We study water pollution in the Ganges River caused by tanneries in Kanpur, India. We analyze the merits of a recent claim that unitizing or merging the polluting tanneries can improve water quality in the Ganges. We first describe the n ≥ 2 polluting tanneries in Kanpur as a Cournot oligopoly and derive the equilibrium output of leather and profits. Second, we permit m < n tanneries to merge and determine the cost function, when the m tanneries can use their production facilities, and there are no other efficiency gains from unitization. Third, we examine when the m -tannery unitization is profitable to the unitized entity and to the non-unitized tanneries. Fourth, we discuss our conclusions about the profitability of the unitized and the non-unitized tanneries and comment on what our findings mean for improved water quality in the Ganges. Finally, we discuss some key regional dimensions of the Ganges water pollution problem caused by tanneries in Kanpur.

This research estimates long-term impacts of “redlining” maps on rates of home ownership. In the 1930s, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation drew maps that split US cities into zones with 4 categories of mortgage risk. We exploit the grade discontinuities at the borders between zones to estimate effects of the grade assignments. Using newly-created shapefiles for 1940 Census blocks in Birmingham, Alabama, we match 1940 and 2010 Census blocks in Birmingham to grades and then build small neighborhoods of blocks that are close together and lie along both sides of grade borders. We compare outcomes between higher- and lower-graded blocks within neighborhoods. 2010 Households in lower-graded blocks are significantly less likely to live in an owner-occupied dwelling than their neighbors a couple blocks away in a higher-graded zone. However, the same is true in 1940, suggesting that estimates from 2010 severely overstate the effect of treatment. Extending the 2010 analysis to all US cities produces even smaller differences than in Birmingham.

Adopting a loanable funds model, this exploratory empirical study investigates the impact of economic freedom on the real interest rate yield on high-grade tax-exempt municipal bonds in the U.S. The AR/2SLS and FMOLS estimations imply that greater economic freedom leads to a lower ex post real interest rate yield on tax-exempt municipal bonds. Other interesting findings include the following: the real interest rate yield on tax-frees was an increasing function of both the ratio of the national debt to GDP and the ratio of the budget deficit to GDP while being a decreasing function of quantitative easing policies. Policy implications of these results include the need to limit the extent of the federal budget deficits in the U.S. lest there will be, among other things, significant limitations placed on the ability of towns, cities, counties, and states to finance outlays in response to changing demographic and economic circumstances and/or maintaining existing infrastructure.

Dennis Pearson reviews Ammous, Saifedean (2018) The Bitcoin Standard. Justin W. Parker reviews Taylor, Andrew, Dean B Carson, Prescott C Ensign, Lee Huskey, Rasmus O. Rasmussen, and Gertrude Saxinger (2016) Settlements at the Edge: Remote Human Settlements in Developed Nations. Benjamin T. Blemings reviews Detter, Dag and Fölster, Stefan (2015) The Public Wealth of Cities.

Brazil, a country with a great territorial dimension and relevant and heterogeneous agricultural production, faces the challenge of climate change, of increasing productivity in the countryside, and of developing an economy with low environmental impact. This paper is designed to assess the impacts of hypothetical 1% productivity increases in large-scale and in family farming within Brazilian biomes induced by public policies that promote the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices as a strategy to address climate change. Such analysis uses a Computable General Equilibrium model specially built for analysis of the rural sectors in the Brazilian biomes: TERM-Biomas. The study reveals that less developed regions could benefit from productivity increases, potentially leading to a reduction in regional inequality if such policies were directed toward them. The cattle industry demonstrates its capacity to drive national economic growth and significantly contributes to exports. The Large-Scale Soybean sector emerges as a key contributor to economic influence. Furthermore, Soybean cultivation exhibits significant ripple effects on non-agricultural sectors such as agricultural pesticides, public utilities, and freight transportation. Initiatives resembling Sustainable Rural Project (SRP) can potentially foster widespread productivity improvements across Brazilian biomes, benefiting large-scale and family farmers.

Urban areas in the US have been experiencing a rise in gentrification in recent years. Gentrification can revitalize a city center and increase tax revenues for the local government at the expense of displacing the poor from their homes, moving them further out from the city center. A large body of literature have extensively studied the causes and consequences of urban gentrification; however, most focused in the gentrification of downtown areas. Little is known about the relationship between rising income inequality and the rate of gentrification in the metropolitan areas of the US. Using county- and census tract-level data, I look at whether the rise in income inequality from the 1980s is associated with the rise in the rate of gentrification in US urban counties. I find that there is a positive association between the share of total income going to the richer segment of the population, and the subsequent rise in the rate of gentrification of an urban county. The rise in the share of total income received by the bottom quintile of income distribution does not correlate with gentrification rates.

The structure of the Federal Reserve offers a unique opportunity for a “regional lens” to inform monetary policy. The regional lens, as I lay out in my presidential address, is a narrative collection of quantitative, qualitative, and anecdotal information from a particular region. I discuss the reasons fora regional lens, the potential inputs, the challenges of the lens, and the opportunities for members of professional associations, such as the Southern Regional Science Association, to participate.

Quantifying climate adaptation is important from the standpoint of effectively assessing the extent to which economic agents make adjustments to their behavior, thereby reducing damages from climate change. We conduct such an investigation in the context of planting behavior in the U.S. corn belt by leveraging a climate econometrics framework. Our estimation method not only distinguishes the short-run response and the long-run response of planting behavior of corn to temperature and precipitation effects during the pre-growing season but also tests for climate adaptation as part of the short-run response. We find evidence of early and delayed planting in response to temperature and precipitation effects, respectively, across the pre-growing season. In addition, our findings confirm long-term climate adaptation in planting behavior and highlight the importance of accounting for a location’s advantage or disadvantage in terms of the extent of divergence between its climate normals and weather realization. These insights are informative for the policy efforts aimed at tailoring mitigation strategies to a region’s unique climate. Our study also generates insights of practical utility to agronomic advisory services, given that our findings confirm that the planting behavior (contingent upon a location’s climate) does leverage the flexibility provided by the pre-growing season window in response to temperature and precipitation effects.

In this study, we examined the spatial distribution of subjective poverty across Turkey’s provinces. To accomplish this, we utilized the proportion of individuals who reported an inability to meet their basic needs, as reflected in the life index indicators computed by the Turkish Statistical Institute. After mapping the distribution of this variable by province, Moran’s I statistic, which is the spatial interaction statistic, was calculated It has been determined that the spatial distribution of subjective poverty is not random. It has been observed that the subjective poverty or perception of poverty in the context of the provinces of Turkey is similar and has a cluster. The existence of local clusters belonging to this statistic was investigated with LISA statistic and Getis-0rd statistic. According to the findings, the provinces that are high spots are generally the ones in the southeast and eastern regions of Turkey. Low spot areas are generally seen in the provinces in the western part of the country. According to the local spatial heterogeneity statistic , it is seen that the provinces in high and low spots are not different from their neighbors.

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal reviews Lindtner, Silvia M. (2020) Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation. Joel Kirsch reviews Bongardt, Annette, Talani, Leila S. and Torres, Francisco (2020) The Politics and Economics of Brexit. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal reviews Byler, Darren (2021) In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony.