Joseph J. Cordes

The socioeconomic benefits of Earth science and applications research: reducing the risks and costs of natural disasters in the USA

Abstract A wealth of satellite data has provided information on weather and climate phenomena for the past 40 years. Within this period, however, the heavy human and economic costs of natural disasters have increased considerably. Using hurricanes, droughts, floods and earthquakes which occurred in the USA as examples, this article describes how Earth science can be applied to such situations to predict or mitigate their effects. The economic value of providing such information is discussed, as are the issues that can affect how successful its provision will be.

The effects of expanded donor choice in United Way campaigns on nonprofit human service providers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area

In January 1994, the United Way of the National Capital Area announced significant changes in its methods of funds distribution. These structural shifts in the Washington, D.C.-area United Way campaign created an environment of increased fiscal and organizational pressure for nonprofits as many scrambled to make up lost ground. This article reports the findings of a survey sent to 258 D.C.-area nonprofit service providers. The survey was designed to determine how nonprofits adapted to changes in their funding environment associated with changes in the United Way campaign. Half of the groups surveyed experienced moderate or large cuts in the amount of funds they received through the United Way. Yet, a majority of the organizations that experienced cuts were able to adapt in ways that allowed them to maintain service levels. A number of these adaptations involved attempts to manage the environment in a manner consistent with resource dependency theory.

Governmental behavior in response to compensation requirements

Abstract The amount of compensation paid to those harmed by public activities is thought to influence mainly the distributional consequences of public programs. This paper uses a simple model of bureau behavior to examine the response of a public agency to changes in compensation requirements. Under some circumstances, changes in compensation requirements will induce agencies to change both the level and mix of public output. Tests of these predictions using data on U.S. highway construction suggest that the presence of compensation requirements can affect the real output decisions of public agencies and not simply the distributional consequences of their decisions.

Public good or commercial opportunity? Case studies in remote sensing commercialization

Abstract The US government is once again attempting to commercialize the Landsat program and is asking the private sector to develop a next-generation mid-resolution remote sensing system that will provide continuity with the thirty-year data archive of Landsat data. Much of the case for commercializing the Landsat program rests on the apparently successful commercialization of high-resolution remote sensing activities coupled with the belief that conditions have changed since the failed attempt to commercialize Landsat in the 1980s. This paper analyzes the economic, political and technical conditions that prevailed in the 1980s as well as conditions that might account for the apparent success of the emerging high-resolution remote sensing industry today. Lessons are gleaned for the future of the Landsat program.

To the Water's Edge, and Beyond: Effects of Shore Protection Projects on Beach Development

The effects on real estate development of shore-protection efforts that lower erosion rates and storm hazards are both controversial and difficult to detect. A simple theoretical model indicates that shore protection is likely to “tilt” development from areas a few hundred feet inland toward beachfront property. A modified repeat-sale house price index is used to measure price appreciation rates to the water’s edge. We are able to formulate an extremely sensitive empirical test for a tilt in rates of house-price appreciation implied by a tilt in development. Surprisingly, we find no significant evidence that shore-protection efforts have produced additional beachfront development in the Florida counties studied. The method used in this article is quite general and could be used in a number of applications where an environmental effect impacts real estate differentially over space.

When Government Programs Create Inequities: A Guide to Compensation Policies

When the government institutes a program thought to be useful for society as a whole, such as building a highway or controlling air pollution, those that benefit from such programs are usually quite different from those that bear its costs. Sometimes the government responds by postponing or modifying the program, sometimes by compensating those that are bearing an inequitable share of the costs. By using familiar economic concepts, the analyst can more effectively choose between the two approaches. Applying those concepts to the case of highway construction in California, we conclude that in this instance cash compensation is clearly superior to postponement as the policy of choice.

Socio-economic perspectives on household saving behavior

It is ultimately through saving, the act of deferring current consumption, that resources are made available to maintain and increase the amount of productive capital available for the production of national wealth. For this reason, few household decisions have social and economic consequences as far-reaching as those of the saving decision. Yet, economists’ understanding of what motivates households to save is remarkably incomplete. As a result, at a time when policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned about the low level of savings in the United States, there is a notable lack of consistent evidence on the determinants of household saving behavior to guide the formulation of appropriate policies to increase saving. The basic framework for research on the determinants of saving behavior and for evaluating the effects of fiscal and tax policies on saving has been the life cycle model of household consumption. In its simplest form, this model implies that the level of household saving can be explained as the outcome of choices made by purely self-interested individuals who must decide how to allocate their lifetime economic resources between current and future consumption. The life-cycle model is appealing to economists because it provides a model of saving which purports to explain household behavior as the

Using cost-benefit analysis and social return on investment to evaluate the impact of social enterprise: Promises, implementation, and limitations

Since the early 2000s there has been growing interest in using the Social Return on Investment (SROI) as a measure for assessing the performance of social enterprises. By analogy with its business counterpart, the Return on Investment (ROI), the SROI is a metric that compares the monetized social costs of a program with the monetized social benefits of achieving an outcome (or set of outcomes). For example, calculating the SROI of a nonprofit half-way house for drug addicts might involve estimating the reduced social costs attributable to successful rehabilitation of addicts, and comparing this to the social costs of operating the half-way house. Alternatively, the total return of a for-profit social enterprise providing affordable housing might consist both of the traditional private return on investment along with the economic value of meeting the housing needs of lower income households. Early descriptions of the methodology for calculating the SROI suggest that the approach initially evolved from standard methodologies found in the business finance literature for evaluating investments, with the important twist that nonprofit sector returns/payoffs are defined in broader social terms (Thornley, Anderson, & Dixon, 2016). Yet, someone who is familiar with the economic literature on cost benefit analysis (CBA) as it is applied to the evaluation of public programs cannot help but be struck by the similarity between the outcomes that CBA is intended to measure, and those that are the object of efforts to calculate the SROI. One implication is that the literature on the theory and practice of cost benefit analysis offers useful lessons about how to measure the social return on investment, as well as about potential caveats and limitations that need to be confronted when attempting to undertake an analysis of the SROI. The paper discusses the potential uses and limitations of CBA and SROI as tools that governments, private donor/investors, and foundations can use to help set funding priorities, and evaluate performance. It summarizes: (1) the conceptual foundations of CBA and its application to SROI analysis, (2) issues raised in the implementation of CBA and SROI in practice, and (3) discusses when CBA and/or SROI approaches are a useful lens for setting priorities and/or evaluating performance, as well as important limitations of such methods.

The partially subsidized muse: estimating the value and incidence of public support received by nonprofit arts organizations

An illustrious group of economists contribute to this volume honoring Dick Netzer, the public finance economist well-known for his research on state and local taxation, the provision of urban public services, and non-profit organizations. Following in his tradition, the contributors apply microeconomics to real world problems facing urban areas and use statistical analysis to gain insight into practical solutions.

Financing Industry—Government Cooperation in Industrial Research

Cooperative research ventures, in which several firms pool their resources in order to develop new technologies, have become more prevalent in recent years. As noted by Link and Tassey, collaborative research among industrial enterprises is not a new phenomenon [1]. For example, firms have supported the research efforts of trade associations since the turn of the century. However, it appears that both the scope and the nature of privately organized cooperative research programs have changed significantly. During the period from 1973 to 1980, there was only one year in which more than 200 joint ventures were reported, whereas in 1982 and 1983 the number had risen to 281 and 348, respectively. Moreover, earlier cooperative research efforts were relatively minor in scope, and not intended, for example, to develop radically new industrial products or processes. By comparison, the more recent cooperative research efforts have been more ambitious.