AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF INTERREGIONAL PRICE LINKAGES*

ABSTRACT Vector autoregression models are used to analyze the relationships between Texas and Illinois corn prices, and the New Orleans export price. Decomposition of error variances suggests an increasing exogeneity in the recent years between the export market and the two U.S. markets. Impulse response functions indicate that the export price influences both the Illinois and Texas prices.     

EMPIRICAL IMPLICATIONS OF ADVANCES IN CANONICAL THEORY*

Canonical correlation has seen growing acceptance in geographical research as a tool for analysing the interrelationships between two sets of variables.¹ It provides a natural extension to the multivariate case of simple correlation analysis introduced into the discipline in the fifties for measuring the degree of areal association between two individual variables.² It has also proved valuable for forging a link between traditional geographic variables measuring the attributes of places and those indicating interactions among them.³ Recently, major developments in canonical theory have occurred which provide two major benefits for geographical research.⁴ First, asymmetrical regression relationships in addition to symmetrical correlation relationships between two variable sets can be determined. Researchers can use canonical regression to examine the degree to which one variable set is capable of predicting the other, in addition to canonical correlation which examines the symmetrical interrelationships between the two.⁵ Secondly, much improved methods are available for measuring the number, strength, and nature of the interrelationships between the two variable sets, and for assessing the adequacy of the canonical model in general.⁸ The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of these developments and, more particularly, to explore their implications for the validity of empirical results obtained in earlier applications of canonical analysis. This is not intended as a criticism of these studies but rather as an attempt to further our understanding of spatial structure and process through re-examination of existing data in the light of refined techniques.     

AN ANALYSIS OF TWO-CENTER COMPETITION

This paper analyzes the competition between the two centers which belong to different hierarchical levels. A two-center competition model is constructed by applying the Lotka-Volterra equations. This model includes as parameters the scale economies of central places, the consumer's outflow from the region, as well the distance between centers. As it is assumed in this model that the carrying capacity of the region will be affected by the consumer's outflow rate from it, the outflow rate is estimated by a demand generation model and then incorporated into the two-center competition model.     

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.