Joe B. Stevens

The economics of collective choice

Introduction -- Efficiency and Equity as Reasons for Collective Action -- Markets: Will They Be Efficient? -- Markets: Will They Be Fair? -- Voluntary Solutions to Market Failure -- Direct (Participatory) Government -- Legislative Government: Part -- Legislative Government: Part 2 -- Administrative Government: Part -- Administrative Government: Part 2 -- Federated Government

Political markets, property tax referenda, and local school spending

For better or worse, fiscal decisions made through property tax referenda allow local political markets to work. Demand, supply, and voting process components of such markets are estimated for those Oregon K-12 school districts that held referenda between 1981 and 1986. Various attributes of the median voter were related to school spending, but supply decisions by school boards and administrators were also important. Large districts used state aid to substitute for local property tax revenues on nearly a one-for-one basis, while relying on reversion budgets (inadequate property tax bases and implicit threats of school closures) to extract greater-than-desired spending levels from the median voter.

Angler Success as a Quality Determinant of Sport Fishery Recreational Values

Abstract The empirical importance of “angler success per unit of effort” as a quality determinant of recreational values was investigated with regard to three sport fisheries at Yaquina Bay, Oregon. A 10% increase in salmon (Oncorhynchus) angling success would induce a long-run increase in angling effort of approximately 10%, although bottomfish (sea perches, Embiotocidae; starry flounder, Platichthys; and other estuarine fishes) angling effort seems to be considerably less responsive to changes in success. Demand functions and success “elasticities” for each fishery were used to estimate the decrease in net economic value associated with a pollution-induced reduction in angling success. The methodology may also apply to evaluation of measures which would increase angling success, such as investment in hatcheries.

Objective indicators, personal characteristics, and satisfaction with safety from crime and violence: An interaction model

An interaction model is presented which allows crime rates, personal characteristics, or both to determine satisfaction with safety from crime and violence. The model is tested with data from recent migrants from California to southern Oregon. Those households which are most vulnerable, particularly those with young children, older people, females, and those with more wealth, would derive the highest levels of satisfaction from reductions in crime rates.

Use Rates, Resource Flows, and Efficiency of Public Investment in Range Improvements

A theoretical model of interactions between use rates and resource flows over space and time is developed, and a static empirical model is derived for ex post analysis of public range investments on the Vale Project (Oregon). Five investment practices varied widely in their marginal productivities. For every Animal Unit Month (AUM) of grazing produced directly by Investment, an additional 0.5 AUM was obtained by manipulation of use rates to allow increased natural regeneration. Overall, the Vale Project was inefficient in terms of an implicit redistributional objective as well as the explicit national income objective.

Satisfaction with environmental change: an empirical analysis of attitudes toward air quality by recent interstate migrants

Abstract How (and whether) people perceive environmental change is a question which economists have generally chosen to finesse rather than explore. The three components of attitudes (cognitive, affective, behavioral) are identified and a “satisfaction” metric is used to evaluate the nonbehavioral components for recent in-migrants to Oregon. An interaction model is used to relate changes in satisfaction to changes in air quality and to personal characteristics of the migrants. In general, a valid cognitive dimension exists; changes in satisfaction are in fact consistent with changes in air quality data.

Measurement of Economic Values in Sport Fishing: An Economist's Views on Validity, Usefulness, and Propriety

Abstract Despite the contention of the economist that recreational values can be measured, the biologist and the administrator are less than entirely convinced. The economist must bear some of the blame for not communicating exactly what he feels he can and cannot measure, for not specifying what is meant by “value,” and for not indicating to whom these values accrue. It is suggested that current methods for measuring recreational values to participants have a promising degree of scientific validity in that empirical data have generally been consistent with theoretical models. Due to various theoretical and practical problems, however, the policy significance of these models is less clear.

Discussion: Community Facilities and Services: An Economic Framework for Analysis

Professor Days paper may be divided into three parts: (a) a definition of community services and facilities, (b) consideration of optimization versus suboptimization in economic models, and (c) a review of selected current and proposed research topics. I would judge the last to be the most useful of the three parts, although I find it difficult to discuss a review of selected literature. Declaration of sins of omission is not quite cricket, and