THE SOCIAL BENEFITS OF URBAN CULTURAL AMENITIES*

ABSTRACT. This paper uses a two-stage hedonic wage approach to derive the benefits from improvement of five cultural amenities. It is argued that the hedonic approach permits valuation of both private and local public aspects of cultural goods since access to the amenity is an essential input in the production of the final service flow. Empirical estimates of willingness to pay suggest price and income elasticities are approximately unity. Lower-bound estimates of marginal benefits for a representative city range from $0.85 million for an additional theater to $57.9 million for an additional zoo facility.     

SOMETIMES CLOSE IS GOOD ENOUGH: THE VALUE OF NEARBY ENVIRONMENTAL AMENITIES*

ABSTRACT An extensive empirical literature exists, showing that variations in region‐specific amenities can account for persistent differences in real wages across regions. However, this literature has considered only amenities in the same location as the household. This paper argues that environmental amenities at some distance from but accessible to urban areas may lead to negative compensating wage differentials. We use a general equilibrium framework and data from the 1995 Current Population Survey to calculate implicit amenity prices based on measures of distance to environmental amenities. Our results suggest that amenities outside the metropolitan area do generate compensating wage differentials, as workers are willing to accept lower wages to live in accessible proximity to “nice” places. This implies that these places provide a positive externality to those communities that find them accessible. The estimated effects are quantitatively important, suggesting that these externalities should be taken into account in policy making.     

RETAIL AMENITIES AND URBAN SPRAWL

This paper examines the interaction between local retail markets and population density in cities. We demonstrate that welfare costs of urban sprawl need not come only from road congestion or environmental externalities, as often suggested in the literature. A city also forgoes potential agglomeration economies in retail when it settles into a spatially sprawling equilibrium. Our theory predicts an additional spatial equilibrium where the city is inefficiently dense, characterized by strong retail agglomeration economies within the core.     

城市舒适性视角下长春市创新产出的空间特征及影响因素

基于长春市2009—2018年专利授权数，以城市街道为创新产出基本分析单元，从城市舒适性视角探讨城市创新产出的空间格局及其影响因素。研究发现：2009—2018年长春市城市内部创新发展差异逐渐增大，局部区域相对均衡，整体呈现“西南集聚，东南分散”的空间特征；创新产出的空间单元数量逐渐增多，并形成“北低南高，四大核心”的空间格局；且伴随显著的高值集聚现象，企业、大学与研究机构的空间聚集性促进了知识溢出效应；城市舒适性对于长春市创新产出的空间集聚有一定影响，休闲舒适性因子与长春市创新产出的空间分布整体相关性较强。     

SPATIAL HEDONICS AND THE WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR RESIDENTIAL AMENITIES*

ABSTRACT We investigate the role of spatial multipliers when using spatial‐lag hedonic models to measure the benefits of residential amenity improvements. Such benefits are commonly measured using the product of the coefficient of the amenity in question and a spatial multiplier. We show this is correct only when the spatial spillovers transmitted through the multiplier are strictly technological. If they are instead strictly pecuniary, then benefits are fully measured using the coefficient with no spatial multiplier. In either case, or in intermediate cases where both types of spillovers exist, a spatial‐lag specification is required to obtain valid benefits measures.     

基于网络大数据的城市内部便利性供需空间特征研究——以南京市中心城区为例

基于便利性的城镇发展战略对于新型城镇化转型具有重要意义。着眼于城镇居民生活质量的提升,围绕供需维度构建便利性测度体系,以多源网络大数据为支撑,分析南京市中心城区便利性的供需空间特征。结果表明,中心城区便利性供需关系多样,空间分布大体类似,倾向于多类聚合分布,并呈现较为明显的圈层集聚特征;主城便利性多供小于求,副城则以低供需平衡及供小于求为主,各公共活动中心便利性发育水平不一;中心城区整体便利性供需水平不高,其空间分布在数量及连续性方面均呈现低供需平衡、低供-中需以及中供-低需依次降低的模式。     

THE EFFECT OF TRANSPORTATION SUBSIDIES ON URBAN SPRAWL*

ABSTRACT This paper provides theoretical and empirical analyses of the effect of transportation subsidies on urban sprawl in a two‐mode urban spatial model. Comparative static analysis shows, among other things, that the urban area contracts with a public transit subsidy but expands with an auto subsidy. The paper provides the first empirical test of these hypotheses and finds that the spatial size of the urbanized area shrinks with an increase in transit subsidies but increases at a decreasing rate with auto subsidies.     

EVOLUTION OF URBAN SYSTEMS IN THE PARETO PLANE*

ABSTRACT Distributions of city sizes are usually characterized by their Pareto index. This, however, turns out to be a rather restrictive view, for the Pareto distribution is known to become singular whenever the Pareto index becomes smaller than one, a case which is fairly frequent in empirical distributions. We show that the introduction of finite Pareto distributions in which city sizes are bounded from above solves a number of difficulties encountered by the rank-size rule and by the unbounded Pareto distribution. Combined with the use of finite Pareto distributions, the green-belt model that has been introduced previously is reexamined. It implies definite constraints for the long-run evolution of urban systems; it is in the cases of countries experiencing a process of fast urbanization that these constraints are of greatest significance. The implications of the model are confronted with empirical evidence concerning the evolution of urban systems in major industrialized countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.     

THE QUESTION OF EFFICIENCY IN URBAN BUS TRANSPORTATION*

ABSTRACT. This paper estimates a flexible frontier specification for the production of urban bus transit services in the United States. The results confirm previous findings of relatively unimportant scale economies. However, they also suggest that this regulated industry is subject to substantial technical and allocative inefficiency.     

THE URBAN ENTERPRISE ZONE*

ABSTRACT This paper provides an analytical framework of urban enterprise zones in a context of regional development. The direct and indirect impacts of urban enterprise zones on regional economies such as job creation, urban unemployment, agricultural wage and changes in the regional economic structure are analyzed by incorporating the intermediate goods sector. The study suggests that the establishment of urban enterprise zones is a beneficial and effective policy instrument which can be used in promoting urban renewal and regional economic growth.     

THE MARKET VALUE OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS IN ALTERNATIVE FISCAL REGIMES*

ABSTRACT Land price differentials have long been used as a proxy for the value of environmental improvements in cost/benefit analysis. Both the empirical and theoretical literatures have largely ignored two important facts, however: Taxes financing local improvements are often distortionary, and amenities which influence property values in turn impact the fiscal budget, and hence the tax rate and final economic burden. Put another way, the economic cost of an improvement is endogenous to both the amenity level and the revenue structure. Extending the story in this direction for a system of open or closed spatial cities, the paper finds land rent measures to be a biased measure of the willingness to pay for amenities financed by either head taxes (benefit taxes), property taxes (excise taxes), or highway tolls (user fees). These results are used to correct the conventional specification of empirical property value regression models, which traditionally account for neither tax revenue effects nor the excess burden of distortionary taxation.     

AMENITIES VERSUS LABOR MARKET OPPORTUNITIES: CHOOSING THE OPTIMAL DISTANCE TO MOVE*

ABSTRACT. A recent debate in the regional economics literature has focused attention on the motivation behind an individual's decision to migrate. Human-capital migration models emphasize labor market disequilibria whereas alternative (hedonic) migration models stress households’altered demand for nontraded goods. In this paper, we test the relative importance of these two possible motivations for moving between metropolitan areas. We use an intercity hedonic model to decompose wages into equilibrium and disequilibrium components. We then compare the separate influences of amenities and the disequilibrium component of wages on the distance moved between two metropolitan areas. Our findings indicate that both economic factors and amenity differentials are significant factors in explaining regional migration.     

MEASURING THE INEQUITY OF URBAN PUBLIC SERVICES METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION WITH APPLICATIONS*

This article attempts to extend the analysis of urban service delivery beyond equality of units of service input to measurement of the equity of both inputs and outputs (impact). The author develops an original technique for measuring and indexing service equity. It is applied to police services in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The findings are generally consistent with other recent research around the nation in that only modest inequities in service inputs and outputs are found and little evidence of systematic discrimination toward the poor and racial minorities is found.     

要让照相机物尽其用体现价值

由于照相机拥有者的兴趣和爱好不同,它们的用途和价值的体现亦不尽相同,有的把它当玩具,有的把它工具,还有的把它当成收藏品。如果您也拥有照相机,不管把它当成什么,我建议您一定要让它物尽其用,体现价值!     

旅游凝视视角下城市边缘型社区居民—游客价值共创研究

旅游凝视视角下居民—游客价值共创行为尚未得到学界的实证检验。基于旅游凝视理论,本研究构建了旅游者凝视、东道主凝视、地方依恋、感知价值和居民—游客价值共创行为的影响模型,并在泉州浔埔社区展开问卷调查。研究表明：①旅游者凝视正向影响东道主凝视;②旅游者凝视和东道主凝视正向影响居民—游客价值共创行为;③地方依恋在旅游凝视对居民—游客价值共创行为的影响关系间具有中介作用,感知价值正向调节了旅游凝视对居民—游客价值共创行为的影响。本研究拓展了旅游凝视理论,揭示了旅游凝视对居民—游客价值共创行为的影响机制。