Determinants of Residential Location Choice: How Important Are Local Public Goods in Attracting Homeowners to Central City Locations?*

Abstract. A hybrid conditional logit choice model is estimated using data on the characteristics and destination of homeowners who engaged in intrametropolitan moves among 17 school districts within the Columbus, Ohio area in 1995. The model is used to test the relative influence of local fiscal and public goods versus household‐level characteristics in determining household location choices across central city and suburban school districts. Results provide evidence of both a “natural evolution” of households to the suburbs, due to job location, residential filtering, and household income and lifecycle effects, and “flight from blight,” due to lower school quality, higher crime levels, and lower average income levels in the city. In comparing the magnitudes of these variables, we find that school quality exerts the strongest influence: a 1‐percent increase in the school quality of the city district increases the probability of choosing a city residence by 3.7 percent. In contrast, the effects of household income and other individual characteristics are relatively modest. The findings provide support for a “flight from blight” suburbanization process that is dominated by differences in neighborhood quality between the city and suburbs. An implication is that investments that promote central city development and reduce suburbanization are justified on efficiency grounds if negative externalities are generated by increased concentration of poverty, crime, and low school quality.     

Some Insights on the Aterian in the Libyan Sahara: Chronology, Environment, and Archaeology

The Aterian has a huge geographic extension covering all North Africa, although it was not supposed to exist in the mountain ranges of the central Sahara. Its chronological context is not yet definitively determined and it is still difficult to say whether the Aterian tools are technological, typological, functional, or chronological markers. Recent surveys and excavations at Uan Tabu and Uan Afuda, two rock-shelters located in the central Tadrart Acacus, provide the first chronological, environmental and archaeological indications on this Late Pleistocene human occupation in the area. The lack of organic matter led us to perform OSL and TL analyses on sand. L'Atérien a une énorme extension géographique qui couvre tout le Nord de l'Afrique, tandis qu'on ne pensait pas qu'il existait dans les montagnes du Sahara central. Son contexte culturel n'est pas définitivement déterminé et il est encore difficile de dire si les instruments atériens sont des indicateurs téchnologiques, typologiques, fonctionels ou culturels. Reconnaissances et fouilles récentes à Uan Tabu et Uan Afuda, deux abris situés dans l'Acacous central, fournissent les premières indications sur la chronologie, l'environnement et l'archéologie de l'Atérien dans la région. L'absence de la substance organique, nous a porté à faire des déterminations OSL et TL sur les sables.     

Economic and Environmental Policy Analysis of the Flumen‐Monegros Irrigation System in Huesca,Spain

This article describes a behavioral model of the Flumen‐Monegros irrigation area (Spain) and presents the results from the model simulation under various policy scenarios. The model combines agronomic, economic and policy information in a framework built using linear programming and crop growth simulation techniques. An important feature of the model is the classification of crop acreage in various types of soils which have different productive potential. The objective function maximizes net margins of crops and includes direct payments of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The crop activities covered in the model are the main crops cultivated in the area (fallow, wheat, barley, corn, sunflower, alfalfa, rice, other crops, and CAP set‐aside). To validate the model, the results on cropland utilization obtained from the model have been compared with actual cropland utilization, concluding that the model closely approximates the actual data. The model is used to characterize the behavior of the irrigation area under three scenarios which reflect likely changes in agricultural and environmental policies: removal of direct payments, increase in water prices, and reduction of fertilizer use. The results show the large impact of these three scenarios on farmers' production decisions: the elimination of direct payment reduces net margin almost by half; prices corresponding to full recovery of water costs reduce significantly the cultivated acreage; and the reduction in fertilizer use causes a fall of 23 percent in net margins.     

Geometric architectural pattern and constructive energy analysis at Los Millares Copper Age Settlement (Santa Fé de Mondújar,Almería,Andalusia)

Enclosure walls from late IV to II millennium are an important archeological feature in southeast Iberia and south Portugal. These enclosures were considered to be fortified settlements but have more recently been interpreted as the result of general processes of social complexity, symbolism, monumentality, interaction, and space demarcation, among others. Metric and geometric studies associated with architectural concepts are very important tools to analyze prehistoric communities and bring their own perspective to bear. The planning of monuments or even whole settlements includes a more general perception of space, determined by mythology, topography, taking of place, and social hierarchy, among others.     

Multiple paths of development: knowledge bases and institutional characteristics of the Swedish food sector

The aim of this paper is to explore the relation between the critical knowledge base of firms and how firms respond to incentives embedded in the institutional framework surrounding them. The analysis gives us a better understanding of the complex development of the food sector in Southern Sweden in the past decades. Theoretically, the paper combines concepts of path dependency and knowledge bases, and applies this framework to a set of development trajectories of firms in the Scanian food sector. Three development paths are identified—path extension, path renewal and new path creation. Findings illustrate that these are rooted in different knowledge base combinations of firms, which make them respond differently to similar place- and sector-specific institutional conditions.     

Mycenaean shipwright tool kit: its reconstruction and evaluation

The present study aims to answer questions of utility and efficiency, on the basis of archaeological evidence, of the nominated Mycenaean shipwright tool kit through experimental methods. The target set was established through the recording of archaeological data, examination of the available findings, classification of the finds, gathering of the relevant sources (literature, iconography, archeological parallels and preserved traces), reconstruction of the findings (casting, elaboration of the metallic parts and reconstruction of the hafts), usage of the reconstructed tools and the evaluation of them qualitatively, quantitatively and ergonomically via the reconstruction of a segment of the Uluburun shipwreck hull. Knowledge of tool production of the Late Bronze Age has been furthered. Questions on the casting of the metal parts of tools and the elaboration of their different parts have been answered. The reconstructed tools appear suitable for use in pegged mortise-and-tenon joinery in shipbuilding by skilled woodworkers. Moreover, the reconstructed tools proved to be user friendly. Experimental methods proved useful in the allocation of efficient criteria for the use-based classification of tools. Functional differences between the tools were shown, and questions on utility were answered. The Late Bronze Age shipwright, as master of his craft and tool use, could make new tools or adjust them to the demands of a particular job, as well as to his own body build. The range of tools used for shipbuilding in the Late Bronze period is comparable to those used today.     

Computing Abilities in Antiquity: The Royal Judahite Storage Jars as a Case-study

Studying the volume of ancient pottery vessels can shed light on the development of complex societies and state apparatus by revealing the means taken to standardize trade and taxation. It can also shed light on the cognitive abilities of ancient people by investigating their knowledge of computing. This paper explores, as a case study, the volume and shape of the lmlk (“belonging to the king”) royal storage jars, which probably represent the highest level of standardization in eighth century BCE Judah. To estimate the volume of these vessels we constructed a computer 3D model for each jar. The variation in the jars’ linear dimensions is about 2–3%, a number that is characteristic of human-made objects produced by professionals without employing measurement tools. Had the potters produced jars of the same height, they could have easily reached 3–4% accuracy in the volume. Surprisingly, the variation in the jars’ volume is 7–10%. We hypothesize that rather than height the potters focused on the jars’ shape and wall width, estimating the volume according to the jars’ outer measurements. We propose a simple way that these measurements could have been taken and suggest a formula that could have been employed by the potters and customers for quickly calculating a jar’s volume.     

Formt die Technik die Musik? Montageästhetik zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts

Does technology shape music? Aesthetics of assembly at the beginning of the 20^th century. This article deals with the relationship between assembly in production technology and similar processes in musical composition. Can composers like Eric Satie, Igor Strawinsky or George Antheil, who used assembly methods in some of their compositions, be called assemblers? The authors point out that all three composers used assembly methods in different ways and with different purposes. Applying a theoretical approach inspired by media studies they come to the conclusion that the conditions under which musical works using assembly methods are shaped do not originate in technology but in the aesthetic convictions of the composer. Apart from assembly methods there are many other compositional principles the composer relies on. Technology may inspire music but does not determine the musical outcome.