a resource for students and others who wish to better understand BCA and its use in practice

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

Intellectual Property and Antitrust Limits on Contract: Comment

In their chapter in Dynamic Competition and Public Policy (2001, Cambridge University Press), Burtis and Kobayashi never defined their model\u27s discount rate, making replicating their simulation results difficult. Through our own simulations, we were able to verify their results when using a discount rate of 0.10. We also identified two new types of equilibria that the authors overlooked, doubling the number of distinct equilibria in the model

Analyzing the Potential of Hybrid and Electric Off-Road Equipment in Reducing Carbon Emissions from Construction Industries

This report quantifies the likely impact recent improvements in emissions technology in the heavy construction equipment fleet will have on national and state-level carbon emissions from construction industries. Specific technologies examined in this report include hybrid and electric-powered off-road equipment. Innovation in the equipment manufacturing industry, and adoption of innovative technology by construction firms, is driven by a wide range of factors, some of which can be influenced by public policy. Therefore, this paper describes policies available to public decision makers at the local, state and national levels that impact equipment use and development decisions, including those that encourage the use of green equipment in government procurement, local level job site emissions regulations, and state and nationally mandated emissions standards, fuel taxes, and direct research subsidies

Firm and industry effects in accounting versus economic profit data

This article presents estimates of firm and industry fixed-effects on profit rates for large US corporations, using both Economic Value Added (EVA), the popular measure of profits produced by Stern Stewart and Company, as well as simple (unadjusted) accounting measures as the dependent variable. We find that the improvement in explanatory power of the fixed-effect model is substantially greater when using EVA than has been documented with alternative measures

The Persistence of Accounting versus Economic Profit

Drawing on Schumpeterian theory, this article presents estimates of a first-order autoregressive model of profit persistence for large US firms, using Economic Value Added (EVA), the popular measure of profits produced by Stern Stewart and Company, and simple (unadjusted) accounting measures from the Compustat database. We hypothesize about the differences we should expect to find between these two sets of estimates, and also provide a fresh normative assessment of the dynamic competitiveness of the US economy

Outsourcing in U.S. Cities, Ambulances and Elderly Voters

Many of the largest cities in the United States outsource emergency medical services. This paper develops a political economy model of city service provision. Empirical analysis of emergency ambulances in the 200 largest U.S. cities finds that a number of variables are significant determinants of amblu- ance outsourcing, including the fraction of a city\u27s voters over the age of 65. This finding provides evidence that interest-group politics are important, and suggests a particular shape of the contracting cost curve