Showing papers in "Land Economics in 1964"

Public Investment Criteria

Abstract: tion to authorize projects if total costs could either be repaid by users of water for irrigation or charged to some nonreimbursable function or functions.' Following the directions of the legislation, the Department of Agriculture, Corps of Engineers, and the Bureau of Reclamation were required to use benefit-cost analysis in most project considerations.' The first step in constructing a benefit cost ratio involves the allocation

Social control in the Sais.

Abstract: With the change in methods over time it seems appropriate to provide another case study of the precision of Ratio Correlation and to compare its accuracy with some of the more complex techniques of estimation. Detailed descriptions of the various methods employed in this report are available in several papers. This test compares 1960 population estimates of the 83 Michigan counties for each of four methods with the 1960 Census totals. All of the methods examined here use symptomatic indicators to estimate population. (excerpt)

Land Tenure, Income Distribution and Productivity Interactions

Abstract: one to the conclusion that pre-conceived ideas about goals or ideal tenure structures in agriculture are not very useful. Such goals, to have operational significance, must grow out of analysis based on a thorough familiarity and understanding of circumstances as they actually exist and the possibilities for action offered by these same circumstances. We may all be in accord with the general objective of improved income distribution and increased productivity, but this in itself does not help us define practical steps needed to achieve it. In treating the broad issues of land tenure, income distribution, and productivity at the theoretical level, there is a tendency to look only in a superficial way at present circumstances, and then project a desired end product without due consideration to means by which the present situation can be and must be used painfully to re-construct that future. In actual practice, we must deal with the agricultural system as it is and as it might reasonably be modified, not as it might be if we had a clean slate upon which to write. This is true whether the present tenure structure is altered by revolutionary or more orderly means. The rural people with their specific skills or lack of them, the physical resources with peculiar capacities, obstacles and locations, the attitudes and beliefs generated by unique historical antecedents-all these make up the real world situation to be dealt with and we

Public Policies in Urban Renewal: An Economic Analysis of Justifications and Effects

Abstract: O UR INTEREST in this paper is with those public policies in urban renewal most closely identified with the older term "urban redevelopment." In essence, they refer to activities whereby a local renewal authority, acting with eminent domain powers, acquires property at current market value, removes the existing improvements, and resells the cleared site at whatever price is necessary to stimulate private development. It is expected that the private resale market will not be strong enough to permit resale without loss. Thus the values of the renewal area properties must be "written down," and the absorption of the write-down costs requires an outlay of public funds, largely federal. In short, we are dealing with the use of public authority and money to achieve a private re-use of urban land. When we use the term renewal policies, these are the actions we mean to describe. Our

Product Quality and Public Land Management

Abstract: geous product mix. This choice is conventionally analyzed by use of a transformation function describing the possible substitutions of one product for another given a fixed amount of inputs. Using known prices and assuming profit maximization the optimum product mix can be determined by comparing price ratios with physical substitution ratios. This analysis though developed with reference to private decisions has been applied to public land management by economists such as Gregory and Hopkin.' The latter's study will be used here to illustrate some aspects of the problem of product quality often overlooked in theoretical treatment of this issue.

Intra-Metropolitan Industrial Location: The Scrap Industry in Chicago

Abstract: not exclude a necessary recognition of the variety of other forces that must interact in the individual decision-making process, the combination of which determine the locational pattern, but rather to discern some continuity in these or, in fact, any set of reasons that might be important in explaining the pattern.? The scrap industry is defined as a wholesaling industry" although it is somewhat unique in that respect. There are certain advantages to the scholar in studying this industry: first, it exists in a very nearly free market. The law of supply and demand is in operation at all times except when the iron and steel industry ceases production or the government imposes price controls. There are no monopolies in the industry; each dealer is an entrepreneur, his success, in most cases, being directly related to his individual ability. The location of each dealer should therefore represent the result of an individual decision, making any continuity in location more or less spontaneous. This does not simplify the investigation but to a certain degree complicates it, since a part of the explanation for location must be sought in the impulse of individual dealers. In the industry the term "scrap" means scrap iron and steel-ferrous scrapwhereas, the term "metals" or "scrap

The Green Tariff of the Electricite de France

Abstract: Editor's Note. In submitting this article in its English translation the translators wrote: "We have sought to adhere to the meaning of the original French but also have taken some editorial license in clarifying the meaning for the reader. The 'Tariff Vert' or Green tariff, instituted late in 1956 by Electricite de France, the nationalized electric utility system of France represents the most advanced and sophisticated application of marginal cost pricing yet attempted. Regardless of whether the principles are specifically applicable to American conditions, the work of Boiteux, Dessus and others associated together in the formulation and implementation of the tariff are worthy of study and have been receiving increasing attention from American economists. This article first describes the impact of inflation on the electric tariff set up in France in the 1935-38 period which was still in effect in 1956. As will become apparent, the original tariff became completely irrational as a result of inflation. The later part of the translation is given to the Green Tariff. It is noted that this tariff is applicable to wholesale service at voltages ranging upward to 220 kv, an extremely high service voltage. Customers apparently furnish their own transformation equipment. Any rates quoted in American currency are at the approximate exchange rates prevailing at the time and have been computed by the translators." "Readers are referred to the paper by Professor James R. Nelson at the American Economic Association meetings of December 1962 in which the tariff was analyzed. It is understood that Professor Nelson will bring out a book which will contain translations of numerous French articles and papers on the subject."