Using two strategies, we show that consumers underreact to taxes that are not salient. First, using a field experiment in a grocery store, we find that posting tax-inclusive price tags reduces demand by 8 percent. Second, increases in taxes included in posted prices reduce alcohol consumption more than increases in taxes applied at the register. We develop a theoretical framework for applied welfare analysis that accommodates salience effects and other optimization failures. The simple formulas we derive imply that the economic incidence of a tax depends on its statutory incidence, and that even policies that induce no change in behavior can create efficiency losses. ( JEL C93, D12, H25, H71)

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Salience and Taxation: Theory and Evidence

In his seminal book, Shewhart (1931) makes no demand on the distribution of the characteristic to be plotted on a control chart. How then can we explain the idea that normality is, if not required, at least highly desirable? I believe that it has come about through the many statistical studies of control-chart behavior. If one is to study how a control chart behaves, it is necessary to relate it to some distribution. The obvious choice is the normal distribution because of its ubiquity as a satisfactory model. This is bolstered by the existence of the Central Limit Theorem.

Sampling: Design and Analysis

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307/3343529.pdf

Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work

In spite of the purported positive environmental consequences of electrifying the light duty vehicle fleet, the number of electric vehicles (EVs) in use is still insignificant. One reason for the modest adoption figures is that the mass acceptance of EVs to a large extent is reliant on consumers’ perception of EVs. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the drivers for and barriers against consumer adoption of plug-in EVs, as well as an overview of the theoretical perspectives that have been utilized for understanding consumer intentions and adoption behavior towards EVs. In addition, we identify gaps and limitations in existing research and suggest areas in which future research would be able to contribute.

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Advances in consumer electric vehicle adoption research: A review and research agenda

Survey Errors and Survey Costs

This paper reports on a survey of pedestrian trips to transit that examined the trip lengths and route choices made by people walking to five rail transit stations in California and Oregon. In highly motorized countries such as the US, policy-makers are beginning to recognize that shifting some travel from auto trips to walking trips can help the country achieve important policy objectives such as combating obesity and reducing the air pollution and oil dependency that result from auto use. However, researchers know very little about pedestrian behaviour and the role of the built and aesthetic environment in influencing pedestrian trips to transit. As communities wrestle with the interconnected issues of obesity, sprawl, and quality of life, planners need to understand how far Americans will walk to transit and the environmental factors that influence them. This survey of 328 pedestrians walking to rail stations, primarily on weekday mornings, found that they were willing to walk an average of half a mile to the rail station and that minimizing the distance walked was the most important factor influencing their choice of route. The people surveyed also frequently mentioned safety factors as important in route choice. Aesthetic elements of the built environment, on the other hand, were rarely mentioned as important route choice factors. The paper concludes by using these survey findings to recommend strategies that planners, designers, and policy-makers can use to design successful transit and pedestrian-oriented developments.

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How Far, by Which Route and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference

This paper examines data about walking trips in the US Department of Transportation's 2001 National Household Travel Survey. The paper describes and critiques the methods used in the survey to collect data on walking. Using these data, we summarize the extent of walking, the duration and distance of walk trips, and variations in walking behavior according to geographic and socio-demographic factors. The results show that most Americans do not walk at all, but those who do average close to thirty minutes of walking a day. Walk trips averaged about a half-mile, but the median trip distance was a quarter of a mile. A significant percentage of the time Americans' walk was spent traveling to and from transit trips. Binary logit models are used for examining utility and recreational walk trips and show a positive relationship between walking and population density for both. For recreational trips, this effect shows up at the extreme low and high ends of density. For utility trips, the odds of reporting a walk trip increase with each density category, but the effect is most pronounced at the highest density categories. At the highest densities, a large portion of the effect of density occurs via the intermediary of car ownership. Educational attainment has a strong effect on propensity to take walk trips, for both for utility and recreation. Higher income was associated with fewer utility walk trips but more recreational trips. Asians, Latinos, and blacks were less likely to take utility walk trips than whites, after controlling for income, education, density, and car ownership. The ethnic differences in walking are even larger for recreational trips.

Extent and correlates of walking in the USA

This study surveyed pedestrians and their walking behavior in Portland and the San Francisco Bay Area. Pedestrians who walked to five different rail stations were surveyed regarding how far they walked, their preferences in choosing a walking route, and the environmental factors that influenced their route choices. The survey results were analyzed in order to assess the pedestrians' perceptions of how far they walked and why they chose their route. In addition, an environmental audit was conducted of the streets and intersections aroudn the stations. Five key findings about pedestrian behaviors and preferences are reported. In addition, the study presents a number of recommendations related to the methodology for doing such detailed pedestrian analyses.

How Far, By Which Route, and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference

Researchers argue that transportation expenditures impose a heavy burden on low-income households, many of whom experience difficulty managing their travel costs. However, relatively little research explores how low-income households manage their mobility needs. To address this issue, this study uses qualitative data from interviews with 73 low-income people living in and around San Jose, California. The interviews reveal the resiliency of low-income families in creatively managing their transportation costs. However, the transportation survival strategies of the poor can come at a high price—fewer miles traveled and, therefore, reduced access to opportunities that may lift them out of poverty.

Getting Around When You’re Just Getting By: Transportation Survival Strategies of the Poor

Transit agencies have never had an accurate indicator of the extent of their service area based on riders’ door-to-door travel time. This is an important gap in knowledge, because travel time is one of the most important factors determining whether or not people will use public transit. This paper presents a powerful new travel timebased method to visualize and analyze transit service coverage—a computer application called the Time-Based Transit Service Area Tool (TTSAT). Unlike other service area metrics, TTSAT incorporates total trip travel time into the transit service area maps it generates. To make these travel-time estimates realistic, TTSAT integrates all segments of a complete, door-to-door transit trip into the trip time calculations. TTSAT’s mapping and analysis capabilities offer numerous potential applications for planners, developers, and members of the public working to create transit-accessible communities.

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Asha Weinstein Agrawal

Papers

How Far, by Which Route and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference

Extent and correlates of walking in the USA

How Far, By Which Route, and Why? A Spatial Analysis of Pedestrian Preference

Getting Around When You’re Just Getting By: Transportation Survival Strategies of the Poor

TTSAT: A New Approach to Mapping Transit Accessibility