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This dissertation consists of three papers that explore the intersection between geography and housing markets. The research examines both how geographic context shapes housing prices and how house prices influence geography through household location decisions.The first paper explores the spatial structure of housing prices within Tucson, Arizona. Hedonic house-price studies typically assume that housing attribute prices are constant over space. The research tests this assumption and compares two methods of incorporating spatial-varying parameters into house-price models: geographically weighted regression and the spatial expansion method. The results provide evidence that housing attribute prices do indeed vary with geographic context and suggest that more reliable parameter estimates and better house-price estimation accuracy can be achieved through the use of these techniques.The second paper builds upon the first by examining how more realistic conceptions of housing market spatial structure influence the hedonic price estimates of location-specific externalities. The empirical analysis examines how two key spatial effects, spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, impact the marginal price estimates for proximity to the Rillito River, within Tucson, Arizona. Both spatial effects are found to influence the resulting estimates, but spatial heterogeneity is of greater practical importance as the price estimates vary widely with geographic context. This research highlights the importance of considering both spatial effects in hedonic externality valuations.The final paper explores how housing prices influence interregional migration patterns, and more specifically, how their influence varies with both stage in the life course and educational attainment. The research models metropolitan migration within the United States during the period 1995 to 2000. The results indicate that housing prices play an important role in driving regional demographic change, as their influence varies with both demographic characteristics. High housing prices deter individuals in their late twenties and early thirties, but their influence wanes during middle age. House prices become more important as individuals near retirement. The results also provide evidence that college graduates respond more to house price differentials than do persons with lower levels of educational attainment.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the differences between 9-ending on promotion prices used by Thai retailers and Swedish retailers. The quantitative research approach is the chosen method in order to evaluate the differences between 9-ending on promotion prices used by Thai retailers and Swedish retailers. The collection of data will be mainly concentrated on primary data through brochures from retailers in both countries. Evaluation of the price endings for advertised products in the brochures from Thai and Swedish retailers founded the distinctions between the use of 9-ending prices in many ways such as the way the retailers used left and right digits for price endings, the way they set the prices compared between the same product category and the same product sub-category.

The thesis has as purpose to describe and analyse a decision made be the Swedish tax committee in which it was decided that a cooperative economical associations selling price, which was less than the comparable public bonds market price, would be the focus of a withdrawal tax. There are exceptions from a withdrawal tax, that is if the transaction has a business motivation. However the concept, business motivation, is narrowly interpreted both in the preparatory works and in case law, which makes it irrelevant to the situation at hand. A cooperative economical association is a form of association nearest akin to the limited companies. These types of associations have as purpose to increase their owners wealth with the benefit of freedom from personal responsibility. The work concludes that the purpose and meaning of a withdrawal tax is necessary to secure a consistent legality and neutrality between persons conduction business and persons who do not. However, there is one part of the subject matter that seems to be unreasonable. This thesis will show that the market price taken from the public bond market, is not a legal, neutral or comparable price to estimate the full width of a withdrawal tax.

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This paper studies the influence on the Japanese stock (cash and futures) markets of the Nikkei put warrants which were traded in Toronto and New York from February 1989 to April 1993. Implied changes in the Japanese prices based on the previous days’ North American warrant prices are compared to the actual price changes. Special attention is placed on the period from January 1990 to August 1992 when the Japanese stock market had a major decline.

There are two key observations in international macroeconomics which pertain to output and real exchange rate dynamics. First, fluctuations in national output around its long-run growth path are very persistent. Second, fluctuations in real exchange rates are very persistent. The sticky price framework offers an explanation for both phenomena. The first and second essay of this thesis take an empirical approach to test the predictions of this framework. In the first essay I test the prediction of the sticky price model for output dynamics using annual IFS data on 51 countries over the period 1950 -1996. The model predicts that price stickiness should be less important in high inflation countries and therefore output fluctuations less persistent. I find that, this inverse relationship is statistically insignificant in the international data. A similar result holds for OECD countries. In the empirical implementation I explicitly control for the within-country time variation in inflation by first characterizing the inflationary environment using the long-run movements in inflation (trend inflation), and secondly, by excluding episodes of hyperinflation. The analysis shows that when the within-country time variation in inflation is ignored, there is support for the prediction. For instance, the inverse relationship between persistence in deviations of output from its long-run growth path and average inflation is statistically significant in the full sample. However, the exclusion of a few episodes of hyperinflation renders this relationship statistically insignificant. In the second essay I investigate the prediction of the sticky price model for real exchange rate dynamics using annual IFS data on 49 countries over the period 1972-1996. The model predicts that deviations of real exchange rates from purchasing power parity should be less persistent, in high inflation countries. The empirical analysis reveals that the support for such an inverse relationship is extremely fragile. In particular, eliminating episodes of hyperinflation renders this relationship statistically insignificant. The lack of evidence in favour of the two predictions of the sticky price model is problematic since this model is extensively used as a microfoundation for understanding output and real exchange rate fluctuations. In the third essay I take a structural approach to qualitatively explore the role of slow diffusion of new products in propagating the effect of technology shocks on output. I present a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model in which the creation of new products requires real resources. These products are beneficial for the economy but only upon complete diffusion. However, this diffusion is not instantaneous. I find that relative to a model in which there is instantaneous diffusion of new products, the qualitative output dynamics are similar to what is observed in the U.S. data. This warrants further quantitative investigation.

The thesis investigates the link between internal and external funds in financing new investment when asymmetric information is important. In both chapter, the entrepreneur has private information about the value of a project and, if the quality of the project is high, she tries to signal this to outside investors. The first chapter explores the tradeoff between using internal funds and raising external funds by issuing shares or bonds to finance a project. The entrepreneur can delay the project to accumulate internal funds over time from existing operations. This allows an entrepreneur with a high quality project to reduce her reliance on expensive underpriced bond or share issues. However, accumulating funds is also costly because of discounting and the risk that the project disappears. The more valuable the good project, the less the entrepreneur will delay the project, risking its loss, and so the more she relies on external financing. When external financing is sought, the entrepreneur decides to issue bonds or shares. The greater the value of the good project, the more underpriced shares are relative to bonds. Thus an entrepreneur with a highly valuable good project chooses equity and one with a less valuable project chooses debt. Combining the two results shows that for a highly valuable good project, debt is used, and for a less valuable project, internal funds are used. External equity gets squeezed out. Aggregate data for the U.S. confirm that corporate bond issues are a more important source of funds than new share issued. Furthermore, most small firms rely on internal funds and debt, rather than external equity to finance their projects. The second chapter provides a new theory for the underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs). As in the first chapter, underpricing is used as a signal of quality. However, the entrepreneur is risk averse and only underprices when she cannot sell enough primary (new) shares to raise sufficient proceeds from the IPO to cover the cost of the project without diluting her position below that needed to signal a high project value. Underpricing allows the entrepreneur to maintain a high stake in the firm and still make a credible signal of quality. This allows more primary shares to be sold resulting in a net increase in proceeds. The model predicts that underpricing should be greatest among firms that don't sell secondary shares (shares held by insiders) at the IPO and that there should be a positive relationship between the firm's capital requirement and the initial return among this group of firms only. A switching regression framework is used. The probit model is first estimated where the probability of no secondary shares is explained by proxies for a firm's capital requirements. The initial return is then regressed on the same proxies, conditioning on whether the firm sells secondary shares or not and accounting for possible correlation between errors in the selection and regression equations. Strong support is found for the positive relationship between initial return and capital requirements for only firms without secondary share sales, as predicted.

The practice of providing urban parks as an integral part of community development no longer creates public debate about the function or legal authority of local governments to make such purchases. However, the debate continues on the ethics of local government's parkland acquisition practices. These practices have the capability and motivation to influence the land value of sites they wish to acquire. Local governments are responsible for determining land use, which in turn affects land value. The limited financial means of local government to acquire parks makes influencing land value one way of stretching the scarce resources of the community. The ethics practiced in the negotiations to acquire urban parkland where the land has development potential are unique because: 1. Parkland is a public good and not a market commodity; 2. The potential for other higher land uses exists; and 3. Local government plays a dual role: one of a regulator and approving authority for determining land use and providing community stewardship, and the other as the corporate cost controlling agency seeking to acquire land. These qualities create the strong possibility for ethical conflict to occur in the negotiating process. Building upon the Interest-Based approach to negotiations, this paper uses a set of Prescriptive, Intuitive and Evaluative (P.I.E.) criteria that define ethical conduct, and the dimensions of Fact, Social Consensus and Experience that defines the dimensions of interests, to develop a General Model for Ethical Negotiations (GMEN). Conceptually, the GMEN model is a three-sided pyramid within a sphere of negotiations. Negotiations that adhere to the principles defining the parameters of the pyramid would be considered ethical. Negotiations outside the pyramid are considered unethical. Six parkland acquisition cases are discussed using the GMEN model. In this study, the parameters establishing the criteria for passing ethical judgment are the functions of the political economy, the policy statements of the local government, and the legislation that delegates power and authority to local government. The study finds that ethical conflict is inherent in parkland negotiations where the land has development potential because of the multiple roles and dual character of local government. This conflict is not necessarily illegal since prescriptive criteria are only one means of judging ethics. Nor is the outcome necessarily negative to the vendor, since the public may end up with a less attractive park agreement. However, the parameters that would require parkland acquisition negotiations to be ethical sometimes conflict with some of the multiple roles held by local government. Several recommendations are made that would help to reduce ethical conflict and the imbalance in parkland negotiations.

This thesis addresses two important issues necessary to understand whether insider trading should be prohibited: the effects of insider trading on stock prices and the compensation to insiders for providing information and other related services. This task is accomplished by analyzing stock price changes during corporate takeovers, before and after the regulatory changes in the 1980's that were designed to reduce the level of insider trading. In this thesis, we develop an indirect measure of insider trading that shows how observable stock price movements during takeovers allow one to make inferences about changes in insider trading after regulatory changes. Specifically, we show that when inside information is partially revealed to the market, the effects of regulatory changes on insider trading can be identified by examining the price movements of stocks around takeover announcements. If, however, information is not revealed at all or is fully revealed, it is impossible to identify the effects of regulatory changes on insider trading. We also develop a segmented diffusion model to analyze price movements characterized by cumulative abnormal returns during the period surrounding a takeover announcement. An econometric model is developed to estimate the segmented diffusion model. Naturally, this methodology applies to the study of various events in addition to corporate takeovers and regulatory changes. We conduct empirical analysis to test three hypotheses. With regard to Hypothesis I, we find strong evidence that the tightening of insider trading regulations in the 1980's was effective and that inside information was partially revealed to the market. With regard to Hypothesis II, we find evidence that insider trading regulations have more effect on negotiated takeovers than on takeovers initiated by bidding. With regard to Hypothesis III, we find weak evidence that insiders associated with acquiring firms seek fewer but more profitable takeovers after the introduction of tighter regulations.