forecasting residential electricity consumption in greece using monthly and quarterly data abstract this paper studies electricity consumption household use only in greece we explore the dynamic relationships among several potentially relevant time series variables and develop appropriate models for forecasting it is apparent that personal disposable income temperature and the price of electricity used by the households play an important role in the demand for electricity in this study we use both monthly and quarterly data and find that the performance of quarterly models may not be as good as that of the monthly ones for transfer function model identification we use the linear transfer function ltf method which is more efficient and easier to use than the traditional cross correlation ccf method

residential energy demand in oecd countries and the role of irreversible efficiency improvements abstract after undergoing substantial changes during a period of high energy prices household energy demand did not rebound in times of declining energy prices as might have been expected hence other factors such as irreversible improvements in technical efficiency must be understood in order to describe both past and future household energy demand in this paper we consider irreversible efficiency improvements as a major reason for the moderate growth in energy demand after the plummeting of the oil price in 1985 we test different econometric models to take into account efficiency indicators the major conclusions of our investigation are i price elasticities are different for rising and falling prices for the latter they are close to zero implying a low rebound effect in the residential sector ii technical efficiency is an important parameter for describing and forecasting energy demand and iii income elasticities turn out to be higher once we incorporate indicators of technological efficiency in the process of estimating energy demand

short and long run elasticities in energy demand a cointegration approach abstract short and long run energy demand elasticities are estimated on danish annual data for 1948 1990 energy consumption the real price of energy and real gdp appear to be non stationary variables cointegration and error correction methods are therefore applied all estimated parameters have the expected signs and magnitudes and no evidence is found of a structural break in energy demand caused by the increases in real energy prices since 1973 74

the causal effect of faculty unions on institutional decision making the author s goal in this article is to estimate the causal effect of unionization on institutional decision making using a national survey of presidents and faculty senate leaders to measure the level of shared governance at 341 public universities in 15 different areas to handle the endogeneity of faculty unionization an index of state employee collective bargaining rights is used as an instrument for unionization findings indicate that unionization greatly increases faculty influence over institutional decision making both in compensation and in areas outside of compensation abstract from author

productivity gains from geographic concentration of human capital evidence from the cities abstract based on recent theoretical developments the argument is made that the average level of human capital is a local public good cities with higher average levels of human capital should therefore have higher wages and higher land rents after conditioning on the characteristics of individual workers and dwellings this prediction is supported by data for standard metropolitan statistical areas smsas in the united states where the smsa average levels of formal education and work experience are used as proxies for the average level of human capital the alternative explanations of omitted smsa variables and self selection are evaluated an estimate of the effect of an additional year of average education on total factor productivity is computed

carbon tax scenarios and their effects on the irish energy sector abstract in this paper we use annual time series data from 1960 to 2008 to estimate the long run price and income elasticities underlying energy demand in ireland the irish economy is divided into five sectors residential industrial commercial agricultural and transport and separate energy demand equations are estimated for all sectors energy demand is broken down by fuel type and price and income elasticities are estimated for the primary fuels in the irish fuel mix using the estimated price and income elasticities we forecast irish sectoral energy demand out to 2025 the share of electricity in the irish fuel mix is predicted to grow over time as the share of carbon intensive fuels such as coal oil and peat falls the share of electricity in total energy demand grows most in the industrial and commercial sectors while oil remains an important fuel in the residential and transport sectors having estimated the baseline forecasts two different carbon tax scenarios are imposed and the impact of these scenarios on energy demand carbon dioxide emissions and government revenue is assessed if it is assumed that the level of the carbon tax will track the futures price of carbon under the eu ets the carbon tax will rise from 21 50 per tonne co2 in 2012 the first year forecasted to 41 in 2025 results show that under this scenario total emissions would be reduced by approximately 861 000 tonnes of co2 in 2025 relative to a zero carbon tax scenario and that such a tax would generate 1 1 billion in revenue in the same year we also examine a high tax scenario under which emissions reductions and revenue generated will be greater finally in order to assess the macroeconomic effects of a carbon tax the carbon tax scenarios were run in hermes the esri s medium term macroeconomic model the results from hermes show that a carbon tax of 41 per tonne co2 would lead to a 0 21 contraction in gdp and a 0 08 reduction in employment a higher carbon tax would lead to greater contractions in output

stoking the fires co2 emissions and economic growth abstract we examine the relationship between economic development and carbon dioxide emissions a greenhouse gas central to global warming predictions estimates derived from global panel data suggest a diminishing marginal propensity to emit mpe carbon dioxide as gdp per capita rises despite this global carbon dioxide emissions growth will continue at 1 8 percent per annum for the foreseeable future a result that is not sensitive to average output growth instead emissions growth continues because output and population will grow most rapidly in lower income nations with high mpes this latter feature emphasizes the distributional consequences of policies to reduce emissions

modeling industrial energy demand in greece using cointegration techniques abstract this paper attempts to shed light on the determinants of industrial energy demand in greece for this purpose we used cointegration analysis in order to capture short run and long run elasticities for oil and electricity industrial demand respectively the sample spans the period 1970 2004 from the empirical analysis and the johansen s maximum likelihood procedure we found cointegration for oil and electricity demand the results suggest that industrial energy demand is inelastic both in the short and the long run while electricity and oil are substitutes also oil and electricity prices are weakly exogenous both in the short and the long run

a carbon tax to reduce co2 emissions in europe abstract this paper examines the effects of introducing a tax on carbon dioxide emissions produced by combustion processes in oecd european countries a sectoral model of energy consumption is constructed to examine energy saving and inter fuel substitution effects induced by the introduction of various carbon taxes the simulation period is 1989 1994 our results provide a mild support to the environmental role of a carbon tax energy saving or inter fuel substitution processes that result from the introduction of environmental taxation stabilize emissions at the 1988 level only in the electricity generation sector and only if high tax rates are assumed 100 ton c by contrast total emissions all sectors and all fuels keep growing and the implementation of a tax of 100 ton c can only reduce the emission growth rate these results would recommend the introduction of several coordinated environmental instruments the last part of the paper compares results concerning oecd europe with those obtained when examining a single country italy the comparison does not seem to be in favour of a uniform carbon tax it rather indicates that environmental policy should be designed taking into account the specific economic situation and technological choices of each single country country specific coordinated environmental policies are to be recommended where international coordination ought to concern environmental targets rather than instruments

wage gaps large and small author affiliation barry t hirsch barry t hirsch is the w j usery chair of the american workplace department of economics andrew young school of policy studies georgia state university atlanta ga 30302 3992 and research fellow iza bonn germany bhirsch gsu eduthis presidential address was presented at the annual meeting of the southern economic association new orleans la on november 20 2007 acknowledgment i thank the many economists with whom i have interacted or coauthored over the years in particular john addison chris bollinger bill breit bill johnson dave macpherson and ed schumacher barry t hirsch w j usery chair of the american workplace department of economics andrew young school of policy studies georgia state university 2007 president of the southern economic association figure omitted see article image 1 introductionin the wealth of nations adam smith posited theory and institutional explanations for why wages differ modern labor economics has retained a focus on wage differentials although much of the literature is unabashedly empirical it is informed by theory neoclassical economics including human capital theory remains the principal approach although labor economists recognize the role played by human nature workplace incentives institutions and public policy in wage determination in this address i highlight several topics i have studied all involving wage gaps 1 these include census imputation methods union premiums product market regulation wages in male and female jobs the wage effects of military service and interarea wages and cost of living the purpose is not to trumpet my work although it may appear as such but to draw broader conclusions about labor economists understanding of wage determination 2 equalizing differentials and the law of one wagethe theory of equalizing differentials states that in competitive labor markets workers with similar skills working in similarly attractive jobs and locations should receive similar compensation long run wage differentials are explained by differences in skill and job disamenities with a single price wage conditional on worker and job attributes 2 the law of one wage equal compensation for equivalent workers and jobs follows naturally from competitive theory empirical studies attempt to test the law of one price in product markets industrial organization economists focus on a narrow set of homogeneous goods in markets with low cost information and similar transportation costs i e purchases of electronics and books at internet sites international economists test for purchasing power parity for homogeneous goods i e big mac prices across countries for a recent paper see parsley and wei 2007 even in these markets there is considerable deviation from the law of one price one does not see an equivalent literature in labor economics yes there is a vast literature on wage gaps but authors rarely characterize such work as a test of a law of one wage because there is little expectation that there should be wage equality even conditional on controls why not first as emphasized in personnel economics pay schemes that maximize profits often involve wages deviating from spot marginal products thus creating competitive wage differences across similar workers in similar jobs lazear and oyer 2007 second unions or other institutions can affect wages third there are rigidities in labor markets owing to imperfect mobility say from information and search costs firm specific training personal job attachment or tied household decisions regarding jobs location and housing manning 2003 mortensen 2003 fourth are problems of measurement leading to apparent variation in wages even when there is none and fifth even if data are error free we cannot hope to measure all the multitude of worker and job attributes that influence wages

the business responsibility for wealth distribution in a globalized political economy merging moral economics and catholic social teaching if it is accepted that the real marketplace does not necessarily distribute wealth in the manner that the ideal market would have done and that societal institutions have an obligation to bring the real and ideal market distributions into accord then it can be argued that economic actors have a responsibility to consider the effects of their activities on the distribution of wealth in society this paper asserts that businesses have a responsibility to consider the wealth distribution effects of their wealth creating decisions we use arguments from moral economics and catholic social teaching to support this assertion deriving decision principles that we apply to the starbucks fair trade coffee case

wage differentials across labor markets and workers does cost of living matter wage differentials studies rarely account for interarea differences in cost of living owing both to data limitations and theoretical ambiguity this study develops a price index for 185 metropolitan areas comprising about 70 of the u s labor force current population survey data for 1985 95 and data on sitespecific amenities are used to estimate earnings differentials based on nominal wages wages fully adjusted for measured cost of living and a simple approximation of real wages with partial adjustment for pricelevel differences dispersion in approximate real wages across 185 labor markets and differentials by region and city size are substantially lower than dispersion in nominal or full adjustment wages estimates of racial and ethnic differentials display moderate sensitivity to choice of a wage measure whereas other standard differentials do not both nominal wages and wages fully adjusted for cost of living may provide misleading estimates of real wage differentials absent data on interarea prices and amenities researchers should include detailed controls for region and city size in nominal wage equations jel j31 r23

short and long run elasticities in us residential electricity demand a co integration approach abstract co integration techniques show promise in the analysis of short and long run effects of economic variables on energy use we use these techniques to develop an error correction model of annual us residential electricity demand we construct equipment stock indices and estimate the model for 1949 1993 our analysis suggests a structural shift in consumption during the 1960s we discuss reasons for this shift report the short and long run elasticities provide forecasts for 1994 1995 and compare the model s forecasts with other published forecasts

energy consumption and economic growth a causality analysis for greece abstract this paper investigates the causal relationship between aggregated and disaggregated levels of energy consumption and economic growth for greece for the period 1960 2006 through the application of a later development in the methodology of time series proposed by toda and yamamoto 1995 at aggregated levels of energy consumption empirical findings suggest the presence of a uni directional causal relationship running from total energy consumption to real gdp at disaggregated levels empirical evidence suggests that there is a bi directional causal relationship between industrial and residential energy consumption to real gdp but this is not the case for the transport energy consumption with causal relationship being identified in neither direction the importance of these findings lies on their policy implications and their adoption on structural policies affecting energy consumption in greece suggesting that in order to address energy import dependence and environmental concerns without hindering economic growth emphasis should be put on the demand side and energy efficiency improvements

the effect of collective bargaining on salaries in higher education using data from a 1977 survey of faculty from 158 u s colleges and universities the author estimates that the proportional salary advantage to unionized faculty members was typically less than two percent that differential varied considerably however with the length of time the institution had been organized in addition unionization increased the return to seniority and decreased the return to several measures of merit including number of publications and general post degree experience

empirical assessment of the determinants of road energy demand in greece this paper attempts to cast light on the determinants of road energy demand in greece for this purpose we used cointegration techniques and vector autoregression var analysis in order to capture short run and long run dynamics for gasoline and diesel demand respectively from the empirical analysis that covers the period 1978 2003 we find that in the long run gasoline energy demand appears to be price and income inelastic while diesel demand appears to be price inelastic and income elastic we also found that the absence of close substitutes in the road sector denotes the low level of energy switching in greece

adam smith and the ethics of contemporary capitalism this paper presents a theoretical elaboration of the ethical framework of classical capitalism as formulated by adam smith in reaction to the dominant mercantilism of his day it is seen that smith s project was profoundly ethical and designed to emancipate the consumer from a producer and state dominated economy over time however the various dysfunctions of a capitalist economy e g concentration of wealth market power became manifest and the utilitarian ethical basis of the system eroded contemporary capitalism dominated as it is by large corporations entrenched political interests and persistent social pathologies bears little resemblance to the system which smith envisioned would serve the common man most critiques of capitalism are launched from a marxian based perspective we find however that by illustrating the wide gap between the reality of contemporary capitalism and the model of amoral political economy developed by smith the father of capitalism proves to be the most trenchant critic of the current order

wages rents and the quality of life this study focuses on the role of wages and rents in allocating workers to locations with various quantities of amenities the theory demonstrates that if the amenity is also productive then the sign of the wage gradient is unclear while the rent gradient is positive the theory is extended to include the housing market and nontraded goods these extensions require little modification of the conclusion the empirical work on wages shows that the regional wage differences can be explained largely by these local attributes with the use of site price data implicit prices are estimated and quality of life rankings for the cities are computed

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 impact of vat introduction on uk residential energy demand an investigation using the cointegration approach abstract over a two year period which started in april 1994 the real price of energy to uk households was expected to rise by 17 5 as a result of value added tax vat introduction the regressive nature of the tax forced the government to limit vat on residential fuel to 8 using a cointegration approach to take account of the non stationarity fuel consumption time series this paper estimates real energy and fuel specific price and income elasticities for the period 1974 1 1994 1 they suggest that natural gas has a positive real energy price elasticity indicating that as real price of energy rises households scrap inefficient heaters and invest in more efficient ones principally natural gas these estimates enable projections to be made of the impact of the introduction of vat and imply a rise in natural gas consumption as a result of the additional vat although at the expense of other less efficient fuels overall residential energy consumption however is unlikely to fall significantly from the tax suggesting that it is an inappropriate way of achieving environmental objectives

identifying productivity and amenity effects in interurban wage differentials this study focuses on the relative importance of amenity and productivity differences in determining wage differentials across urban areas the approach developed takes advantage of the connection between land and labor market clearing conditions required for locational equilibrium of households and firms data on recent movers are used to estimate equilibrium wages and rents for a sample of metropolitan areas this information is then used to identify amenity and productivity components of wages for each city in the sample using national estimates of the relative share of land in consumption and production differences in productivity and amenities are found to be roughly equal sources of wage variation across the sample

price level convergence new evidence from u s cities abstract this paper tests the bilateral price level convergence among 52 u s cities at the good level by using a new econometric approach the estimated median half lives are far below the half lives found in the corresponding studies for the u s

classic or new monopsony searching for evidence in nursing labor markets the market for registered nurses rns is often offered as an example of classic monopsony while a new monopsony literature emphasizes that firm labor supply is upward sloping independent of market structure using data from multiple sources we explore the relationship between nursing wages in hospitals and measures of classic and new monopsony wage level analysis fails to provide support for classic monopsony the relative wages of rns in 240 u s labor markets being largely uncorrelated with hospital system concentration longitudinal analysis shows nursing wages declining with increases in hospital concentration we interpret these results as providing support for classic monopsony effects in the short run but question whether wage effects are sustained in the long run no relationship is found between nursing wages and a new monopsony measure of mobility but support for new monopsony is found for women elsewhere in the labor market rns display greater interemployer mobility than do women or men in general two conclusions follow first upward sloping labor supply need not imply monopsonistic outcomes second absent more compelling evidence nursing should not be held up as a prototypical example of monopsony classic or new

energy demand and environmental taxes the case of greece the purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects that energy taxes may have on reducing environmental pollution in greece we study the demand for residential energy for the period 1965 1998 and on the basis of these estimates we make forecasts for co2 emissions in the coming years furthermore we develop alternative scenarios for tax changes and study their effects on co2 emissions according to our findings the harmonization of the greek energy taxes to the average european union levels implies an increase of total co2 emissions by 6 annually if taxes are raised however to the highest european union levels the co2 emissions are restricted significantly these empirical findings may indicate that environmental taxation cannot be the unique instrument for combating pollution

amenities and regional differences in returns to worker characteristics average wages in regions in the united states vary considerably in trying to explain these differences in the average wage across regions a number of studies have found that differences in the returns to characteristics of workers such as years of schooling are as important as differences in the skill composition of the labor force 4 6 10 141 these differences in returns are generally interpreted as reflecting regional differences in demand for worker characteristics coupled with barriers to factor mobility this interpretation is based on the argument that the presence of at least one perfectly mobile factor with perfect information will cause spatial convergence in characteristic prices as that particular factor exploits any spatial price differential 4 p 2161 this paper suggests an alternative to this demand based explanation for regional differences in the structure of wages one based on regional differences in the supply of worker characteristics this explanation does not rely on impediments to the movement of workers or firms and is consistent with an equilibrium view of wages in which regional wage differentials are viewed as compensation for local amenities the theoretical model presented in the following section assumes capital and labor are perfectly mobile with perfect information implying that in equilibrium the utility of workers with similar characteristics is the same in all locations this convergence of utility however does not necessarily imply convergence of characteristic prices equilibrium differences in the returns to a specific worker characteristic can exist if worker characteristics affect an individual s valuation of an area s amenities relative to the individual s demand for land

entrepreneurial police and drug enforcement policy the hypothesis that drug enforcement is relatively high in local jurisdictions where state laws dictate that police retain seized assets is tested in the context of a reduced form equation of the supply and demand for drug enforcement the results are robust across model specifications some of which directly control for the level of drug use legislation permitting police to keep seized assets raises drug arrests as a portion of total arrests by about 20 percent and drug arrest rates by about 18 percent police bureaucrats apparently desire discretionary budget increases and they have considerable discretion in determining resource allocation

is there really a faculty union salary premium studies of the effects of unions on collegiate faculty salaries are inconclusive some estimate a significant union premium but such estimates suffer from endogeneity between unions and wages non random measurement error and failure to adjust for local cost of living differences by using data from the national study of postsecondary faculty nsopf 1988 2004 as well as other sources to identify institution specific factors omitted from previous studies the authors estimate significantly smaller union premia than those found by other researchers

wages rents and amenities differences among workers and regions what explains persistent regional earnings differences this paper argues that regional differences in amenities can account for the wage differences in contrast cost of living variations do not account for wage differences but actually exacerbate them this conclusion results from a model in which variations in rents and wages are equalizing differences for amenity differences empirical results are consistent with the model

unions without rents the curious economics of faculty unions we show that canadian faculty unions have had no effect on university revenues only a small positive effect on earnings a negative effect on research output and lead to earnings redistributions across disciplines and ranks we argue that faculty unions have a negligible positive and often negative effect on average faculty wages because a union that promotes the median faculty member s welfare negotiates wage redistributions and more onerous teaching conditions despite the negative impact these changes have on research output average wages may rise but only because non unionized universities trade off wages against the non pecuniary benefits from research and teaching jel classification i20 j51 j54 syndicats sans rentes l economie singuliere des syndicats de professeurs d universite les auteurs montrent que les syndicats canadiens de professeurs d universite n ont pas eu d effet sur les revenus des universites ont eu seulement un petit effet positif sur les gains un effet negatif sur la production de recherche et qu ils ont entraine une redistribution des gains entre disciplines et entre les professeurs de divers rangs on suggere que les syndicats de professeurs ont eu un effet negligeable positif mais souvent negatif sur le salaire moyen des professeurs parce qu un syndicat qui s attache a promouvoir le mieux etre du professeur median negocie des redistributions de salaires et des t ches d enseignement plus lourdes meme si ces changements ont un effet negatif sur la production de resultats de recherche les salaires moyens peuvent croitre mais seulement parce que les universites non syndiquees negocient des avantages non pecuniaires portant sur la recherche et l enseignement en compensation pour des salaires moindres

realizing the spirit and impact of adam smith s capitalism through entrepreneurship adam smith argued in the wealth of nations and the theory of moral sentiments that in order to create an effective and productive capitalist system individuals must pursue interests of both the self and society despite this assertion modern economic theory has become tightly focused on the pursuit of economic self interests at the expense of other higher order motives this paper will argue that the tendency to employ such an egocentric strategy often generates externalities and inequalities that serve to detract from the greater welfare of society however by tempering these economic self interests with non economically motivated considerations this paper will suggest that individuals may create tremendous benefits to society precisely as smith outlined more than two centuries ago in defense of this assertion this paper will review an array of theoretical arguments and empirical findings that suggest that today s entrepreneurs are not only seeking to satisfy both selfish and ethical motivations but in so doing they are also contributing substantially to the overall welfare of society through job creation wealth redistribution and a lack of discrimination as such it appears that spirit and impact of the capitalist system that smith envisioned is being realized through entrepreneurship

residential demand for electricity the case of greece this paper examines the determinants of residential electricity consumption in greece over the period 1961 86 the paper presents first a brief description of the evolution of residential electricity consumption then it proceeds in the estimation of elasticities of residential demand for electricity using a single equation model with the ridge regression method the paper concludes that i the residential demand for electricity is price inelastic and income elastic ii there is high substitutability between electricity and lpg iii during the examined period the number of consumers played a very important role in the expansion of electricity consumption in greece and iv there is no regional variation in residential electricity demand

why do cities pay more an empirical examination of some competing theories of the urban wage premium abstract ols regression identifies a 19 percent wage advantage for workers in large urban areas fixed effects estimation suggests that two thirds of this premium can be explained by cities attracting workers of higher unmeasured skills and ability the remaining wage premium is shown to consist of both level and growth elements the wage level effect is consistent with a productivity advantage for firms located in cities the wage growth effect is shown to relate in part to a cumulative advantage in the returns to job mobility for urban workers this last finding highlights the importance of coordination in urban labor markets

nominal and real union wage differentials and the effects of industry and smsa density 1973 83 many studies have examined the influence of union density union members as a percentage of all workers on earnings in the private sector but few such studies have looked at the public sector using data from the 1991 current population survey this

forecasting energy consumption and energy related co2 emissions in greece an evaluation of the consequences of the community support framework ii and natural gas penetration abstract this study seeks to assess the future demand for energy and the trajectory of co2 emissions level in greece taking into account the impact of the community support framework csf ii on the development process and the penetration of natural gas which is one of the major csf ii interventions in the energy system demand equations for each sector of economic activity traded non traded public and agricultural sector and for each type of energy oil electricity and solid fuels are derived the energy system is integrated into a fully developed macroeconometric model so that all interactions between energy prices and production factors are properly taken into account energy co2 forecasts are then derived based on alternative scenarios for the prospects of the greek economy according to the main findings of the paper the growth pattern of forecast total energy consumption closely follows that of forecast output showing no signs of decoupling as regards co2 emissions they are expected to increase with an annual average rate which is higher than world forecasts

energy demand in greece abstract this paper examines the impact of the two energy crises 1973 74 and 1978 79 on energy demand in greece initially some specific characteristics of energy consumption patterns before and after 1973 are presented and compared then demand parameters for hydroelectric energy liquid fuels and solid fuels were estimated using data for the period 1963 1984 and alternative econometric methods ols 2sls fiml to ensure that estimates do not vary across different estimation methods appropriate tests were used to examine whether a structural change in energy demand has occured following either of the two crises the results indicate that while consumption patterns may be different due to price and income changes after the crises the parameters of energy demand in greece have remained unchanged

compensation of regional unemployment in housing markets why are regional unemployment differentials in europe so persistent if as the wage curve literature demonstrates there is no compensation in labour markets we hypothesize that workers in high unemployment regions are compensated in housing markets modelling regional unemployment differentials as a consequence of centralized wage bargaining we show that clearing of land markets may undo the incentive for workers to migrate to low unemployment regions in general equilibrium the compensating differentials hypothesis is tested on city level data for several countries controlling for variation in income and amenities housing is found to be about 3 percent less expensive on average in cities where unemployment is 10 percent up an analysis of housing demand survey data which takes account of housing heterogeneity yields a similar negative relationship the magnitude of the income effect generated by this compensating differential is consistent with a 0 10 wage curve elasticity these findings weaken the case for regional support programs

poverty prices and place how sensitive is the spatial distribution of poverty to cost of living adjustments this article examines how accounting for cost of living differences across metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas affects measured rates of poverty the spatial price index used is based on the fair market rent data and was developed by the census bureau for use in its experimental poverty research program following u s federal definitions poverty in nonmetro areas has been consistently higher than it has been in metro areas using the fair market rent index to adjust for differences in cost of living results in a complete reversal of nonmetro metro rankings in terms of prevalence depth and severity of poverty for every year examined 1991 to 2002 jel i32 r1 c81