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Institutions of higher education, including community colleges are subject to increased pressure to reduce their costs. The purpose of this study is to determine what factors relate to community college costs, to determine if community colleges experience economies of scale, and how both costs and economies of scale are related to the 2005 Carnegie classifications.The data used in this study was derived from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Post Secondary Data System (IPEDS). Data was selected for odd years from the 1987 through 2003 data sets. Average cost-per-student FTE acted as the dependent variable for the study for a quadratic cost function. A total of 15 independent variables were examined including: six variables related to services provided by the institution; four variables representing the outputs of community colleges; and five variables representing the inputs. Dummy variables were created for the Carnegie classifications. A series of fixed effects and ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions were run to examine the relationship between the independent variables and average cost-per-student FTE. The existence of economies of scale was examined as was how these relationships are influenced by Carnegie classification.The relationship between institutional characteristics and costs was found to vary based on Carnegie classification. Further, the choice of data and regression selected (fixed effects or OLS) also impacted the results. Results indicated a range of from two to ten significant variables based on Carnegie classification, data and regression type. The institutional size associated with the lowest average cost-per-student FTE was found to be related to Carnegie classification. The point at which institutions cease to experience economies of scale ranged from 6,445 to 47,346 with the medium rural institution classification being associated with lowest values. In all but one instance, the point at which institutions cease experiencing economies of scale is higher than the largest institution in the classification. This implies that all institutions are capable of growing while still experiencing a decreasing average-cost-per-student FTE. In terms of average-cost-per-student FTE, branch campuses of four-year institutions have the lowest average-cost-per-student while urban-multi-campus institutions have the highest average-cost-per-student FTE.

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The opportunity cost of conveyance corridors; highways, hydro lines and pipelines is the monetary value of resource uses foregone; the lost value of physical production resulting from the allocation of land to right-of-way use. Theoretical models were developed for calculating the resource uses foregone and under the criteria of measurability and availability of data, practical equations for conveyance corridors traversing agricultural and forested areas were formulated. Use of practical equations was illustrated by creating hypothetical corridors through the Municipalities of Elton and North Cypress (agricultural application) and through Township 61, Ranges 27 and 28 (forestry application). Conflict between rights-of-way and recreational areas was difficult to quantify and strict economic analysis of opportunity costs was not possible. An alternative technique of reclamation, reparation and mitigation (RRM) was therefore proposed for evaluating opportunity costs. Difficulty in defining wildlife prices and determining the effects of corridors on wildlife prevented the use of the developed economic equation. Thus the alternative technique of RRM was suggested to quantify wildlife opportunity costs. Application of the model produced a comparison of corridor opportunity costs. For a hypothetical corridor, 120 feet wide and 42 miles long traversing agricultural land the highway had a loss of $1, 087,000 and the hydro line with wooden towers a loss of $4000 with steel towers, $13,000. The pipeline had a range of opportunity costs from a benefit of $11,000 to a loss of $127,000. All values were calculated for 50 years, undiscounted. One equation was derived for all corridors in forested areas. Application of this model to a hypothetical corridor, 120 feet wide and 12.6 miles long produced for all corridors, and opportunity cost of $151,000 (calculated for 50 years undiscounted). A questionnaire inquiring about the effects of pipelines on soil productivity was sent (summer 1973) to farmers having a pipeline traversing their property. Nine percent of the respondents indicated an increase in yield due to the pipeline, 25 percent reported no change and 66 percent indicated a decrease in crop yield. However, general lack of data of effects of pipelines on soil productivity suggest the need for further study. Numerous ways are available for reducing opportunity costs of corridors; of which multiple use is one of the best. All land has potential for wildlife utilization and a review of literature suggests that corridors are suitable for wildlife production. Thus where active primary production is not possible or too costly it is recommended that steps be taken to use idle right-of-way lands for wildlife enhancement and production.

A claim of Leland (1985) states that in the presence of transaction costs a call option on a stock S, described by geometric Brownian motion, can be perfectly hedged using Black-Scholes delta hedging with a modified volatility. Recently Kabanov and Safarian (1997) disproved this claim, giving an explicit (up to an integral) expression of the limiting hedging error, which appears to be strictly negative and depends on the path of the stock price only via the stock price at expiry ST . We prove in this paper that the limiting hedging error, considered as a function of ST, exhibits a removable discontinuity at the exercise price. Furthermore, we provide a quantitative result describing the evolution of the discontinuity, which shows that its precursors can very well be observed also in cases of reasonable length of revision intervals. (author's abstract) / Series: Report Series SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"