What Caused the Tucker Automobile Corporation to Fail?

The mystery surrounding the rise and fall of the Tucker automobile company remains a fascinating piece of U.S. automotive history for both historians and economists. Francis Ford Coppola’s 1988 movie Tucker: The Man and His Dream brought to life the difficulties Preston Tucker faced as he tried to start producing a car years ahead of its time. The movie is captivating because it attributes the collapse of the Tucker Corporation to public choice theory. Despite the movie’s portrayal of an alliance between the automobile industry and the S.E.C. to bring down the Tucker Company, historians have found no evidence of a conspiracy. Rather, the collapse of the Tucker Corporation can be attributed to two problems. First, lack of financial planning and refusal to utilize conventional loans scared away venture capital. Second, the S.E.C.’s determination that preselling car features was illegal left the Tucker Corporation financially bankrupt

The Effects of College Education on Career Earnings in the NBA

The purpose of our research is to investigate whether the high school basketball player is better off attending or forgoing his college career to enter the NBA directly out of high school. We measure better off\u27 by total salary earned in the first ten years of a player\u27s NBA career. Using both OLS and a Heckit model, to control for possible sample selection bias, our results suggest that although college is an investment period for athletes, rational athletes do understand the opportunity cost of each year spent in college, with the most talented players forgoing their college education altogether

“Why Are You Still Out There?” Persistence among Deep Rural Communities in the Northern Plains

In the face of on-going population loss and despite all dire warnings to the contrary, the clear persistence of certain rural communities continues in unexpected areas of the Great Plains. It is this persistence that is becoming the most difficult element to explain. Thus, this paper turns the traditional research question on its head and asks why some deep rural communities endure. As a result, we introduce a new concept in rural studies-community persistence-and, consequently, we advance a theoretical model to explain why some communities survive without natural amenities or adjacency to a metropolis. Our concept of persistence attempts to answer the question, why are you still out there? when most of society has given up on deep rural populations. We offer a sharp distinction between community persistence and the much-discussed concept of community sustainability. Moreover, our theory incorporates place-based sociological, economic and political factors associated with community persistence. In particular, our integrated theory suggests that persistent communities develop dense social networks, high human capital and deliberative civic engagement so that these towns stood out from the crowded field of contenders for sub-regional prominence. Since we are embarking on a long-term investigation about deep rural communities, this paper offers a preliminary analysis using existing data sources. Our unit of analysis is the county and our sample includes all deep rural counties in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. We employ two measures of persistence: per capita income and civilian labor force. Both our initial analysis of the ten most persistent counties and a more rigorous test of the entire sample indicate a high proportion of college graduates, high population density, and competitive political parties are most closely associated with persistent communities. Our findings suggest that a broad mix of social, economic, and political factors are essential to community persistence in deep rural areas. We connect our findings to rural development policy efforts and also discuss avenues for future studies that build on our theory

Rent Gradient of a College Town

Metropolitan areas exhibit a rent gradient based on the distance from the Central Business District (CBD). By contrast to metropolitan models, Brookings, SD, is a traditional college town and home to South Dakota State University. The city also has a vibrant business district located on Main Avenue. Based on model construction from previous research, data gathered from rental units in Brookings were analyzed and compared. According to the empirical results, a rent gradient exists around campus rather than the traditional CBD