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Journal Article
Aviation security and terrorism: a review of the economic issues
Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the passage of the Aviation and Transportation Security Act mandated a substantial increase in resources devoted to aviation security. This paper summarizes the specific changes stemming from this legislation. In addition, the paper examines the economic issues underlying the regulation and provision of aviation security. The fact that security at one airport can affect the well being of those at other airports and elsewhere, an example of a network externality (spillover), provides an economic justification for governmental involvement ...
Journal Article
How Might Transforming Highways Impact Community Wealth?
Cities are rethinking what the highway system might look like. How might changes impact wealth, and how might a history of racial inequities be addressed?
Journal Article
Measuring Household Distress and Potential Policy Impacts
Government policies such as income support and debt relief may help explain low levels of household financial distress, but outcomes are uncertain once assistance ends.
Home Values after a Tornado: What Can St. Louis Learn from Little Rock’s 2023 Experience?
Undamaged houses near the path of a 2023 tornado that struck Little Rock saw a sharp, short-term drop in prices, but this effect lasted less than a year.
Journal Article
The boom and bust of U.S. housing prices from various geographic perspectives
This paper summarizes changes in housing prices during the recent U.S. boom and bust from various geographic perspectives. Nationally, the Standard & Poor?s/Case-Shiller house price index more than doubled in nominal terms during the boom and has fallen by roughly a third subsequently. During the boom, housing prices tended to rise much faster in metropolitan areas in the East and West Coast regions than in the country?s interior. After adjusting for inflation, 7 of 19 metropolitan areas have experienced real declines in housing prices from the start of the boom to the present. Although ...
Journal Article
Sales of Distressed Residential Property: What Have We Learned from Recent Research?
During the housing bust many homeowners found themselves ?underwater??the amount they owed on their mortgages exceeded the value of the associated property?and they either could not or possibly chose not to stay current on their mortgage payments. As a consequence, sales of so-called distressed properties, often after a foreclosure, became commonplace. This spurred numerous research papers on various related issues. The authors? review summarizes the research findings on three topics: the impact of changes in housing prices on foreclosures; the impact of foreclosure on the sales price of the ...
Working Paper
Spatial heterogeneity and the geographic distribution of airport noise
One might expect that houses closer to an airport and those in higher minority population neighborhoods experience more airport noise. We find evidence supporting these conjectures when estimating a standard ordered probit model for houses sold near the Atlanta airport. However, because the various neighborhood demographics surrounding the airport can be heterogeneous, and the noise contours are not necessarily correlated with distance in certain neighborhoods, we hypothesize that the impacts of explanatory variables on the probability of greater noise vary across space. We explore spatial ...
Journal Article
Congestion at airports: the economics of airport expansions
Congestion and subsequent delays have been prevalent in many U.S. airports in recent years. A common response to congestion, championed by many community leaders, is to expand capacity by constructing new runways and terminals. Airport expansions are costly, complex, and controversial. We begin by using basic economic theory to analyze congestion at those airports that are part of an air transportation system. Next, we describe how benefit-cost analysis is used to assess the desirability of airport expansions. Many of the key points are illustrated in the context of Lambert?St. Louis ...
Working Paper
Airport-related noise, proximity, and housing prices in Atlanta
Using hedonic models, we analyze the effects of noise and proximity on housing prices in neighborhoods near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport during 1995-2002. We address complications caused by changes over time in the levels and geographic distribution of noise and by the fact that noise levels are measured only at the beginning and after the end of the sample period. Generally speaking, housing prices were affected positively by declining noise levels. After accounting for proximity, house characteristics, and demographic variables, houses in noisier areas sold for less than ...
Journal Article
An introduction to two-rate taxation of land and buildings
When taxing real property at the local level in the United States, land and improvements to the land, such as buildings, are generally taxed at the same rate. Two-rate (or split-rate) taxation departs from this practice by taxing land at a higher rate than structures. This paper begins with an elementary discussion of taxation and the economic rationale for two-rate taxation. In theory, moving to a two-rate tax reduces the deadweight losses associated with distortionary taxation and generates additional economic activity. The paper also provides a history of two-rate taxation in the United ...