This paper examines the construction equipment resale market to assess whether equipment produced by the world's largest manufacturer of construction machinery, Caterpillar, experienced lower product quality in facilities that underwent contract disputes during the 1990's. Analysis of auction data reveals that resale market participants significantly discounted machines produced in these dispute-affected facilities. Additionally, pieces of equipment produced in facilities undergoing unrest were resold more often, received worse appraisal reports, and had lower list prices. Taken together, the evidence supports the hypothesis that workmanship at dispute-affected facilities declined and that the resulting impact on the economic quality of the equipment produced was significant. The dispute was associated with at least $400 million in lost service flows due to inferior quality equipment alone. Copyright 2008, Wiley-Blackwell.

Schelling (“Dynamic Models of Segregation,” Journal of Mathematical Sociology 1 (1971), 143–186) showed that extreme segregation can arise from social interactions in white preferences: once the minority share in a neighborhood exceeds a “tipping point,” all the whites leave. We use regression discontinuity methods and Census tract data from 1970 through 2000 to test for discontinuities in the dynamics of neighborhood racial composition. We find strong evidence that white population flows exhibit tipping-like behavior in most cities, with a distribution of tipping points ranging from 5% to 20% minority share. Tipping is prevalent both in the suburbs and near existing minority enclaves. In contrast to white population flows, there is little evidence of nonlinearities in rents or housing prices around the tipping point. Tipping points are higher in cities where whites have more tolerant racial attitudes.