Cost-Benefit Analysis of Local Land Use Allocation Decisions

This paper presents standard microeconomic models that are designed to be used in the cost-benefit analysis of local land use decisions. The models connect these allocation decisions to outcomes in the urban land and labor markets so that costs and benefits can be measured. Benefits to the local jurisdiction of allocating land to industrial use exist if unemployed workers are employed, land values increase, or local tax revenues increase beyond the amount needed to provide the additional public services required.     

Information Integration Theory Applied to Student Apartment Selection Decisions

The purpose of this paper is to apply theory and methodology developed in the study of information integration in psychology to the modeling of individual apartment decisions. In particular, two models that express the trade-off relationships among three variables hypothesized to be influential in apartment selection are examined. Although it is not claimed that the variables included in the study are the only ones relevant to apartment selection, evidence is provided that they are considered to be the three most important in a preliminary analysis. The paper also discusses potential benefits of controlled experimentation and model estimation strategies.     

饭店收益管理的定价决策研究

继20世纪70年代收益管理在航空业大量运用并收到良好成效后,收益管理便作为一种先进的管理方法被越来越多的饭店所接受。而在饭店收益管理诸多方面中,价格问题是最为重要、灵活和敏感的,价格决策的成功与否直接关系到收益管理运用的成败。本文以饭店收益管理的定价问题为研究对象,在界定饭店收益管理概念的基础上尝试建立饭店收益管理定价决策模型。     

Access to the Information Age: Fundamental Decisions in Telecommunications Policy

As federal and state budget sheets show more red than black ink, the private sector is delivering more social services and even protecting rights. The experience of disability rights leaders during the past five years shows that the private sector will accept such obligations as long as the burden is evenly distributed throughout an industry. They will balk if it is not. The task of ensuring access and fairness for people with disabilities in an industry where equal allocation of social responsibility is difficult is illustrated by the continuing effort of disability rights leaders for accessibility to Information Age telecommunications products and services. The effort also highlights a recurring theme in public policy: Does equity mean that all Americans pay a little more so that those with disabilities gain full access, or does it mean that overall rates are kept low while those with special needs use adaptive devices? Each point of view was illustrated in the telecommunications policy debate of the 102nd Congress-and likely will shape that of the 103rd Congress as well.     

An Efficient Search Strategy for Site-Selection Decisions in an Expert System

This paper describes an algorithm for spatial search, which is used in an expert system for site selection. The algorithm, named ProfMat, is able to find the best site in the area of interest even when the number of possible sites is large and many decision criteria are involved. Compared to commonly used search procedures, ProfMat improves the efficiency of spatial search in two ways. First, the best site is identified through an iterative rather than a linear process of selection and evaluation of optional sites. Second, an area is searched by narrowing down the focus to increasingly smaller areas and, thus, sites are evaluated as much as possible groupwise. The ProfMat procedure is illustrated by analyzing the problem of retail site selection. A comparison with alternative search procedures shows that ProfMat considerably reduces the evaluation costs needed to find the best site. The implementation of the algorithm in an expert system shows how ProfMat can be used in combination with specialist's knowledge to solve site-selection problems. The efficiency of the procedure allows considering large sets of optional sites, so that it may improve the quality of the outcome.     

Environmental Regulations and New Plant Location Decisions: Evidence from a Meta-Analysis

Stricter environmental regulations are often opposed on the grounds that they will alter equilibrium capital flows. Empirical evidence in this area remains largely unresolved, mainly due to the quite disparate results found in the literature. This paper takes a positive look at the relationship between new manufacturing plant location decisions and environmental regulations by examining data from 11 studies that provide more than 365 observations. One major result from our meta-analysis is that methodological considerations play a critical role in shaping the body of received estimates. Our empirical estimates also lend insights into future research that is necessary before any robust conclusions can be made regarding the effects of environmental regulations on capital flows.     

Location and Pricing Decisions of a MultiStore Monopoly in a Spatial Market

Abstract.  This article presents an analysis of location and pricing decisions of a monopolist about to open several stores in a compact geographical space. The number of stores is made endogenous by the introduction of fixed costs. A novel methodology is developed, by which the firm's location and price decisions are represented as continuous functions defined over the geographical space. This modeling artifact generates a negligible error but simplifies the solution considerably and allows the derivation of several intuitive results. Although the focus is on one‐dimensional markets, it is shown that the method can easily be adapted to two‐dimensional markets.     

The Public Response to Controversial Supreme Court Decisions: The Insular Cases

In the Insular Cases, the Supreme Court established a new category of areas and persons coming under the sovereignty of the United States. Added to (1) the member states of the Union and (2) the existing territories (and states to be), was (3) territory "belonging to" the United States, but not a part of it. Justice Edward White proposed this doctrine—that territories were of two types, "incorporated" territories, those fit to be states, and non-incorporated territories, to be the property of the United States—in his concurring opinion in Downes v. Bidwell . ¹ Congress could govern these latter territories as it wished, subject to "fundamental" protections under the Constitution, those protecting individual liberties rather than those granting political participation.     

司法判决中习俗的考量和适用分析

与习俗的一致性深刻影响着法律的实效性。在司法判决中考量和适用习俗,不仅能够更好地理解、解释法律和填补法律漏洞,而且可能得出合法允当的判决来。因此努力提高习俗和法律之间的一致性符合我国法治和社会发展的趋势。但是,由于习俗和法律乃是有自身运作逻辑的不同规范系统,在具体个案裁决中习俗因素的考量并不见得就能得出允当而又具有社会可接受性的判决来,通过习俗理解法律最好不要一概而论才好。     

Procedural and Substantive Fairness in Risk Decisions: Comparative Risk Assessment Procedures1

The issue of fairness often is central within environmental policy debates. The recent proliferation of state and local comparative risk projects for informing the selection of environmental policy priorities offers an appropriate setting to explore the issue of procedural fairness in risk-based decisionmaking. This paper describes and evaluates the process by which one of the initial state comparative risk projects, Washington's “Environment 2010,” attempted to include a broader range of participants in identifying, assessing, and generating preferred management strategies for a wide range of environmental hazards. The Washington case study suggests that comparative risk projects can be fairer procedurally, but that significant barriers remain. Noting that greater procedural fairness does not necessarily produce greater substantive fairness, the paper concludes that more attention needs to be directed at the process by which comparative risk projects translate their consensus upon risk priorities into subsequent actions.     

An Empirical Analysis of Retailer Participation Decisions in a Downtown Parking Coupon Program

Parking coupon programs help downtown shopping areas attract consumers away from suburban shopping centers. Here we conduct an empirical analysis of retailer participation in such a program. Consistent with expectations, participation was higher for stores in shopping centers than for street-front retailers, for stores receiving subsidies for coupon purchase, and for stores selling comparison-shopping goods than for stores selling goods bought on one-stop, single-purpose or multipurpose-shopping trips. Participation also varied with numbers of competitors, chain membership, and store vintage. Apparently, participation is a local public good for downtown retailers and stores are inclined to free ride.     

Urban Neighborhoods as a National Resource: Irreversible Decisions and Their Equity Spillovers

The differential timing and pace of private versus public sector disinvestments in declining neighborhoods have some positive spillovers for their residents. Public services are not withdrawn or reduced as rapidly as private investments and the opportunity is preserved for future redevelopment or rehabilitation. This “public service bonus” is vulnerable, however, during periods of austerity and general retrenchment. During such crises, the pressures to rationalize service provision are able to overcome local political and bureaucratic resistance to service reallocations. The analysis is based upon the investment theory literature dealing with irreversible decisions and is exemplified by the reallocation of services in New York City's declining neighborhoods during the past decade.