This paper develops and estimates a demand model to describe a household's demand for distance from a landfill with hazardous wastes. This model provides one basis for gauging the intensity of a household's desire to avoid living near this type of facility. Using the conceptual framework of a hedonic property value model to provide the basis for demand for distance questions, a survey in suburban Boston elicited this information from 609 households. The demand estimates imply that the average household would realize a consumer surplus between $330 to $495 annually for each mile between its residence and a landfill containing hazardous waste.

This paper investigates the remarkable extremes of growth experiences within countries and the changes that occur across growth transitions. We find two main results. First, virtually all but the very richest countries experience both growth miracles and failures over substantial periods. Second, growth accelerations and collapses are asymmetric phenomena. Collapses typically feature reduced investment amidst increasing price instability, whereas growth takeoffs are primarily associated with large expansions in international trade. The results show that even very poor countries regularly grow rapidly, but sustaining growth is difficult and may pose a very different set of challenges than starting it. Copyright by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In this paper, we test whether aggregate productivity movements, especially convergence, are also reflected at the industry level.Using a new result on the asymptotic normality of panel unit root estimators, we find evidence for convergence in total factor productivity for sectors such as services and construction in 14 OECD countries from 1970-1987.However, surprisingly, we find that convergence does not hold for the manufacturing sector.Convergence in total industry occurs as a result of the declining share of manufacturing and the growing share of sevices in these countries.

Wayne B. Gray, Carol Adaire Jones, Are Osha Health Inspections Effective? A Longitudinal Study in the Manufacturing Sector, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 504-508

The effect of government spending on labor supply behavior is critical to predicting the balanced-budget effect of income taxes and to estimating the marginal social cost of public funds. Yet, its very existence, not to mention direction and magnitude, has not been empirically investigated. This research estimates a labor supply function that incorporates income taxation and government spending using microeconomic data for men and women. The empirical results suggest that public sector spending may have a significant effect on labor supply, thereby leading to estimates of the marginal social cost of public funds that differ from those typically calculated.