For many resource-based communities throughout Oregon the timber industry plays an important role. In many of these areas, federal land holdings comprise a large proportion of the area's land holdings. Management decisions regarding resource use on the National Forest lands can have a major influence on the stability of local timber industries and on the communities of which they are a part. Input-output analysis has been used extensively to evaluate the importance of the timber industry to relatively small resource-dependent communities. In the past, the conventional input-output demand model has been used to assess the local impacts of changes in the availability of public timber resources. However, an analysis which interprets a change in primary resource supply as a change in final demand for the processing industry's output may incorrectly evaluate the impacts of shifts in primary resource supply on the local economy. The regional economic impacts resulting from a change in available primary inputs can be estimated more accurately using a modified approach to the conventional method of demand-pull analysis. Because of the network of forward linkages present within the regional economy, a change in primary inputs available to one sector may have a direct or indirect affect on all other sectors of the local economy. These supply-induced impacts on total sales can be calculated using an input-output supply model. The resulting change in total sales can be factored into two components--sales to local industries and sales to final demand. Regional impacts resulting from the first component can be calculated directly from the supply model. A modified version of the input-output demand model can be used to estimate the regional impacts associated with the supply-induced change in the value of local industry exports. This study identifies and evaluates the forward linkage structure present in small resource-based economies. The conventional input-output demand model is modified so that the local impacts of changes in primary resource supply can be evaluated vis-a-vis these structural relationships. A comparative economic impact analysis of three eastern Oregon counties is conducted using the modified input-output methodology. The results obtained using this procedure are compared to results obtained using the conventional method of analysis where changes in primary resource supply are extrapolated to reflect changes in final demand. In each county, estimates of regional impacts obtained using the modified input-output methodology differed from those calculated using the traditional form of analysis. The difference between the estimates was most significant in Morrow County where a relatively larger percentage of output in the wood products industry is sold locally. The demand-induced impacts in each county were considerably larger than the supply-induced changes. Although the initial shock to the system is supply-induced, the backward linkage structure plays a significant role in determining the overall impact of the stimulus on regional and sectoral output. The supply model is able to account for the direct and indirect impacts on regional sales transactions caused by a change in available primary inputs. The input-output demand model, by itself, is unable to account for these transactions. Because the modified input-output methodology provides a means by which changes in scarce primary factor supply can be apportioned into supply and demand related components, a better understanding of the regional economic impacts associated with changes in the availability of public timber can be obtained. / Graduation date: 1982

published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

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This dissertation closely examines the merits, weaknesses, and potential of decentralized environmental regulation. I examine three areas of particular concern in the structure of environmental regulation. In the first chapter, I examine how information problems resulting from incorrectly specified atmospheric models are likely to affect economic efficiency in a permit market. While permit markets have been heralded as a promising solution for controlling environmentally damaging emissions, there is no formal research linking the atmospheric model, which directly affects permit prices, with economic outcomes. In the chapter, I develop a generalized theoretical model that demonstrates the problems that are likely to arise when there is uncertainty in the underlying atmospheric parameter estimates. As it turns out, permit markets operating with incorrectly specified atmospheric models may result in large losses in economic efficiency, even if the permit market is operating ideally in an economic sense. The second chapter analyzes a much broader issue, that of state versus federal environmental regulation. The chapter focuses on the methods used by states attempting to control interstate water pollution in the Ohio Valley in the early 1900s. The time period was chosen to predate federal intervention into environmental regulation and, hence, allows for a clean test of how states might be expected to address difficult pollution problems under a system of state regulation. Using a simple game theoretic model, the paper explores interstate water pollution control compacts and their uses in addressing interstate water pollution. I find that states were able to overcome significant bargaining difficulties in formulating the compacts, which ultimately led to effective control of interstate water pollution. The final chapter focuses on voluntary overcompliance by firms facing environmental standards. The paper models environmental regulation according to the EPA's Best Available Control Technology (BACT). The model predicts voluntary overcompliance by firms as they attempt to raise the (endogenous) environmental standard and, in the process, raise their rivals' costs. The paper also demonstrates the merits of nonuniform environmental standards. In attempting to elicit efficient levels of R&D investment, the regulatory authority may discourage socially wasteful overinvestment in pollution technology through the use of nonuniform standards.

M. Tech. Comparative Local Development / The number of immigrants in South Africa has been increasing in the last decade. This study investigates the effects of immigration on economic growth, unemployment, poverty and crime using secondary data mainly obtained from Statistics South Africa. The period under study is from 1995 to 2012. Only the impact of documented immigrants is investigated because that of illegal immigrants is not known. The theories of immigration and its economic and social effects will be reviewed. Studies done by other researchers in different countries will also be looked at. Xenophobic attacks in South Africa are as a result of the allegations by South Africans that immigrants are taking South Africans' jobs, increase poverty and crime. However, the positive contribution of these immigrants toward the South African economy is not much talked about. The research therefore seeks to identify if immigrants really cause some of the economic and social problems in South Africa. The results obtained show that an increase in immigration increases the number of unemployed people in South Africa, poverty as well as gross domestic product (economic growth). The effect on crime is different with each type of crime. Murder, burglary and common robbery decrease with an increase in immigration while the opposite is true for other crime types. The main cause of an increase in crime, poverty and the number of unemployed people is because immigration increases human population. The study concludes by suggesting policy recommendations.

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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No description available.