Jack C. Stabler

Demand‐Threshold Estimation for Business Activities in Rural Saskatchewan

Historically, a common technique used to assess a communitys ability to support various business activities has been demand-threshold estimation. The concept of a demand threshold has been applied at the community level by estimating a relationship between community population and the number of establishments of a particular kind in the community. The approach taken in this research incorporates a spatial dimension (community urban proximity) in addition to community population to estimate demand thresholds. Using a count data technique, demand thresholds are estimated for 27 different business activities found in 584 rural Saskatchewan communities in 1990. Both population and urban proximity are found to be important explanatory variables.

Multipliers in a Central Place Hierarchy

Open economy multipliers, at the community level, capture only a portion of the system-wide impact of changes in local autonomous spending. Multiplier effects for the central place system will include the community-specific multiplier, where the autonomous expenditure was initiated, plus all of the cross-community multiplier effects generated through linkages among communities in the hierarchy. Import leakages, in the form of shopping at higher levels, result in “filtering up” of expenditure increases initiated at lower levels of the system. In an earlier paper (Olfert and Stabler 1994), community-level multipliers for a central place system in the Great Plains were estimated. In this paper, the distribution of direct and induced spending, resulting from autonomous spending increases initiated at particular levels of a central place hierarchy, is derived and empirically estimated over all levels of the hierarchy. Building on (1) own-community level multipliers, (2) an exhaustive set of cross-community multipliers are derived and empirically estimated. The combination of own- and cross-community multipliers produces (3) system-wide multipliers that show the system-wide impact of spending initiated at any level in the hierarchy. Finally, (4) level-specific impact multipliers resulting from autonomous spending originating at any (every) level in the system are calculated. Results indicate that the induced impact of autonomous expenditure increases anywhere in the system will be the greatest at the top of the hierarchy, that autonomous increases at higher levels have a larger local impact than they do at lower levels, and that equal expenditure increases across the hierarchy will have a disproportionate impact at the top of the hierarchy, as well, dueto a combination of higher own-community multipliers and spending up the hierarchy by residents of lower level centers.

Methodological issues in the evaluation of regional resource development projects

Benefit-cost analyses have, in the 1980s, become a standard component of impact studies required, usually by legislative directive, in the assessment of major resource development proposals throughout North America. The objective is to provide decision makers with the best possible estimate of net benefits to be realized from the proposed development.The spread of computers during the past decade, coupled with an increased availability of provincial, state or regional input-output tables, has facilitated development of an increasingly comprehensive approach now regularly used in regional benefit-cost assessment studies. Applied analyses, which once focussed almost exclusively on direct benefits and costs, now routinely attempt to measure a variety of “indirect benefits” as well. More complete, and therefore better, assessments should result from the successful extension of applied techniques of analysis.In reality, however, the expanded methodology now commonly used is flawed in two major respects. Further, the erroneous results produced with this methodology have led, in practice, to an upward bias in regional project evaluation. A review of a dozen recently completed Canadian and American benefit-cost assessment studies, or summaries of them, revealed that all contained at least one major methodological error. Most contained several.The first discrepancy concerns the accounting stance adopted for the calculation of regional benefits and costs. In most studies, this was either poorly defined or not defined at all. Since the accounting stance influences both the methodology utilized and the results obtained, confusion on this important matter was a source of error in many studies.

Fiscal viability and the constitutional development of Canada's northern territories

The constitutional development of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories has become a topic which is debated with increasing frequency and by an ever-widening group of participants. Provincial status is seen by many as the logical, ultimate goal. Admission of new provinces to the confederation, previously a rather straightforward process, depends on conditions which the Constitution Act of 1982 has altered. For the first time candidates are now required to be fiscally sound prior to admission. In this paper the circumstances in which Canadas northern territories might become fiscally viable are investigated, using simulation analysis. It is concluded that fiscal viability awaits the development of some of the frontier mega-projects proposed in recent years.

The regional structure of the united states economy

A methodology is developed to divide an economy into regions, then is applied to the United States. These regions represent a departure from the ones currently used by the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of the Census, both of which are criticized for being derived in anad hoc fashion. The methodology uses a multiregional input-output model, which is viewed as the simplest type of general equilibrium model containing regional detail. The optimal regions developed using this methodology are ones that minimize aggregation error.

Jobs, leisure and traditional pursuits: activities of native males in the Northwest Territories

Activity patterns of native people in the Northwest Territories include a complex mixture of employment in the modern economy, full-time or part-time engagement in traditional pursuits, and leisure. This study identifies characteristics of participants in each activity which assist in interpreting the allocation of time among employment in the modern economy, the pursuit of traditional activities, and leisure. Three hypotheses—traditionalist, modernist and culturalist — were identified from current literature and tested statistically, using data collected in interviews held with 11,164 NWT residents in 1984. The hypotheses were: (1) engagement in the traditional sector is preferred to holding a job in the modem economy; thus, wage employment primarily facilitates pursuit of traditional activities; (2) engagement in the modern economy is preferred; those unable to work in it turn to traditional activities, which are easier to enter; (3) the traditional sector is an arena in which a cultural heritage can be maintained, a preferred sustenance obtained, or where one can demonstrate his prowess apart from any material gain that might be realized. The data do not unequivocally support any of the hypotheses, but this study suggests an alternative approach to the interpretation of activity patterns, based upon an analysis of individual preference functions.

Land banking and housing prices: A comment

ConclusionsIt was not the intent of this note to argue the question of the efficiency of a municipal land bank compared with a private land market nor the even more difficult question of the desirability of a land bank. Rather, the focus was on the impact that a municipal land bank, operated in a variety of ways, could have on housing prices.A land banking program could effectively reduce the price of housing below that which would prevail under a competitively organized, private land market. In order to achieve this result, the municipal authority would have to provide lots as demanded and systematically sell them below the price that would prevail in a private market.A land bank which provided lots as demanded, at the private market price, would produce results in the housing market identical with those obtained under a private land market.A land bank that limited the number of lots made available would actually force the market price of housing above that which would prevail given an unconstrained private land market, regardless of the price charged for lots.This analysis was conducted in a short-run context. Extension to the long-run would affect the position of the supply schedule for new houses and thus THS, but should not alter the general conclusions.