Public Education Financing Trends and the Gray Peril Hypothesis

The effects of migrating seniors on the provision of local public services in rural communities is growing in importance because of the large number of retiring baby boomers and the increasing rate at which these retirees are locating outside traditional retirement destinations. Some communities are optimistic about attracting and retaining retirees as an economic development strategy, but others are concerned that inmigrating seniors may be reluctant to support local public services, such as education, bringing with them “Gray Peril.” This article attempts to clarify questions regarding the Gray Peril hypothesis and local ability and willingness to fund education in Tennessee, an increasingly popular retirement destination. To this end, county per pupil education expenditure growth is explained by growth trends in local property tax assessment and sales tax revenue, and migration patterns of the retirement‐aged population from 1962 to 2002.     

Retail Business Adjustment in Rural Hierarchies

Many rural hierarchies are becoming increasingly dominated by a few regional growth centers while the retail sector in adjacent smaller communities either stagnates or declines. This study tests the hypothesis that the rate of adjustment of the retail sector to changing consumer spending patterns is uniform across different ordered communities in a rural hierarchy. Neoclassical investment theory is combined with central place theory to develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the retail sector and investment in a community. A three tiered 49 community hierarchy is constructed using data from the Minnesota Department of Revenue and the Report of Condition and Income of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. A crosssectional time series ordinary least squares regression model is employed to estimate retail coefficients of adjustment for the hypothesis testing. Regional estimates indicate only partial adjustment in the retail sector across the whole hierarchy to shifts in consumer spending patterns. Community estimates, which decompose the regional estimate, indicate retail businesses in the largest and mid-sized communities adjust totally in one period, but that retail businesses in the smallest communities do not. The faster rates of adjustment by retail businesses in the larger communities to changing consumer spending patterns may augment the development of regional growth centers in rural areas.     

The State‐Level Impacts of Enforcing Sales Taxes for E‐retail Purchases

The Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 743) recently passed by the U.S. Senate may portend a national move toward states imposing sales taxes for business‐to‐consumer e‐retail purchases. While much of the policy debate surrounding this question has focused on trade creation versus diversion, there are likely distinct compositional effects at the state level, which will affect both economic activity and tax revenue. Consumers are clearly hurt by an online sales tax. However, such a policy would seemingly benefit state tax coffers, as well as traditional brick‐and‐mortar retailers and their employees. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model approach to get a better understanding of the state‐level income, employment, and tax revenue effects of such a policy shift, in particular the likely tradeoffs between these three traditional economic targets across reasonable ranges of price elasticities.     

Retail Trade on the U.S.‐Mexico Border During the NAFTA Implementation Era

ABSTRACT When NAFTA was implemented in 1994, there was a general expectation that it would hurt U.S. retailers along the U.S.‐Mexico border. This paper asks whether there was a significant change in the pattern of retail trade in border MSAs in the years surrounding NAFTA's implementation. Data from MSAs in the four border states are analyzed. After controlling for other potential influences on retail trade, there remained a statistically significant change in the pattern of retail trade between 1992 and 1997. The changes cannot be unquestionably attributed to NAFTA but do suggest that NAFTA had a negative influence on retail sales on the U.S. side of the border.     

Community Level Multipliers for Rural Development Initiatives

ABSTRACT The success of economic development initiatives in achieving a significant and sustained improvement for a target area is strongly influenced by the size of the local multiplier. New economic activity is generally site specific and the proportion of spending and re-spending that generates local multiplier effect will vary with the hierarchical level of community in which the activity is located. Leakages in the form of outshopping by community residents and expenditures in the community that constitute payments to agents outside the home community are estimated for communities in six functional levels that, combined, represent the complete trade center hierarchy in Saskatchewan. The resulting multipliers are found to vary with functional level, with the smallest communities having the smallest multipliers. When rural areas are being targeted for economic development, more rural economic activity can be generated by focusing on relatively large rural communities.     

Can State Tax Policy Increase Economic Activity and Reduce Inequality?

Previous research shows that when changes in national commodity and income tax rates affect labor supply decisions differently, relative rates can be altered to increase welfare. In the U.S., 40 states impose both a sales and income tax; however, the reliance varies widely. This paper uses a computable general equilibrium model to examine tax policy changes in Colorado. The findings suggest that the revenue neutral changes to income and sales tax rates can affect both the level of economic activity and the distribution of income. When labor force participation is highly sensitive to income tax rate changes—which this paper suggests is the case—progressive changes to Colorado's tax policy changes can both reduce inequality and increase output and employment.     

Gaming,States, and Tax Revenues—the Tortoise or the Hare: A CGE Comparative Assessment of Casino Resorts and Games‐Only Casinos

Theoretically speaking, heavy tax rates on gambling should dampen growth of the casino revenues. Indeed, a cursory glance at data across U.S. states suggests that more jobs and income are generated directly by the gaming industry when lower tax rates are applied. Using a detailed computable general equilibrium model, we evaluate the effects of a proposed machine‐based casino on New Jersey's economy as well as on the state's existing set of casino resorts in Atlantic City. We find few winners other than the state's tax coffers.     

State and Local Government Finances: Was There a Structural Break in the Reagan Years?

The Reagan administration's “New Federalism” and tax reform proposals were expected to have chilling effects on growth of state and local government revenues and expenditures. This paper examines the hypothesis that there was a structural break in state and local government fiscal behavior in the 1980s. Although the evidence is far from conclusive, it does suggest some different fiscal patterns in this decade. However, the real structural break appears to have occurred in the late 1970s and these trends have continued during the Reagan years.     

Extending Carlino-Mills Models to Examine Urban Size and Growth Impacts on Proximate Rural Areas

ABSTRACT A modification of the Boamet model of local economic change is developed that links the growth of urban nodes in functional economic regions to employment and population change in the rural hinterlands of these regions. The two-equation model uses labor market and residential zone observations that are consistent with commuter fields around each rural community in the regions studied. The model parameters are estimated for 204 Danish rural municipalities, for 3515 rural communes in six regions of Eastern France, and for 268 rural census tracts in South Carolina. Results indicate that urban nodal spread effects are often significant and tend to dominate urban backwash impacts on rural communities. Accordingly, rural communities need to be concerned with the economic fortunes of their urban nodes and with policies that affect the pattern of urban growth between urban center and the urban fringe.     

The Retail Bank CD Market: An Assessment of Geographic Scope

ABSTRACT Over the past fifteen years, legislative, regulatory, and technological changes have occurred which have redefined the concept of a “local” bank deposit market. This study employs an interest rate covariability model to evaluate the geographic extent of bank retail CD markets. Classifying deposits according to both size and maturity, a total of four markets are analyzed using yield data for six major state banking areas. The evidence presented for all four cases supports the view that significant, though not perfect, integration exists. The principal finding is that the geographic scope of retail CD markets is inversely related to both size and maturity.     

Interdependence of Retail Businesses

Previous studies employing the trade area analysis procedure of pull factors assume retail sectors are independent. However, interdependencies exist between and among retail sectors. Employing a multivariate Tobit procedure, the agglomerative aspects of retail trade can be captured. Results indictate that interdependencies exist between retail sectors and if these retail interdependencies are ignored, extension and outreach retail sector programs may prove to be ineffective.     

NAFTA or Nada? Trade's Impact on U.S. Border Retailers

The extensive debate over trade liberalization policies in the United States holds a general consensus that some industries will benefit while others will not. This paper explores the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement on U.S. retailers in states located along the border with Mexico. Overall, the impact of trade on U.S. border retailers has been beneficial. However, the results demonstrate that retailers in the region are vulnerable to exchange rate fluctuations and other macroeconomic influences that change the relative price ratio between the United States and Mexico. Furthermore, retailers in metropolitan statistical areas that have a relatively high concentration of retail sector employment are more susceptible to these changes.     

The Economic Status of Areas Surrounding Major U.S. Container Ports: Evidence and Policy Issues

ABSTRACT This article examines the current economic status of the areas surrounding major U.S. container ports. We define a “port district” as the geographic area within a 7.5‐mile radius of a port. Our sample includes the 10 largest container ports in the U.S. We find that when we compare port districts to their surrounding metropolitan areas, household unemployment and poverty rates are significantly higher in port districts. Thus, the same ports that serve as “economic engines” for the region and nation may be the cause of economic decline and deterioration in the immediate areas that surround them. This presents a challenge for policy makers who want to preserve the benefits of international trade while facing increasing opposition to port expansion by local communities.     

Highway Accessibility,Location Rents,and the Efficiency of Metropolitan Area Tax Base Sharing

One solution that has been proposed for the fiscal disparities in fragmented metropolitan areas is the sharing of taxes generated by commercial and industrial property. A criticism of this proposal is that it distorts the efficient pattern of business locations resulting when an implicit market for business locations is allowed to develop through the independent fiscal behavior of communities and the optimizing location behavior of businesses. Critics recognize that the efficiency argument against sharing a metropolitan area's business tax base must be qualified to the extent that local governments possess location advantages which enable them to extract rents from business firms. This paper presents an empirical analysis which permits a partition of the local property tax payments from industrial firms into accessibility location rents and compensation payments to the community for the negative externalities of industrial development. The empirical analysis suggests that approximately 40 percent of the industrial taxes received by communities in this analysis represents accessibility location rents. It is concluded that these receipts could be redistributed through a metropolitan area tax base sharing program without affecting the efficiency of the implicit market for business locations.     

Does virtual discussion of a retail space affect the economic outcomes of the retail stores? The dynamics among retail environment,economic performances,and the perceived characteristics of the traditional retail markets by bloggers in Seoul

Using texts from online blogs, this study aimed to analyze the effect of perceived characteristics of a place in the virtual space and their influence on its economic performance. Specifically, this study analyzed old retail space (traditional markets) in Seoul by empirically examining the relationship among the perceived characteristics, economic performances, and the physical and operative conditions of the markets’ facilities. The perceived characteristics by the bloggers were analyzed by the text-mining of the blog posts. Next, the associations among the multiple factors including the perceived characteristics, economic measures, were analyzed by PLS-SEM. Three types of characteristics were found from the texts: (a) value shopping, (b) novelty & food, and (c) affective sentiments. Among them, novelty & food have significant positive effects on annual sales growth and the vacancy reduction rates of the markets. The improved physical condition also had a positive direct effect on annual sales growth, which can be partially explained by its positive mediating effects on Novelty & Food. The operating condition had no significant relationship with the perceived characteristics but had significant effects on the four economic measures. The results imply that renovation projects could diminish certain characteristics of the space (i.e., affective sentiments), but it enhanced other place characteristics (i.e., food and novelty) following economic gains.     

Interstate Differences in State and Local Revenues

The focus of this study is the examination of the interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues. On one side free competition among states is supposed to keep the interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues at a minimum level. On the other side, the interstate differences in variables like income and taste of consumers, natural conditions (like climate), state's size (scale effect), and others may explain the existing interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues. The empirical results indicate that we successfully explained over 90 percent of the variance in per capita state and local revenues. Additional empirical results reveal that the federal government distributes money among states in a discriminate fashion based on region and size.     

Participatory natural resource management in rural China: Making and unmaking environmental narratives

Environmental and development discourses in China can be categorised into three narrative motifs framing human–nature relationships: peasant, indigenous, and community. Indigenous and community narratives have been widely adopted by environmental NGOs (eNGOs) in China in promoting community‐based natural resource management projects, but there has been very limited critical research on such phenomena. Analysis of socio‐economic change in two ethnic minority communities in Yunnan shows that neither narrative theme is fully internalised by the relevant communities. Instead narratives may be strategically modified or even rejected by local communities. This is due to different agendas being held by local communities and eNGOs, and two factors pertinent to rural China: the incompatibility of concepts of ‘community’ in Chinese and international contexts results in confusion, and a lack of recent territorial and cultural claims by rural communities since the collectivist era makes it difficult to construct the identity of a community. It remains challenging for eNGOs in China to advocate either community or indigenous narratives in contexts of rapid socio‐economic change.     

Business Survival in Rural America: A Three-State Study

Many economists expect that new business survival rates in rural areas ought to be low because of inherent disadvantages of rural economies (e.g. small markets). What little evidence there is in support of this expectation is based on data which is biased toward rural areas. Using unemployment insurance tax records (ES202) for Arkansas, Maine, and North Dakota, the authors calculate and analyze new firm survival rates. Results show that new business survival rates are as high in rural areas as they are in urban areas. Further, survival rates in different industrial sectors are comparable, even when level of urbanization is taken into account. The authors conclude that economists may be overstating the inviability of rural in relation to urban economies.     

Taxation of Natural Resources and State Economic Growth

The econometric evidence that has been brought to bear on the question of how state and local taxes affect the location decision of firms among competing states or regions is surprisingly sparse and often contradictory. In this research the question is addressed from a different empirical perspective than has been considered heretofore. Using a pool of cross-section and time-series data, the trends in employment and capital formation in three energy-rich states are analyzed during a period when these states substituted energy-related revenues for more traditional forms of taxation. McLure's general equilibrium model of regional taxation and industrial location forms the theoretical basis for the empirical analysis. The findings suggest that relative changes in state and local taxes on products and labor are of more significance as a location determinant than relative changes in the state corporate income tax.     

去根处理对枫香和马尾松群落土壤氮矿化的影响

为了研究植物根系对森林土壤氮矿化的作用,通过挖壕法去除根系后的树脂芯原位培养方法,研究了枫香和马尾松群落土壤铵态氮和硝态氮以及土壤氮素矿化速率的季节动态情况。结果表明：去根处理后2个群落的净硝态氮、净铵态氮含量及氮矿化率均比对照高,氮净矿化率季节变化中以夏季最高,冬季最低。就不同林型而言,枫香群落的土壤氮矿化速率高于马尾松群落。方差分析表明,去根处理对土壤净硝态氮、净铵态氮含量及氮矿化率的影响不显著,但土壤温度与2个群落氮矿化率呈极显著正相关,湿度与氮矿化率呈负相关,这说明高温和相对干燥利于氮矿化。