published journal article
published journal article
This paper provides an empirical test of a principal tenet of fiscal federalism: that spending discretion, when granted to localities, allows public-good levels to adjust to suit local demands. The test is based on a simple model of partial fiscal decentralization, under which earmarking of central transfers for particular uses is eliminated, allowing funds to be spent according to local tastes. The greater role of local demand determinants following partial decentralization is confirmed by the paper’s empirical results, which show the effects of the 1986 Norwegian reform. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
conference paper
conference paper
This paper describes how environmental studies of motor vehicles typically focus on air pollution or noise pollution and ignore water pollution. This paper investigates the costs of reversing some of the environmental impacts of motor vehicle transportation on surface waters and groundwater. The estimates of the cost of cleaning-up leaking underground storage tanks range from $6.5 billion to $19.6 billion, while control costs for highway runoff from major arterials in the United States are an order of magnitude larger (from $45.3 billion to $249 billion, all in 2005). Some causes of non-point source pollution were unintentionally created by regulations or could be addressed by changing the design of motor vehicles. Effective clean-up policies should emphasize prevention, coupled with public education, enforcement, and economic incentives. In general, preventing water pollution from motor vehicles would be much cheaper than cleaning it up.
published journal article
This article analyzes the impact of changing housing and neighborhood characteristics on the accessibility of neighborhood businesses using Long Beach, California, as a case study. Although advocates of smart growth and New Urbanism encourage land use mixing, aggregate-level analysis can be too coarse to pick up on fine-grained aspects of urban streetscapes. This study uses assessor parcel records and a point-based business establishment data set to analyze city-wide patterns of accessibility from individual dwelling units to thirty-one types of neighborhood businesses, including grocery stores, service shops, drug stores, doctor’s offices, and banks. Regression results compare parcel-level and neighborhood-level drivers of accessibility between 2006 and 2015 to gauge the aggregated effect of recent economic, demographic, and built environment changes on this aspect of urban spatial structure. Larger homes in older, multiunit buildings and higher income neighborhoods show substantial increases in accessibility to most establishment types, suggesting a trend toward both greater accessibility and larger dwelling unitsdespite the traditional trade-off between access and space. Although gradual increases in home and business density increased overall accessibility over this period, weaker neighborhood-level results indicate that this trend is less pronounced in high-poverty and non-white areas.
presentation
published journal article
This paper derives empirically tractable formulas for the welfare effects of fare adjustments in passenger peak and off-peak rail and bus transit, and for optimal pricing of those services. The formulas account for congestion, pollution, accident externalities, scale economies, and agency adjustment of transit service offerings. We apply them using parameter values for Washington (DC), Los Angeles, and London. The results support the efficiency of the large current fare subsidies; even starting with fares at 50 percent of operating costs, incremental fare reductions are welfare improving in almost all cases. These findings are robust to alternative assumptions and parameters. (JEL L92, R41, R42, R48)
published journal article
published journal article
conference paper
Freight movement is critical to prosperity, but it also generates substantial external costs such as additional congestion and air pollution. One possibility to mitigate congestion and air pollution from urban freight is to shift freight deliveries to off-peak hours but the environmental benefits of this approach are still uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to start filling this gap by analyzing the impacts on the emissions of selected air pollutants of the PierPASS program, which was implemented in 2005 for drayage trucks serving the San Pedro Bay Ports (SPBP, ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach). The analysis combined TransModeler (a microscopic traffic simulation software) with Motor Vehicle Emissions Simulator (MOVES) to simulate traffic for 24 hours on freeways and arterials in the study area, which extends from the SPBP complex to downtown Los Angeles. Overall, it was found that PierPASS had little impact on congestion in the study area and likely resulted in a small decrease in the emissions of various air pollutants, ranging from -0.1% for carbon monoxide (CO) to -2.3% for particulate matter (PM10). At the same time, while the emissions of air pollutants decreased by approximately 10% for NOx and PM during peak time, they increased by approximately 28% for these same pollutants during off-peak hours compared to pre PierPASS levels. Additional analyses are needed to assess the health impacts of these changes for local residents.