earnings effects of labor organizations in 1890 analyzing data from extensive surveys of u s nonfarm families in 1889 90 predominantly families from eastern states the authors of this paper show that workers affiliated with labor organizations had earnings that were 22 percent higher than the earnings of other workers an effect comparable in magnitude to estimates for modern unions wage differentials varied considerably across the eight industries studied and across skill levels within each industry

hedonic price estimation of variable urban air quality abstract this paper investigates the validity of the hypothesis that the appropriate specification of the hedonic function should use mean levels of environmental quality a test of the mean specification is constructed by estimating a hedonic equation with the probabilities of various levels of environmental quality entered as independent variables the test indicates rejection of the mean specification the results imply that benefit estimates based on the traditional mean model are likely to be biased and that efforts to improve the accuracy of hedonic methods should consider more complete measures of environmental quality

the 1990s rise in swedish earnings inequality persistent or transitory this article decomposes the rise in the cross sectional variance of male annual earnings in sweden between 1991 and 1999 into its persistent and transitory components the results show that the persistent component accounts for basically all of the increase in earnings dispersion this implies that the answer to the 1990s trend reversal in swedish earnings inequality is to be found in explanations that focus on persistent changes in the labour market such as changes in the price of skills

taxes and bank capital structure this paper shows that a reduction in tax discrimination between debt and equity funding leads to better capitalized financial institutions the paper exploits exogenous variation in the tax treatment of debt and equity created by the introduction of a tax shield for equity the results demonstrate that a more equal treatment of debt and equity increases bank capital ratios driven by an increase in common equity the change also leads to a significant reduction in risk taking for ex ante low capitalized banks overall the findings suggest that tax shields could be a valuable and innovative policy tool for bank regulators

job polarization and task biased technological change evidence from sweden 1975 2005 this paper shows that between 1975 and 2005 sweden exhibited a pattern of job polarization with expansions of the highest and lowest paid jobs compared to middle wage jobs the most popular explan

rewards to academia the remuneration of vice chancellors and principals this paper models the financial remuneration to vice chancellors and principals at uk higher education institutions after describing the alternative theoretical underpinnings for the determination of pay an earnings function is estimated utilizing institutional and personal characteristics the model suggests only a partial linkage of managerial and performance related indicators to remuneration levels this suggests substantial scope for reorientation of rewards towards such indicators rather than relying on an efficiency wage this would appear particularly appropriate given the present and continued disclosure of this information together with the increased focus on performance indicators relating to teaching and research within the uk higher education sector

estimating the implicit price of energy efficiency improvements in the residential housing market a hedonic approach abstract in this study a hedonic price model has been used to examine the impact which efficiency improvements have on housing values our study represents an improvement over a previous attempt to examine this issue in that the independent variable used in our analysis is designed to reflect variation in structural efficiency levels among sample homes rather than variation in occupant lifestyles and preferences in addition a flexible functional form is used to prevent bias due to misspecification of the hedonic price equation the study results reveal that efficiency improvements are capitalized into housing prices in des moines iowa at the average efficiency level of homes in the sample an efficiency improvement which results in a 1 decrease in the level of expenditures necessary to maintain the house at 65 f in the average heating season will increase the expected selling price of the house by 11 63 the premium obtained for an equivalent efficiency improvement will be greater than 11 63 in a relatively efficient home and less than 11 63 in a relatively inefficient home without further information concerning the price expectations and discount rates utilized by des moines home buyers and the average remaining life of fuels saving investments in the sample it cannot be determined whether the housing market is pricing fuel savings efficiently regardless of whether or not the implicit price of fuel savings is the outcome of an efficient market information on this implicit price facilitates the estimation of an average resale value of fuel saving investments in addition the results of this study refute the hypothesis that efficiency improving investments are not capitalized into housing prices

towards a new trade policy between the usa and middle east countries estimating trade resistance and export potential at the time of the conclusion of free trade areas ftas between the usa and middle east and north african mena countries there is a lack of literature concerning the measurement of the current us export position with regards to these countries and the us export potential in this area from recent developments of gravity models this paper derives an estimable equation which includes various trade resistance variables notably border effects multilateral resistance as well as specific bilateral effects the model is tested in order to scrutinise the impact of these variables on us exports to mena countries as well as the us export potential in this area to that end a selection of panel data specifications is proposed mainly hausman and taylor models as well as arellano and bond dynamic models results unambiguously indicate that as compared to the other oecd countries the usa suffers from a substantial trade integration deficit with mena countries this is reflected by the strongly negative values of the us mena bilateral fixed effects as well as the high bilateral border effects in addition the estimated actual potential us export ratio to these countries is only 0 76 therefore implementing an fta between the usa and mena countries may allow the former to progressively improve its export position in this area this would also help mena countries diversify their supplying sources

estimating the demand for protecting freshwater lakes from eutrophication in any discussion of the valuation of public goods particularly environmental amenities contingent valuation travel cost and hedonics are commonly cited as methods for estimating hicksian or marshallian welfare freeman while contingent valuation and travel cost are widely employed we know of very few applications where hedonic demand functions have been estimated palmquist 1984 and parsons estimated second stage hedonic demands for characteristics of housing units both used the approach of estimating separate hedonic price functions for different real estate markets to identify demand parameters for housing characteristics the research reported here is the first to use separate real estate markets to identify demand parameters for an environmental amenity the specific application is water clarity in selected lakes in maine reduced water

do corporations sell houses for less a test of housing market efficiency this paper examines the popular notion that houses sold by corporations as a part of the employee relocation process sell at a discount we argue that such discounts conradict the notion of an efficient market in which indentical houses have the same expected sales price we test for corporate individual owned house price homogeneity using data from a metropolitan area in the us the evidence supports our single price hypothesis corporate houses do not sell for less than they would if sold by individuals

riparian buffers and hedonic prices a quasi experimental analysis of residential property values in the neuse river basin riparian buffers the strips of vegetation along banks of rivers and streams have been proposed as a key instrument to protect water quality in the united states riparian buffers impose a restriction on the use of private property limiting harvest and development but buffers can also provide for aesthetic and recreational benefits that may accrue to property owners with data from the neuse river basin in north carolina this study attempts to provide empirical evidence on the effect of a mandatory buffer rule on the value of riparian properties spatial autoregressive hedonic models are estimated within a quasi experimental framework using the imposition of the buffer rule as the treatment and nonriparian properties as a control group results indicate that a riparian property generally commands a high premium we find no evidence however that the mandatory buffer rule has had a significant impact on riparian property values when compared with the control group copyright 2009 oxford university press

externality effects of small scale hazardous waste sites evidence from urban commercial property markets abstract studies have found that severely contaminated properties such as those on the u s epa s national priority list npl reduce the value of nearby single family homes however the vast majority of hazardous waste sites hws are not so severely contaminated as those on the npl we also know little about hws effects on other land uses such as commercial and industrial properties which may be of greater interest since these properties are more likely to be located near contaminated sites using data for atlanta georgia hws are found to negatively affect the market value of nearby commercial and industrial properties although none of the hws in this study are on the npl their impacts are estimated to be quite substantial in magnitude estimates of the total value losses caused by many of the sites are sufficiently large relative to the cost of remediation to justify tax increment financing as a clean up option

the inefficiency of bitcoin revisited a dynamic approach abstract this letter revisits the informational efficiency of the bitcoin market in particular we analyze the time varying behavior of long memory of returns on bitcoin and volatility 2011 until 2017 using the hurst exponent our results are twofold first r s method is prone to detect long memory whereas dfa method can discriminate more precisely variations in informational efficiency across time second daily returns exhibit persistent behavior in the first half of the period under study whereas its behavior is more informational efficient since 2014 finally price volatility measured as the logarithmic difference between intraday high and low prices exhibits long memory during all the period this reflects a different underlying dynamic process generating the prices and volatility

water quality and cottage prices in ontario we use hedonic analysis to show that water clarity has a significant effect on lakefront property values in the near north ontario canada in this study water clarity is measured by secchi disc reading based on two different dependent variables sales price and sales price per square foot and the estimation of linear log linear and log log models we find that water clarity does matter to lakefront property buyers in the near north ontario in particular our results indicate that buyers are willing to pay about 2 more for each 1 foot increase in water clarity or secchi depth this finding is consistent across all of our specifications

solving the phosphorus pollution puzzle synthesis and directions for future research despite the success of efforts to reduce phosphorus p pollution from point sources p from non point agricultural sources remains a vexing problem with many u s water bodies having impairments key to solving the p pollution puzzle is to take stock of progress to date the puzzle pieces available and the gaps to be filled in this paper we synthesize the state of knowledge on p pollution discuss the state of existing public programs and review economists contributions to informing p pollution policies we review the water quality valuation literature identifying limitations in the linkages to policy relevant environmental quality metrics we examine how and why p is used agriculturally along with recent advances in market based policy design and field testing we survey new knowledge in biology and engineering including improved understanding of the fate and transport of p in light of recent learning and persistent knowledge gaps we recommend directions for economic research to add needed pieces to the puzzle of how to protect our water bodies puzzle gaps meriting attention include mechanisms to target public funds more effectively in voluntary abatement programs policy design for emerging mitigation technologies new ways to implement performance based policies means to leverage social norms and behavioral cues changes in the pay the polluter paradigm and application of state of the art evaluation methods to conservation programs beyond the realm of public policy lies that of private supply chains where establishment of environmental standards holds additional promise rich research opportunities exist for economists in tandem with biologists engineers and others

income inequality in the united states 1913 1998 this paper presents new homogeneous series on top shares of income and wages from 1913 to 1998 in the united states using individual tax returns data top income and wages shares display a u shaped pattern over the century our series suggest that the large shocks that capital owners experienced during the great depression and world war ii have had a permanent effect on top capital incomes we argue that steep progressive income and estate taxation may have prevented large fortunes from fully recovering from these shocks top wage shares were flat before world war ii dropped precipitously during the war and did not start to recover before the late 1960s but are now higher than before world war ii as a result the working rich have replaced the rentiers at the top of the income distribution

labour productivity in the british and south wales coal industry 1874 1914 naked to the waist hot and grimy with labour they squatted on their heels for a few minutes and talked seeing each other dimly by the light of the safety lamps while the black coal rose jutting around them and the props of wood stood like little pillars in the low black very dark temple the day passed pleasantly enough there was an ease a go asyou please about the day underground a delightful camaraderie of men shut off alone from the rest of the world in a dangerous place and a variety of labour holing loading timbering and a glamour of mystery and adventure in the atmosphere d h lawrence 1955 the above quote from d h lawrence while perhaps over emphasizing glamour and adventure illustrates one important aspect of colliery work the intensity of a collier s effort was primarily self imposed it was the work intensity combined with other factors that determined labour productivity in the coal mines a number of articles have addressed the problem of labour productivity in coalmining during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries two of the most important being a j taylor s 1961 examination of productivity and technological change in britain and r h walters 1975 analysis of the same topic for south wales 1 in addition there is a rich and growing literature on the broader problem of the existence of a climacteric a downward shift in the performance of the british economy in the late nineteenth century often attributed to the failure of british entrepreneurs as represented by their seeming unwillingness to adopt the best available techniques of production 2 the purpose of this paper is to specify and estimate an empirical model of labour productivity in coalmining as well as to provide some suggestive evidence regarding the performance of entrepreneurs in this major industry 3 we believe our results provide added insight into the determination of labour productivity during this period lending support to those who argue that the failure of british entrepreneurs has yet to be proved while providing mixed evidence regarding conclusions drawn by economic historians

decentralized efficiency arbitrage in bitcoin markets using tick level bitcoin data from february 2013 through april 2018 we show substantial arbitrage spreads between global bitcoin markets spreads follow multiple consistent patterns minimum and m

the inefficiency of bitcoin bitcoin has received much attention in the media and by investors in recent years although there remains scepticism and a lack of understanding of this cryptocurrency we add to the literature on bitcoin by studying the market efficiency of bitcoin through a battery of robust tests evidence reveals that returns are significantly inefficient over our full sample but when we split our sample into two subsample periods we find that some tests indicate that bitcoin is efficient in the latter period therefore we conclude that bitcoin in an inefficient market but may be in the process of moving towards an efficient market

the demonstration and capture of the value of an ecosystem service a quasi experimental hedonic property analysis water management can generate valuable ecosystem services but can be costly to implement we examine this issue using irrigation water storage infrastructure which has the potential to provide desirable services to residential properties affected by the condition of the storage structure we examine a particular prairie setting where concerns regarding fluctuations in water levels of an irrigation storage lake led to an agreement between the irrigation agency and the owners of properties around the lake to stabilize water levels using quasi experimental hedonic property approaches with two different control groups we estimate the subsequent impact of this agreement on shoreline property values using a time series of sales data the methods utilized in this article represent an effective approach to produce plausible estimates of some of the economic values captured by the infrastructure generating ecosystem services we find that property values increased as a result of the agreement and that the additional property tax revenues arising from these values can be used to some extent to offset the annual service fees paid to the irrigation agency to provide the stabilized lake levels this article illustrates the potential for irrigation infrastructure management to provide increases in ecosystem service values beyond irrigation and also that these values can be captured to pay for the costs of providing these increased values

paying for mitigation a multiple country study a contingent valuation study conducted in china sweden and the united states was used to investigate citizens willingness to pay wtp for reducing co2 emissions we find that a majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase the share of americans that believes these statements is smaller and a relatively larger share of americans also believes that nothing can be done to stop climate change sweden has the highest wtp while china has the lowest jel q51 q54

price discovery of cryptocurrencies bitcoin and beyond abstract academic research on cryptocurrencies is almost exclusively directed towards bitcoin we extend existing literature by performing various tests on efficiency of several cryptocurrencies and additionally link efficiency to measures of liquidity cryptocurrencies become less predictable inefficient as liquidity increases

when quality signals talk evidence from the turin hotel industry abstract this study analyzes the relationship between quality signals and price setting through the application of hedonic price functions the model proposals also include variables relating to land use policies and tourism development strategies a simultaneous equation model endogenously estimates quality signals this method is appropriate for analyzing emerging urban destinations as characterized by the presence of an expanding hotel industry the results are based on a dataset of 145 hotels in turin italy the empirical findings reveal that reputation based quality signals help explain tariff levels price proposals also include a premium for quality assured hotels defining some limits of the current hotel classification system the empirical evidence has significant marketing implications for the hospitality industry s competitiveness since the results clarify the impact of quality signals on price level

the welfare state in transition reforming the swedish model acknowledgments introduction richard b freeman robert topel birgitta swedenborg 1 generating equality and eliminating poverty the swedish way anders bjorklund richard b freeman 2 public employment taxes and the welfare state in sweden sherwin rosen 3 tax policy in sweden erik norrman charles e mclure jr 4 wage policy and restructuring the swedish labor market since 1960 per anders edin robert topel 5 the effects of sweden s welfare state on labor supply incentives thomas aronsson james r walker 6 an evaluation of the swedish active labor market policy new and received wisdom anders forslund alan b krueger 7 taxes and subsidies in swedish unemployment lars ljungqvist thomas j sargent 8 the social costs of regulation and lack of competition in sweden a summary stefan folster sam peltzman 9 industrial policy employer size and economic performance in sweden steven j davis magnus henrekson 10 a heckscher ohlin view of sweden competing in the global marketplace edward e leamer per lundborg contributors author index subject index

valuing water quality as a function of water quality measures employing a unique and rich data set of water quality attributes in conjunction with detailed household characteristics and trip information we develop a mixed logit model of recreational lake usage and undertake thorough model specification and fitting procedures to identify the best set of explanatory variables and their functional form for the estimated model our empirical analysis shows that individuals are responsive to the full set of water quality measures used by biologists to identify the impaired status of lakes thus changes in these quality measures are not simply a scientific exercise but they also translate into changes in the recreational usage patterns and well being of individual households willingness to pay wtp estimates are reported based on improvements in these physical measures

the charity of the extremely wealthy our experience worldwide is that first generation wealth is actually more generous than dynastic wealth both here in india and u s and other countries the biggest givers are those who are receivers of first generation wealth bill gates quoted in thakur lee and frye 2011 i introduction in this article we study the charitable behavior of billionaires focusing on the impact of the source of their wealth on their charitable donations and pledges while billionaires play a leading role in both the economy and in philanthropy and they are watched closely by journalists and the public at large econometric studies that focus on the behavior of billionaires are rare 1 understanding the charitable behavior of the extremely wealthy is important because they are responsible for a disproportional share of overall giving directly through the amounts of money they give and also because their public status makes their behavior an example for others to follow while the determinants of individual giving have already been studied in experimental settings and using surveys reinstein and riener 2012 steinberg et al 2011 this article documents charitable behavior of a larger magnitude than that typically studied in experiments and of people who do not participate in experiments or fill out surveys 2 our analysis focuses on the question of whether self made billionaires are more charitable than billionaires who inherited their money as bill gates suggested in the quote above it is well documented that people s decisions on how to spend money often depend on how they received that money epley mak and chen idson 2006 for example show that the propensity to consume is bigger if income received is framed as a bonus rather than a rebate arkes et al 1994 show that windfall gains are more readily consumed than nonwindfall gains such evidence has been found both inside and outside the laboratory but in this article we investigate whether treatment of income varies depending on its source when the amounts at stake are much larger than previously studied in the literature in this article amounts range from millions to billions of dollars in comparison with the tens or hundreds of dollars in experimental literature or the tens of thousands of dollars studied in the research on decisions in every day life moreover studies that investigate how spending varies with the source of money typically conclude that earned income is spent more carefully than windfall gains however in the case of charitable giving self made money seems to be more rather than less likely to be spent on charity than inherited money steinberg et al 2011 indeed show using data from the charitable giving module of the panel study of income dynamics psid that the presence of inherited wealth increases giving but also that income held constant an increase in the proportion of income coming from an inheritance is associated with a decrease in charitable giving 3 to study the charitable behavior of the extremely wealthy we use data from the giving pledge a global public pledge to give away at least half of one s fortune during one s lifetime http givingpledge org which by now has been signed by more than 100 extremely wealthy people typically current billionaires in addition we use data on the presence of u s billionaires in the philanthropy top 50 and in the million dollar list a list of those who have given grants of 1 million or more since 2000 we find evidence that self made billionaires are three to four times more likely to sign the giving pledge and to enter the philanthropy top 50 list of biggest pledges compared with those who inherited their wealth at the same time we find that the gap in probabilities between self made and inherited wealth is much smaller at about 28 when looking at the presence in the million dollar list we also find that self made billionaires give more on average than inherited billionaires do when measuring total gifts using the million dollar list or the philanthropy top 50

what are the benefits of the water framework directive lessons learned for policy design from preference revelation the water framework directive wfd seeks to achieve good ecological status of surface waters across the european union by 2027 the wfd guidelines explicitly recognize the economics of water management by providing exceptions to water areas with disproportionately high restoration costs this calls indirectly for estimations of benefits lost due to non attainment we employ a hedonic property pricing approach on waterfront recreational properties to estimate the welfare impacts of attaining the good ecological status described by the wfd the empirical challenge is that the quality measure proposed by the wfd specifically denotes ecological quality whereas economically measurable water quality values are heavily dependent on recreation impacts intuitively the choice of water quality measure should have an effect on estimating the value of water quality our data provide a unique chance to compare three alternative indicators of water quality 1 a usability based index 2 subjectively reported measure and 3 the ecological status determined by the wfd we find that an improvement in water quality is associated with a statistically significant non linear change in recreational property values we show how the ecological status compares with the other two indicators and discuss the justifiability of using revealed preference methods when the valued good is defined purely on the basis of ecological criteria

does the measurement of environmental quality affect implicit prices estimated from hedonic models hedonic property value models are often used to derive point estimates for identifying the relationship between environmental quality and property prices the measurement of the environmental quality variable is often selected based on convenience but variables reflecting different perceptions about environmental quality may result in implicit prices that vary substantially this case study derives implicit prices for nine measures of water clarity using hedonic property value models of lakefront properties in maine results show that water clarity variables based on different perceptions may result in differences in implicit prices large enough to potentially affect policy decisions

effectiveness of rca institutions to limit local externalities using foreclosure data to test covenant effectiveness residential community associations rcas are said to be an efficient institutional agreement to limit local spillovers while several studies have identified a positive marginal effect of rca rules none have explicitly measured the effectiveness of these institutions to limit local externalities this study measures this effectiveness by estimating how the direct and spillover price impacts caused by foreclosure differ by rca status using a spatial hedonic model that controls for selection bias using propensity score methods and coarsened exact matching we find that foreclosed rca properties experience smaller direct foreclosure discounts and produce smaller spill over effects than their non rca counterparts

a bayesian approach to assessing the robustness of hedonic property value studies hedonic price models are widely employed to estimate implicit prices for bundled attributes residential property value studies dominate these applications using a representative cross sectional property value data set we employ bayesian methods to translate a range of priors in covariate selection typical of hedonic property value studies into a range of posterior estimates we also formulate priors regarding measurement error in individual covariates and compute the ranges of resulting posterior means finally we empirically demonstrate that a greater and more systematic use of prior information drawn from one s own data and from other studies can break the collinearity deadlock in this data

look who s talking the impacts of the intrahousehold allocation of mobile phones on agricultural prices abstract using data from the philippines we study the impact of mobile phones on the prices agricultural producers receive for their cash crop we first look at the impact on price of mobile phone ownership at the household level because this masks a considerable amount of heterogeneity we then look at the impact on price of the intrahousehold allocation of mobile phones we find that whether the household owns a mobile phone has no impact on price but whether a farmer or spouse owns a mobile phone is associated with a 5 to 8 per cent increase in price

the swedish experiment the deterioration of the economic performance in sweden from about 1970 was to some extent the result of a number of exogenous shocks and unnecessary policy mistakes it was however also related to basic changes in the economic and social system in sweden in the late 1960s and early 1970 when government spending taxes and regulations started to expand dramatically it is also argued in the paper that problematic political economic and social mechanisms had become embedded in the long term dynamics of the system itself these various experiences are the background for recent reforms and retreats of the swedish experiment

the spatial extent of water quality benefits in urban housing markets water quality regulation continues to be controversial as demonstrated by recent litigation between the u s environmental protection agency and the state of florida over nutrient standards while the costs of standards are usually known benefits may be diverse and difficult to identify this study investigates the effects of enhanced water quality on both waterfront and nonwaterfront property prices using hedonic models within an urban market findings indicate 1 the value of increased water quality depends upon the property s location and proximity to waterfront and the surface area of the water body and 2 aggregate benefits to nonwaterfront homes may dominate those realized by waterfront homeowners

changes in implicit flood risk premiums empirical evidence from the housing market abstract hedonic valuation models have shown that sales prices can capitalize property risk factors such as flood zone properties facing lower risk sell at a premium all else being equal previous research has indicated that price differentials reflecting risk of flooding become much larger in the wake of a storm we re examine these findings for pitt county north carolina using multiple storm events within a difference in differences framework and we compare flood zone price differentials for a more recent sample of property sales prior to hurricane fran in 1996 we detect no market risk premium for the presence in a flood zone but we find significant price differentials after major flooding events amounting to a 5 7 decrease after hurricane fran and 8 8 decrease after hurricane floyd results from a separate model that examines more recent data covering a period without significant storm related flood impacts indicate a significant risk premium ranging between 6 0 and 20 2 for homes sold in the flood zone but this effect is diminishing over time essentially disappearing about 5 or 6 years after hurricane floyd the lack of a persistent effect suggests that buyers and sellers risk perceptions may change with the prevalence of hazard events and that homebuyers are unaware of flood risks and insurance requirements when bidding on properties

unions industrial concentration and wages a re examination market structure or industrial concentration has long been recognized as an important influence on industrial output employment and profits it has also been recognized that some proportion of the profits from concentration may be diverted into wages through collective bargaining yet the precise nature of these relationships has received little attention although it has important implications for the evaluation of wage structure and the welfare loss arising from monopoly empirical studies of the impact of unions and industrial concentration on wages weiss 1966 jones and laudadio 1975 dalton and ford 1977 long and link 1983 follow a similar format after a brief verbal justification for the ability of unions to win higher wage increases when the employer is earning oligopoly profits these studies specify a wage equation of the general form

evidence of the effects of water quality on residential land prices we use hedonic techniques to show that water quality has a significant effect on property values along the chesapeake bay we calculate the potential benefits from an illustrative but limited water quality improvement and we calculate an upper bound to the benefits from a more widespread improvement many environmental hedonic studies have almost entirely ignored the potential for omitted variables bias the possibility that pollution sources in addition to emitting undesirable substances are likely to be unpleasant neighbors we discuss the implications of this oversight and we provide an application that addresses this potential problem o 2000 acadcmic prcss

do seller disclosures affect property values buyer information and the hedonic model the hedonic method is widely used to infer the value of environmental amenities that are bundled with real property the interpretation of hedonic prices as marginal values requires that households are fully informed yet there is evidence that buyers are often less informed than sellers a graphical illustration in this study suggests that asymmetric information between buyers and sellers can affect hedonic prices this intuition is confirmed by a quasi random experiment that exploits spatial and information discontinuities stemming from a seller disclosure for flood zones results suggest a 4 decline in housing prices in flood zones after disclosures commenced

hedonic prices property values and measuring environmental benefits a survey of the issues this paper provides a review of the theoretical basis and the assumptions required in order to use hedonic price equations derived from property value data to obtain measures of the prices and the inverse demand functions for environmental amenities such as air quality it also includes a review and assessment of existing empirical applications of the technique to problems of air and water quality and urban noise

the choice of functional forms for hedonic price equations comment abstract rosen 13 freeman 4 halvorsen and pollakowski 6 and others have stressed that economic theory does not suggest an appropriate functional form for hedonic price functions 1 it consequently is reasonable to try several functional forms and utilize the multiple regression equation with the best performance in this spirit halvorsen and pollakowski 6 recommend using the box cox flexible functional form for hedonic analysis and measuring best performance with a goodness of fit test the box cox methodology has also been adapted in hedonic studies by goodman 5 linneman 10 blomquist and worley 1 and eberts and gronberg 3 2 the box cox is particularly suited for testing functional forms because many familiar forms such as semilog log linear and translog are subsets of the flexible box cox permitting nested hypothesis testing in this note we illustrate that the formal hypothesis testing advantage of the box cox functional form is purchased at the expense of other important goals the goal of most hedonic studies is to estimate the prices of the characteristics to measure the response to changes in the prices and or to predict future expenditures using a best fit criterion to choose functional forms does not necessarily lead to more accurate estimates of characteristic prices in fact the large number of coefficients estimated with the box cox functional form reduces the accuracy of any single coefficient which could lead to poorer estimates of specific prices second because any negative number raised to a noninteger real power is imaginary the traditional box cox functional form is not suited to any data set containing negative numbers third the box cox functional form may be inappropriate for prediction since the mean predicted value of the untransformed dependent variable need not equal the mean of the sample upon which it is estimated the predicted untransformed variable housing value will be biased the predicted untransformed dependent variable may also be imaginary fourth the nonlinear transformation results in complex estimates of slopes and elasticities which are often too cumbersome to use properly we discuss each of these drawbacks and quantify them when possible in the remainder of this note

rising earnings inequality in sweden the role of composition and prices the rise in cross sectional earnings inequality in sweden between 1990 and 2002 is decomposed into changes in market prices of observable characteristics changes in the composition of the labor force across demographic groups and industries and changes in unobservables the swedish experience is then compared with that in the united states in both countries the rise in earnings inequality is a consequence of rising upper tail dispersion contrary to the u s experience where the rise is largely driven by changing market prices of observables and increased residual dispersion shifts in the swedish labor force composition have contributed positively to the rise in the p90 p50 gap the rise in the swedish p99 p90 gap however is entirely accounted for by changes in prices and residual dispersion

the opportunity cost of coastal land use controls an empirical analysis for more than a decade demographers have been documenting the migration of the u s population from interior to coastal states a belief that this trend will persist has led to concern about increased housing and commercial development in coastal areas added development brings water pollution and reduces the natural cover of the coastline many states have responded to this trend with land use controls that limit new residential and commercial development on land adjacent to coastal water controls such as these have essentially three economic efficiency effects first on the positive side is the preservation of coastal open space and reduction of water pollutants benefits enjoyed by residents and visitors second and on the negative side is decreased residential and commercial proximity to the coast fewer households and businesses can locate near the

housing market fluctuations and the implicit price of water quality empirical evidence from a south florida housing market in this study we utilize a hedonic property price analysis to examine changes in the implicit price of water quality given housing market fluctuations over time we analyze martin county florida waterfront home sales from 2001 to 2010 accounting for the associated significant real estate fluctuations in this area through flexible econometric controls in space and time we apply a segmented regression methodology to identify housing market price instability over time interact water quality with these identified market segmentations and embed these interactions within a spatial fixed effect model to further account for any spatial heterogeneity in the waterfront market results indicate that water quality improvement is associated with higher property values we find no evidence that the economic downturn crowded out concern for the water quality in this area we further impute an implicit prices of 2614 evaluated at the sample mean for 1 point increase in the water quality grade

payment source and the cost of hospital care evidence from a multiproduct cost function with multiple payers abstract this study investigates the capacity of hospitals to vary the intensity of their services based on patients expected sources of payment while the concept of price discrimination by hospitals based on payer generosity cost shifting has been discussed extensively the notion that hospitals can adjust payer specific marginal costs to reflect differences in reimbursement policies has not been studied in depth to examine this issue this analysis employs a multiproduct cost function with hospital outputs defined as admissions by payment source controlling for the distribution and severity of illness casemix for each payer marginal costs of casemix adjusted discharges are obtained and compared for medicare medicaid private payers and a residual category that includes uncompensated care we find that indeed payer specific marginal costs generally reflect payer generosity

the effect of ama membership on physicians earnings this study explores earnings differences between physicians who are members of the american medical association and physicians who are not ama members nonmembers earn on average about 22 percent less per hour of medical practice than members an estimate of the earnings effect of ama membership incorporating the simultaneous determination of earnings and membership suggests however that membership per se increases physicians hourly practice earnings only by about 2 7 percent

what do property values really tell us a hedonic study of underground storage tanks hedonic property value models are widely used but are susceptible to potentially invalid conjectures based on the assumed measure of environmental quality this paper focuses on an application where this is of particular concern leaking underground storage tanks i estimate a hedonic model using quasi experimental and spatial econometric techniques similar to previous studies i examine how house prices vary with distance to the disamenity this approach yields little evidence that prices are adversely impacted however to better measure risks i utilize home specific data on groundwater well tests and correspondence from regulators and find an 11 depreciation when households are well informed