State tax revenues from casinos as a share of total state gaming revenues generally correlate wel... more State tax revenues from casinos as a share of total state gaming revenues generally correlate well with the year of legalization. The share ranges from about 8.0 percent in Nevada, the first state to legalize gambling, to 47.4 percent in Pennsylvania, one of the most recent state to legalize gambling. As a result, even though Nevada's agglomeration of gaming remains the largest within the U.S., its direct state revenues from that industry are now dwarfed by those of recent state entrants. Theoretically speaking, such heavy tax rates should dampen growth of the casino revenues in states that adopt them. Indeed, states with lower tax rates do, in fact, tend to have larger gaming revenue streams: This suggests more jobs and income are generated directly by the gaming industry when lower tax rates are applied. This paper, therefore, probes the size of the indirect economic activity that would have to be generated through spending of casinos on state-based labor and vendors in order ...
This third baseline report uses recent historical data to explore the impacts of the Great Recess... more This third baseline report uses recent historical data to explore the impacts of the Great Recession and the nation's subsequent recovery on Union County's economy. In addition, it aims to identify local industries that may offer the County a competitive advantage given the local labor force and its skill diversity. This industry identification is partially enabled through the use of economic forecasts for New Jersey and Union County, which assess the region's prospects for employment growth in the next decade. The current study is designed to inform economic development efforts and establish a common base of knowledge from which long-range plans and strategic initiatives can be developed. Additionally, through the targeting of industrial development programs developed in this report, it is hoped that Union County will be able to use its economic development resources more efficiently.
In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and tim... more In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and time as a regional scientist. He points out scenery he found scintillating along the way, hoping that some may pick up the banner and chew on a few of the ideas for a while. He suggests a revisit to Albert O. Hirschman’s notion of key sectors and more empirical analysis related to Marcus Berliant’s and Masahisa Fujita’s notion of knowledge creation and transfer.
Rutgers University's Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) examined the potential impacts on th... more Rutgers University's Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) examined the potential impacts on the New Jersey's economy of the extension of the #7 Line. A main objective of the study is t identify both the total economic impacts on New Jersey of the construction activity during the physical extension of the #7 line to Secaucus Junction. The second main objective is to estimate the effect of the extension on the land prices due to the intensified use of and facilitated access to Secaucus Junction and related NJ Transit service.
The air travel industry is in turmoil . Bankruptcies of commercial air carriers have become commo... more The air travel industry is in turmoil . Bankruptcies of commercial air carriers have become commonplace. Increasing fuel costs make profitability wishful thinking for many carriers, and many cities are losing scheduled air service as carriers focus on only the most profitable routes. Complaints about delays are the norm. The benefits that will result from technological improvements are years away. Many in both the private and public sectors describe the system as “broken” and call out for changes in national aviation policy. Why should we care about the state of the aviation system? By connecting cities with quick and affordable transportation, economies expand from cities to regions to mega regions, creating jobs and improving quality of life, even for people who never board a commercial airliner. Regions with access to airports experience greater job growth compared to regions without airports. In a little over a century, air travel grew from a curiosity to the source of over five...
The effect of historic district designation on housing values is from a theoretical perspective r... more The effect of historic district designation on housing values is from a theoretical perspective rather ambiguous. Nonetheless, empirical evidence to date, while by no means conclusive, has overwhelmingly favored this special status for older towns and neighborhoods. In fact, the evidence tends to point out that more stringent ordinances and standards may even be more beneficial to home values. Interestingly, however, the effect of preservation efforts on tax rates has not been investigated. In this paper, we discuss from a theoretical perspective the direction tax rates might take in the face of preservation efforts. Using data for New Jersey municipalities from 1990 and 2005, we then test to see measure how communities that have preservation commissions have performed during the period in terms of the change in both property values and tax rates. New Jersey is an ideal testing ground since the state is among the most developed states in the union and has a relatively large share of...
In this paper we generalize hypothetical extraction techniques. We suggest that the effect of cer... more In this paper we generalize hypothetical extraction techniques. We suggest that the effect of certain economic phenomena can be measured by removing them from an input-output table and by rebalancing the set of input-output accounts. The difference between the two sets of accounts yields the phenomenon’s effect (or importance). We suggest that the approach can be used to measure the effect of changes in intermediate output, which are otherwise not easily rationalized within a Leontief framework. Of course, it also can be used to estimate the possible effects of the shutdown of a particular establishment or other identifiable segment of an economy. We demonstrate some properties and potential of the approach using an annual 2006 U.S. input-output accounts.
Competing casinos in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York State continue to erode revenues at Atl... more Competing casinos in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York State continue to erode revenues at Atlantic City’s casinos. Yet, recent evidence from nascent aspects of New Jersey gaming industry (sports betting and Internet gaming) suggest that the Atlantic City market might not be saturated. To assess whether the market is saturated or not, we first draw on the greater region’s casino gaming revenue history as well as county aggregate personal income and empirically derive the spatial extent of Atlantic City’s market. We then find a measure—regional gross gaming revenues (GGR) as a share of regional aggregate personal income—that suggests the market has been fairly saturated since at least 1990. We then apply two models—Huff’s and a time-series regression—to estimate impact of the addition of new casinos upon those in Atlantic City. Both suggest diminishing returns to scale of additional city slot machines upon the GGR within New Jersey. They also both show that new casinos in competin...
This paper is a broad expansion of an SRSA Research Fellows Address presented in Roslyn, Virginia... more This paper is a broad expansion of an SRSA Research Fellows Address presented in Roslyn, Virginia on April 16th, 2019. In it, I extol the virtues of poverty research, particularly that focused on the U.S. where households living on less than $4/day/person compose the largest shares of county populations. I note that two factors that are the hallmark of such extreme poverty - lack of a vehicle and lack of internet service - are forcing poor household to perceive themselves as ever more isolated, for greater accessibility for the rest of the U.S. population amplifies the gap created by their deficiency. This is because others expect everyone has such access. Southern areas with persistent poverty - the Black Belt, the Mississippi Delta, and Appalachia - have concentrations of such extreme poor and also have deficient access to the rest of the world. I suggest that Americans should find away to ameliorate this condition. I conclude by encouraging my SRSA colleagues to do what they do b...
When working with economic accounts it may occur that multiple estimates of a single datum exist,... more When working with economic accounts it may occur that multiple estimates of a single datum exist, with different degrees of uncertainty or data quality. This paper addresses the problem of defining a method that can reconcile conflicting estimates, given best guess and uncertainty values. We proceeded from first principles, using two different routes. First, under an entropy-based approach, the data reconciliation problem is addressed as a particular case of a wider data balancing problem, and an alternative setting is found in which the multiple estimates are replaced by a single one. Afterwards, under an axiomatic approach, a set of properties is defined, which characterizes the ideal data reconciliation method. Under both approaches, the conclusion is that the formula for the reconciliation of best guesses is a weighted arithmetic average, with the inverse of uncertainties as weights, and that the formula for the reconciliation of uncertainties is a harmonic average.
DESCRIPTION Egypt has proposed a new development corridor. A main component is a desert-based exp... more DESCRIPTION Egypt has proposed a new development corridor. A main component is a desert-based expansion of the current highway network. This network is founded on a 1200-kilometer north-south route that starts at a proposed new port near El-Alemein and runs parallel to the Nile Valley to the border of Sudan. It also includes 21 east-west branches that connect the main axis to densely populated cities on the Nile. The paper is a first attempt at an economic assessment of the impact of this proposed corridor. It uses an interregional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model developed and reported in a prior paper. Here, that model is integrated with a more detailed geo-coded transportation network model to help quantify the spatial effects of transportation cost change due specifically to changes in accessibility induced by the corridor. The paper focuses on the likely structural economic impacts that such a large investment in transportation could enable through a series of simulat...
Abstract : The objective of the overall project was to develop a center of excellence in disaster... more Abstract : The objective of the overall project was to develop a center of excellence in disaster preparedness and emergency response, linking together three major institutions and gaining research, education, and clinical synergies from the collaborations between their subject matter experts. The University Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response (UCDPER) has been established as a oint initiative of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. UCDPER's missions include protection of the lives, health and well-being of the general public, vulnerable populations and the workforce - and protection of societal, economic and physical infrastructure - through research, education, community outreach and clinical advances in preparedness/response to all-hazards emergencies, disasters, and terrorism. The research projects conducted under the UCDPER umbrella have produced recommendations guidelines, and models focused on maximizing effectiveness and efficiency of disaster preparedness and emergency response in all-hazards scenarios. Collaboration across the three partner institutions has become robust over the course of the project. Follow-up projects are being planned.
ABSTRACT The economic impacts of potential terrorist attacks on the New Jersey electric power sys... more ABSTRACT The economic impacts of potential terrorist attacks on the New Jersey electric power system are examined using two regional economic models. The magnitude and duration of the effects vary by type of business and income measure. The shock is initiated in the summer 2005 quarter. The state economy quickly recovers within a year, if we assume that economic activity is restored in the next time period. However, if the attacks prompt an absolute of loss of activity because of migration or closing, then the economy does not fully recover by the year 2010. The policy implication is that the costs and benefits of making the system more resilient to plausible attacks should be weighed and that the restorative capacity of the system should be strengthened
Much of the work that has been done on economic linkage measures that are derived from input-outp... more Much of the work that has been done on economic linkage measures that are derived from input-output data has been or can be cast in the framework of partitioned matrices. In this paper we explore the ramifications of alternative "hypothetical extractions" within that framework. We examine all possible extractions and speculate on the plausibility of the economic stories that might underpin them, as well as whether or not they measure any interesting kind of linkage. We demonstrate that a number of alternative extractions produce identical results for certain measures of sectoral importance. In numerical illustrations, we find that an even larger number of the extractions produce identical rankings of sectors.
... As first observed by Samuelson (1952), such equilibrium patterns can be obtained most easily ... more ... As first observed by Samuelson (1952), such equilibrium patterns can be obtained most easily when reformulated as linear programming problems. ... Samuelson, Paul A.(1952)," Spatial Price Equilibrium and Linear Programming," American Economic Review, 42, 283-303. ...
ABSTRACT. We describe the setting for and construction of a pilot economic simulation model that ... more ABSTRACT. We describe the setting for and construction of a pilot economic simulation model that will be used to assess the regional economic impacts of hazards events on a major rail corridor. The idea is to use such a model to assist in the evaluation of the potential costs and benefits of making transportation systems more capable of withstanding events and rebounding from them. We test the robustness of the model by modifying labor-capital and trade elasticities. In general, we find the model’s results are quite robust to these parameters. Our baseline estimates are also lower than what might be supposed through the implementation of partial equilibrium results obtained via panel data analysis.
PurposeThis paper aims to offer an insight into the fundamental changes taking place in Port wine... more PurposeThis paper aims to offer an insight into the fundamental changes taking place in Port wine production value chains. Specifically, we examine two distinct production regimes: when Port is aged and sold in the Greater Oporto and, alternatively, when it is produced, aged and sold in Douro.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply a tri-regional input-output model (Douro, Greater Oporto and Rest of the Country) for Portugal's economy. This framework comprises a significant level of detail, with 431 products and 136 industries, the corresponding supply and demand for the products, by industry (for intermediate consumption) and final demand.FindingsThis study shows that the two regimes generate noteworthy, but quite heterogeneous, regional impacts. In both cases, the distribution of value added generates international and interregional trade flows. Moreover, the study reveals a greater capacity to capture national value added by getting the supply chain more intensive in loc...
Many techniques are available for updating Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), which tend to have ... more Many techniques are available for updating Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), which tend to have households as an overriding feature. Here we use a semi-qualitative approach that is based on the fuzzy set theory. Expert-provided Likert estimates of interindustry relationships are converted to quantitative ranges to update direct input-output coefficients, which are at the core of SAMs. The resulting fuzzy SAM is subsequently used to estimate the impacts of different exogenous factors—such as the final demand, value added, and institutional income—on the composition of household expenditures.
State tax revenues from casinos as a share of total state gaming revenues generally correlate wel... more State tax revenues from casinos as a share of total state gaming revenues generally correlate well with the year of legalization. The share ranges from about 8.0 percent in Nevada, the first state to legalize gambling, to 47.4 percent in Pennsylvania, one of the most recent state to legalize gambling. As a result, even though Nevada's agglomeration of gaming remains the largest within the U.S., its direct state revenues from that industry are now dwarfed by those of recent state entrants. Theoretically speaking, such heavy tax rates should dampen growth of the casino revenues in states that adopt them. Indeed, states with lower tax rates do, in fact, tend to have larger gaming revenue streams: This suggests more jobs and income are generated directly by the gaming industry when lower tax rates are applied. This paper, therefore, probes the size of the indirect economic activity that would have to be generated through spending of casinos on state-based labor and vendors in order ...
This third baseline report uses recent historical data to explore the impacts of the Great Recess... more This third baseline report uses recent historical data to explore the impacts of the Great Recession and the nation's subsequent recovery on Union County's economy. In addition, it aims to identify local industries that may offer the County a competitive advantage given the local labor force and its skill diversity. This industry identification is partially enabled through the use of economic forecasts for New Jersey and Union County, which assess the region's prospects for employment growth in the next decade. The current study is designed to inform economic development efforts and establish a common base of knowledge from which long-range plans and strategic initiatives can be developed. Additionally, through the targeting of industrial development programs developed in this report, it is hoped that Union County will be able to use its economic development resources more efficiently.
In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and tim... more In this Presidential Address, the author takes the reader on a reconnaissance of his life and time as a regional scientist. He points out scenery he found scintillating along the way, hoping that some may pick up the banner and chew on a few of the ideas for a while. He suggests a revisit to Albert O. Hirschman’s notion of key sectors and more empirical analysis related to Marcus Berliant’s and Masahisa Fujita’s notion of knowledge creation and transfer.
Rutgers University's Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) examined the potential impacts on th... more Rutgers University's Economic Advisory Service (R/ECON™) examined the potential impacts on the New Jersey's economy of the extension of the #7 Line. A main objective of the study is t identify both the total economic impacts on New Jersey of the construction activity during the physical extension of the #7 line to Secaucus Junction. The second main objective is to estimate the effect of the extension on the land prices due to the intensified use of and facilitated access to Secaucus Junction and related NJ Transit service.
The air travel industry is in turmoil . Bankruptcies of commercial air carriers have become commo... more The air travel industry is in turmoil . Bankruptcies of commercial air carriers have become commonplace. Increasing fuel costs make profitability wishful thinking for many carriers, and many cities are losing scheduled air service as carriers focus on only the most profitable routes. Complaints about delays are the norm. The benefits that will result from technological improvements are years away. Many in both the private and public sectors describe the system as “broken” and call out for changes in national aviation policy. Why should we care about the state of the aviation system? By connecting cities with quick and affordable transportation, economies expand from cities to regions to mega regions, creating jobs and improving quality of life, even for people who never board a commercial airliner. Regions with access to airports experience greater job growth compared to regions without airports. In a little over a century, air travel grew from a curiosity to the source of over five...
The effect of historic district designation on housing values is from a theoretical perspective r... more The effect of historic district designation on housing values is from a theoretical perspective rather ambiguous. Nonetheless, empirical evidence to date, while by no means conclusive, has overwhelmingly favored this special status for older towns and neighborhoods. In fact, the evidence tends to point out that more stringent ordinances and standards may even be more beneficial to home values. Interestingly, however, the effect of preservation efforts on tax rates has not been investigated. In this paper, we discuss from a theoretical perspective the direction tax rates might take in the face of preservation efforts. Using data for New Jersey municipalities from 1990 and 2005, we then test to see measure how communities that have preservation commissions have performed during the period in terms of the change in both property values and tax rates. New Jersey is an ideal testing ground since the state is among the most developed states in the union and has a relatively large share of...
In this paper we generalize hypothetical extraction techniques. We suggest that the effect of cer... more In this paper we generalize hypothetical extraction techniques. We suggest that the effect of certain economic phenomena can be measured by removing them from an input-output table and by rebalancing the set of input-output accounts. The difference between the two sets of accounts yields the phenomenon’s effect (or importance). We suggest that the approach can be used to measure the effect of changes in intermediate output, which are otherwise not easily rationalized within a Leontief framework. Of course, it also can be used to estimate the possible effects of the shutdown of a particular establishment or other identifiable segment of an economy. We demonstrate some properties and potential of the approach using an annual 2006 U.S. input-output accounts.
Competing casinos in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York State continue to erode revenues at Atl... more Competing casinos in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York State continue to erode revenues at Atlantic City’s casinos. Yet, recent evidence from nascent aspects of New Jersey gaming industry (sports betting and Internet gaming) suggest that the Atlantic City market might not be saturated. To assess whether the market is saturated or not, we first draw on the greater region’s casino gaming revenue history as well as county aggregate personal income and empirically derive the spatial extent of Atlantic City’s market. We then find a measure—regional gross gaming revenues (GGR) as a share of regional aggregate personal income—that suggests the market has been fairly saturated since at least 1990. We then apply two models—Huff’s and a time-series regression—to estimate impact of the addition of new casinos upon those in Atlantic City. Both suggest diminishing returns to scale of additional city slot machines upon the GGR within New Jersey. They also both show that new casinos in competin...
This paper is a broad expansion of an SRSA Research Fellows Address presented in Roslyn, Virginia... more This paper is a broad expansion of an SRSA Research Fellows Address presented in Roslyn, Virginia on April 16th, 2019. In it, I extol the virtues of poverty research, particularly that focused on the U.S. where households living on less than $4/day/person compose the largest shares of county populations. I note that two factors that are the hallmark of such extreme poverty - lack of a vehicle and lack of internet service - are forcing poor household to perceive themselves as ever more isolated, for greater accessibility for the rest of the U.S. population amplifies the gap created by their deficiency. This is because others expect everyone has such access. Southern areas with persistent poverty - the Black Belt, the Mississippi Delta, and Appalachia - have concentrations of such extreme poor and also have deficient access to the rest of the world. I suggest that Americans should find away to ameliorate this condition. I conclude by encouraging my SRSA colleagues to do what they do b...
When working with economic accounts it may occur that multiple estimates of a single datum exist,... more When working with economic accounts it may occur that multiple estimates of a single datum exist, with different degrees of uncertainty or data quality. This paper addresses the problem of defining a method that can reconcile conflicting estimates, given best guess and uncertainty values. We proceeded from first principles, using two different routes. First, under an entropy-based approach, the data reconciliation problem is addressed as a particular case of a wider data balancing problem, and an alternative setting is found in which the multiple estimates are replaced by a single one. Afterwards, under an axiomatic approach, a set of properties is defined, which characterizes the ideal data reconciliation method. Under both approaches, the conclusion is that the formula for the reconciliation of best guesses is a weighted arithmetic average, with the inverse of uncertainties as weights, and that the formula for the reconciliation of uncertainties is a harmonic average.
DESCRIPTION Egypt has proposed a new development corridor. A main component is a desert-based exp... more DESCRIPTION Egypt has proposed a new development corridor. A main component is a desert-based expansion of the current highway network. This network is founded on a 1200-kilometer north-south route that starts at a proposed new port near El-Alemein and runs parallel to the Nile Valley to the border of Sudan. It also includes 21 east-west branches that connect the main axis to densely populated cities on the Nile. The paper is a first attempt at an economic assessment of the impact of this proposed corridor. It uses an interregional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model developed and reported in a prior paper. Here, that model is integrated with a more detailed geo-coded transportation network model to help quantify the spatial effects of transportation cost change due specifically to changes in accessibility induced by the corridor. The paper focuses on the likely structural economic impacts that such a large investment in transportation could enable through a series of simulat...
Abstract : The objective of the overall project was to develop a center of excellence in disaster... more Abstract : The objective of the overall project was to develop a center of excellence in disaster preparedness and emergency response, linking together three major institutions and gaining research, education, and clinical synergies from the collaborations between their subject matter experts. The University Center for Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Response (UCDPER) has been established as a oint initiative of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. UCDPER's missions include protection of the lives, health and well-being of the general public, vulnerable populations and the workforce - and protection of societal, economic and physical infrastructure - through research, education, community outreach and clinical advances in preparedness/response to all-hazards emergencies, disasters, and terrorism. The research projects conducted under the UCDPER umbrella have produced recommendations guidelines, and models focused on maximizing effectiveness and efficiency of disaster preparedness and emergency response in all-hazards scenarios. Collaboration across the three partner institutions has become robust over the course of the project. Follow-up projects are being planned.
ABSTRACT The economic impacts of potential terrorist attacks on the New Jersey electric power sys... more ABSTRACT The economic impacts of potential terrorist attacks on the New Jersey electric power system are examined using two regional economic models. The magnitude and duration of the effects vary by type of business and income measure. The shock is initiated in the summer 2005 quarter. The state economy quickly recovers within a year, if we assume that economic activity is restored in the next time period. However, if the attacks prompt an absolute of loss of activity because of migration or closing, then the economy does not fully recover by the year 2010. The policy implication is that the costs and benefits of making the system more resilient to plausible attacks should be weighed and that the restorative capacity of the system should be strengthened
Much of the work that has been done on economic linkage measures that are derived from input-outp... more Much of the work that has been done on economic linkage measures that are derived from input-output data has been or can be cast in the framework of partitioned matrices. In this paper we explore the ramifications of alternative "hypothetical extractions" within that framework. We examine all possible extractions and speculate on the plausibility of the economic stories that might underpin them, as well as whether or not they measure any interesting kind of linkage. We demonstrate that a number of alternative extractions produce identical results for certain measures of sectoral importance. In numerical illustrations, we find that an even larger number of the extractions produce identical rankings of sectors.
... As first observed by Samuelson (1952), such equilibrium patterns can be obtained most easily ... more ... As first observed by Samuelson (1952), such equilibrium patterns can be obtained most easily when reformulated as linear programming problems. ... Samuelson, Paul A.(1952)," Spatial Price Equilibrium and Linear Programming," American Economic Review, 42, 283-303. ...
ABSTRACT. We describe the setting for and construction of a pilot economic simulation model that ... more ABSTRACT. We describe the setting for and construction of a pilot economic simulation model that will be used to assess the regional economic impacts of hazards events on a major rail corridor. The idea is to use such a model to assist in the evaluation of the potential costs and benefits of making transportation systems more capable of withstanding events and rebounding from them. We test the robustness of the model by modifying labor-capital and trade elasticities. In general, we find the model’s results are quite robust to these parameters. Our baseline estimates are also lower than what might be supposed through the implementation of partial equilibrium results obtained via panel data analysis.
PurposeThis paper aims to offer an insight into the fundamental changes taking place in Port wine... more PurposeThis paper aims to offer an insight into the fundamental changes taking place in Port wine production value chains. Specifically, we examine two distinct production regimes: when Port is aged and sold in the Greater Oporto and, alternatively, when it is produced, aged and sold in Douro.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply a tri-regional input-output model (Douro, Greater Oporto and Rest of the Country) for Portugal's economy. This framework comprises a significant level of detail, with 431 products and 136 industries, the corresponding supply and demand for the products, by industry (for intermediate consumption) and final demand.FindingsThis study shows that the two regimes generate noteworthy, but quite heterogeneous, regional impacts. In both cases, the distribution of value added generates international and interregional trade flows. Moreover, the study reveals a greater capacity to capture national value added by getting the supply chain more intensive in loc...
Many techniques are available for updating Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), which tend to have ... more Many techniques are available for updating Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs), which tend to have households as an overriding feature. Here we use a semi-qualitative approach that is based on the fuzzy set theory. Expert-provided Likert estimates of interindustry relationships are converted to quantitative ranges to update direct input-output coefficients, which are at the core of SAMs. The resulting fuzzy SAM is subsequently used to estimate the impacts of different exogenous factors—such as the final demand, value added, and institutional income—on the composition of household expenditures.
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Papers by Michael Lahr