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Journal Article
Issues in economics: are lifetime incomes growing more unequal?: looking at new evidence on family income mobility
Since most people judge their well-being by comparison with others, widening inequality of lifetime incomes may threaten our standing as a "land of opportunity."
Journal Article
Is it more expensive, or does it just cost more money?
Most of us, from the general public to professional economists, use the term inflation pretty loosely. It?s increasingly applied to any rise in prices, and even economists use it interchangeably with a rise in the cost of living. This Commentary explains what inflation is, why it should be kept distinct from a rise in the cost of living, and how some statistical measures attempt to distinguish between the two.
Working Paper
Interurban comparisons of the quality of life
A methodology is developed for constructing quality-of-life comparisons for metropolitan areas in which the full bundle of an area's attributes is valued, rather than the typical method of focusing on individual characteristics.
Journal Article
The churn among firms
Journal Article
Does the CPI overstate increases in the cost of living?
Journal Article
Corpus Christi: an economy in transition
Corpus Christi tempts tourists with miles of beaches, sea breezes, an arts and museum district, waterfront restaurants, shopping and more. It is also home to a major seaport, Texas A&M UniversityCorpus Christi, a large health care system, military bases, refineries and chemical plants. Port activity and tourism remain important components of the Corpus Christi economy. However, some sectors are declining in importance, such as agriculture, oil and gas, petrochemicals and military, while others are expanding, such as health care, alternative energy and education. ; Jobs in the Corpus Christi ...
Journal Article
Affordability and education: keys to San Antonio's long-term growth
This article analyzes San Antonio's competitiveness compared with a group of peer MSAs defined by similar attributes of location, industry composition, demographics, tourism and population size. Our analysis finds that San Antonio remains very economically competitive and likely will continue to enjoy above-average growth in the long run, although the Alamo City does face long-term challenges due to a less-educated population.
Working Paper
Improving the ACCRA U.S. regional cost of living index
The broadest and most commonly used measure of the cost of living across U.S. cities is the American Chamber of Commerce Research Association (ACCRA) index. This index is used by business and government organizations and the media to rank living standards and real wages across U.S. cities. In this study we reduce the aggregation bias in the index by calculating national average prices for the 59 item prices using population weights instead of the equal weight formula used by ACCRA. This correction results in a decline in the index values for all cities and changes in the rankings and ...
Working Paper
Compensating differentials and evolution of the quality-of-life among U.S. states
This paper provides the first application of the compensating differential paradigm to the evaluation of the extent and sources of evolution in quality-of-life among U.S. states. In addition to providing estimates of quality-of-life rankings for U.S. states over the 1981-1990 period, we use estimated implicit prices on place-specific amenities to calculate the contributions of various factors to evolution in the quality-of-life. Our findings indicate that the quality-of-life rankings are relatively stable across model specifications and over time for certain poorly ranked, densely-populated ...
Journal Article
Evolution of the quality of life in the U.S.