depreciation rules and value invariance with extractive firms the application of samuelson s theorem on value invariance to the case of intertemporally optimizing firms is shown to require a judiciously chosen economic depreciation formula which depends on both current stock and current flow variables in order to prevent the firms from changing their actions in the face of the tax regime we illustrate by deriving depreciation rules which achieve non distortingness of actions and value invariance for resource extracting firms

private values of risk tradeoffs at superfund sites housing market evidence on learning about risk this paper incorporates a bayesian learning model into a hedonic framework to estimate the value that residents place on avoiding cancer risks from hazardous waste sites we show that residents are

willingness to pay to reduce mortality risks evidence from a three country contingent valuation study valuing a change in the risk of death is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives typically such risks are monetized using the value of a statistical life vsl since the majority of the lives saved by environmental policies are those of older persons there has been much recent debate about whether the vsl should be lower for the elderly to reflect their fewer remaining life years we conducted a contingent valuation survey in the uk italy and france designed to answer this question the survey was administered in these three countries following a standardized protocol our results suggest that the vsl is 1 022 million or 2 264 million depending on whether we use median or mean wtp the vsl is not significantly lower for older persons but is higher for persons who have been admitted to a hospital or emergency room for cardiovascular and respiratory problems income is positively and significantly associated with wtp the income elasticities of the wtp increase gradually with income levels and are between 0 15 and 0 5 for current income levels in eu countries we use the responses to the wtp questions to estimate the value of an extension in remaining life expectancy the value of a loss of one year s life expectancy is 54 000 or 163 000

roy model sorting and nonrandom selection in the valuation of a statistical life roy model sorting and the vsl wage hedonics is used to recover the value of a statistical life vsl by exploiting the fact that workers choosing riskier occupations are compensated with a higher wage roy oxford economic papers 3 1951 135 46 suggests that observed wage distributions will be distorted if individuals choose jobs according to idiosyncratic returns we describe how this type of sorting biases wage hedonic vsl estimates and implement two new estimation strategies that correct that bias using data from the current population surveys we recover vsl estimates that are three to four times larger than those based on the traditional techniques statistically significant and robust to a wide array of specifications

a general proposition on the design of a neutral business tax abstract a simple and general means of levying a business tax that is neutral in the sense that it does not affect the firm s decisions at the margin is discussed in particular we analyze the effect of a business tax of our design on the investment decision of the firm the well known imputed income and immediate write off methods of levying a neutral business tax are found to be special cases of our general tax design the implication of our results is that a neutral pure profits tax can be levied without the informational difficulties of the imputed income method or the cash flow disadvantages of the immediate write off method

the opportunity cost of travel time in recreation demand models deciding how to allocate forage among animals is a fundamentally important process in range management the wisdom of these decisions can be enhanced by estimating the marginal value of forage needed by competing species we present a method for

the role of site and job characteristics in hedonic wage models recent economic analyses of wage rate differentials have generally used some form of hedonic framework in explaining the observed wage structure while these studies have adopted this common theoretical justification the models have been used to serve two distinct objectives the first of these is an empirical test of the theory of equalizing differences originally introduced by adam smith in such applications see brown 7 lucas 26 olson 28 thaler and rosen 36 and viscusi 40 as examples specific job characteristics measured with technical information or with worker perceptions have been used to explain differences in wage rates across individuals and jobs while there are a number of these studies there has not been a consistent pattern of support for the theory indeed with the exception of job risks many characteristics that a priori would be expected to lead to equalizing differences have often exhibited incorrect and or statistically insignificant measured effects on wages the second use for wage models has been as the basis for an index of the quality of life in urban areas in this framework households are assumed to select residential locations so as to maximize their individual welfare migration between cities provides the mechanism for an equilibrium household assignment under ideal conditions the pattern of equilibrium wage rates reflects the attributes of the cities involved see hoch 20 izraeli 23 cropper lo cropper and arriaga salinas 111 and rosen 31 as examples the purpose of this paper is to develop a model for wage rate differentials that includes both job and site characteristics and to estimate the model with a large micro data set our wage models provide estimates of a market clearing envelope which includes each of two types of past analyses as a

externalities in migration abstract the paper compares the labor mobility of high order to low order waves migrants it presents a model which concludes that low order waves provide positive externalities to higher order waves the model is applied to two waves of political migrants to israel

the implicit valuation of risks to life a comparative analysis abstract this paper reports estimates of the implicit valuation of risk reductions for different sources of risk on the job accidents and exposure to air pollutants a hedonic wage model estimated using the may 1978 current population survey for individuals in 44 smsa s provides the basis for the estimates of implicit values of risk the findings suggest quite different valuations of comparable risk changes

hedonic price functions and the measurement of preferences the case of swedish wine consumers abstract a hedonic price function for wine is estimated using swedish data 1989 1991 implicit prices for quality attributes are determined not from a regression of variety price on a vector of quality attributes but rather from a regression of quantity sold adjusted for weeks of availability on price and quality attributes such a reduced form is justified by the assumption that prices and attribute contents can be taken as exogenous to the swedish consumer price elasticity is estimated to be about 1 65 holding quality constant showing that swedish consumers are highly sensitive to price estimates of the implicit valuations of quality attributes are shown to differ greatly from those obtained from the more usual hedonic regression with price as the dependent variable

new estimates of quality of life in urban areas implicit markets capture compensation for intraurban and interregional differe nces in amenities and yield differences in housing prices and wages these pecuniary differences become preference based weights in a qual ity of life index hedonic equations are estimated using microdata fr om the 1980 census and assembled county based amenity data on climati c environmental and urban conditions ranking of 253 urban counties reveals substantial variation within as well as among the 185 urba n areas the quality of life differences across counties within one s msa is almost one half of the difference between the top and bottom ranked counties in the nation copyright 1988 by american economic association

the amenity value of the italian climate the hedonics literature suggests that locations with more favourable characteristics should display compensating wage and house price differentials specifying climate in terms of january and july averages estimates of the marginal willingness to pay for small changes in climate variables are derived using this technique applied to italian data italians would prefer a drier climate during the winter months but higher summertime temperatures are shown to reduce welfare in some locations households would prefer to see clearer skies these results may have relevance to the task of determining the economic impact of future climate change c 2003 elsevier science usa all rights reserved

spatial hedonic models for environmental hazards and health outcomes this article examines the relationship between the total cost of services for radioprotection and the health outcomes in greece with a spatial hedonic model using data from the period 2010 to 2016

housing prices health effects and valuing reductions in risk of death abstract by combining estimates of the effect of air pollution on both property values and human health risks it may be possible to draw inferences about individuals valuations of risk although valuations thus derived must be interpreted carefully they may be of use in determining the welfare effects of environmental and other regulatory policies

invariant valuation when tax rates change over time samuelson 1964 proved that if and only if depreciation for tax purposes is equal to economic depreciation will any two taxpayers with different tax rates value an asset equally he referred to this condition as invariant valuation that is the valuation of an asset with a given stream of receipts is independent of the tax rate of the individual under this condition the tax system does not provide any one taxpayer a greater or lesser incentive to undertake investment than any other taxpayer samuelson s proof pertained only to the case of taxpayers with different but constant tax rates as he noted all of this analysis presupposes a tax rate that is uniform over time for each person obviously if a man is to be subject to different rates with the tax rate being a function of time his optimal decision will be distorted by this fact a proper system of carry forwards and carrybacks which makes the tax rate average out to a constant and which takes account of just when a man pays the tax accruing to him will avoid such distortions p 605 under many circumstances taxpayers statutory tax rates may change over time individuals and corporations are subject to graduated tax rates minimum tax rules and restrictions on tax losses it is shown in section i that if tax rates are allowed to change over time but samuelson s other assumptions are maintained economic depreciation continues to result in invariant valuation without the need for carryforwards or carrybacks 2 that is if tax rates vary across taxpay

immigration and socioeconomic gaps theory and applications during the first decade of israel s existence large waves of immigrants came from europe and the middle east this paper introduces an empirical study which compares the occupational socioeconomic score differentials between ethnic groups within and outside the kibbutz the three groups examined are from asia and africa from europe and america and the native born population it is found that the occupational socioeconomic score differentials after migration are lower in the kibbutz than outside it and that socioeconomic gaps outside the kibbutz increase after migration in this paper a model is presented which explains the empirical results it compares the effects of migration inside the kibbutz organized as a labour managed firm with the effects of migration inside the city assumed to be organized as a perfectly competitive firm the model also develops a gap function that quantifies the socioeconomic gaps and uses iso gap curves to compare the premigration and postmigration gaps

estimating workers marginal willingness to pay for job attributes using duration data this paper develops and applies a method for estimating workers marginal willingess to pay for job attributes when workers job choices are characterized by imperfect information and labor market search as an application this paper analyzes the job durations of white males using data from the national longitudinal survey youth cohort and the dictionary of occupational titles estimates of workers willingness to pay derived from the job duration model are compared with those derived from an hedonic wage model

interindustry mobility after migration theory and application this study examines the interindustry mobility of jewish immigrants who arrived in israel between 1948 and 1952 from five middle eastern countries as individuals and as groups short term effects are avoided by comparing industrial employment before migration to industrial employment in 1961 approximately 10 years after arrival excerpt

local amenities and life cycle migration do people move for jobs or fun abstract do households move for jobs or fun and where do they go when they move we address these questions using the 1970 2000 us census based on a panel of quality of life and business environment measures households prefer msas in warm coastal areas and non metropolitan locations while firms prefer large growing cities in addition cities with improving business environments acquire increasing shares of workers especially workers with high levels of human capital cities with improving consumer amenities become relatively more populated by retirees further analysis of individual level migration decisions indicates that regardless of marital status young highly educated households tend to move towards places with higher quality business environments this tendency is especially pronounced among highly educated couples who are more subject to job market co location problems in contrast regardless of education couples near retirement tend to move away from places with favorable business environments and towards places with highly valued consumer amenities these patterns help explain why areas unattractive to both households and business have struggled as with upstate new york while the sun belt and other regions are thriving