Minimizing the Price of Tranquility: How to Discourage Scotland's Secession from the United Kingdom

What some view as overly-generous funding of the Scottish parliament results from Scotland.s credible threat to secede from the United Kingdom. Scotland is shown to benefit from a second mover advantage in a non-cooperative sequential game over the allocation of public funds. Various reform proposals are criticized for not recognizing that reform of Scottish government finances must be consistent with Scotland.s credible threat. Fiscal autonomy -- in which the Scottish parliament finances a much greater proportion of its spending from Scottish-sourced taxes, is demonstrated to be a viable reform within the existing political context and, in some circumstances, could remove Scotland.s second mover advantage. We also use a cooperative bargaining game model to demonstrate that an Australian style grants commission would not be a viable reform in the British context.

The Continuing Practice and Impact of Discrimination

This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the evidence on housing and mortgage lending discrimination, as well as the potential impacts of such discrimination on minority outcomes like homeownership and neighborhood environment. The paper begins by discussing conceptual issues surrounding empirical analyses of discrimination including explanations for why discrimination takes place, defining different forms of discrimination, and the appropriate interpretation of observed racial and ethnic differences in treatment or outcomes. Next, the paper reviews evidence on housing market discrimination starting with evidence of segregation and price differences in the housing market and followed by direct evidence of discrimination by real estate agents in paired testing studies. Finally, mortgage market discrimination and barriers in access to mortgage credit are discussed. This discussion begins with an assessment of the role credit barriers play in explaining racial and ethnic differences in homeownership and follows with discussions of analyses of underwriting and the price of credit based on administrative and private sector data sources including analyses of the subprime market. The paper concludes that housing discrimination has declined especially in the market for owner-occupied housing and does not appear to play a large role in limiting the neighborhood choices of minority households or the concentration of minorities into central cities. On the other hand, the patterns of racial centralization and lower home ownership rates of African-Americans appear to be related to each other, and lower minority homeownership rates are in part attributable to barriers in the market for mortgage credit. The paper presents considerable evidence of racial and ethnic differences in mortgage underwriting, as well as additional evidence suggesting these differences may be attributable to differential provision of coaching, assistance, and support by loan officers. At this point, innovation in loan products, the shift towards risk based pricing, and growth of the subprime market have not mitigated the role credit barriers play in explaining racial and ethnic differences in homeownership. Further, the growth of the subprime lending industry appears to have segmented the mortgage market in terms of geography leading to increased costs of relying on local/neighborhood sources of mortgage credit and affecting the integrity of many low-income minority neighborhoods through increased foreclosure rates.

Los Voluntarios Abren les Puertas: las Cinco Claves para el Manejo Seguro del Plomo

Millions of houses and apartments built before 1978 have paint that contains lead. Chips, dust, and fumes from this paint can be very dangerous if they are not handled properly. Lead is particularly hazardous to unborn babies, infants, and young children. Volunteers in painting and housing-rehabilitation programs often work in homes that contain lead paint. The work they perform can create a lead hazard if they disturb this paint and produce paint chips or dust. Volunteers Opening Doors is a video program for these volunteers. It explains how volunteers can protect housing residents,themselves, and their families from lead poisoning by using the five keys to lead safety: 1. Protect residents and their belongings. 2. Prepare the work area. 3. Protect yourself from dust and debris. 4. Work wet. 5. Work clean.

Equity Markets, the Money Market, and Long-Run Monetary Neutrality

This paper outlines a process for teaching long-run neutrality of money, drawing an analogy between equity markets and the money market. The key points in the discussion include the following: (1) What is the price of money? (2) Why does the long-run demand for money trace out a rectangular hyperbola? (3) Why does the slow adjustment of goods and service prices to changes in the stock of money lead to a different short-run demand for money? and (4) Why does a successful currency reform generate similar short-run movements in the price of money as movements in equity share prices after a change in the supply of shares? I have used this approach successfully for over 30 years at all levels, wherever I need to discuss the money market in a macroeconomic model.

Using Leading Indicators to Forecast US Home Sales in a Bayesian VAR Framework

This paper uses Bayesian vector autoregressive models to examine the usefulness of leading indicators in predicting US home sales. The benchmark Bayesian model includes home sales, the price of homes, the mortgage rate, real personal disposable income, and the unemployment rate. We evaluate the forecasting performance of six alternative leading indicators by adding each, in turn, to the benchmark model. Out-of-sample forecast performance over three periods shows that the model that includes building permits authorized consistently produces the most accurate forecasts. Thus, the intention to build in the future provides good information with which to predict home sales. Another finding suggests that leading indicators with longer leads outperform the short-leading indicators.

Volunteers Opening Doors: the Five Keys to Lead Safety

Millions of houses and apartments built before 1978 have paint that contains lead. Chips, dust, and fumes from this paint can be very dangerous if they are not handled properly. Lead is particularly hazardous to unborn babies, infants, and young children. Volunteers in painting and housing-rehabilitation programs often work in homes that contain lead paint. The work they perform can create a lead hazard if they disturb this paint and produce paint chips or dust. Volunteers Opening Doors is a video program for these volunteers. It explains how volunteers can protect housing residents,themselves, and their families from lead poisoning by using the five keys to lead safety: 1. Protect residents and their belongings. 2. Prepare the work area. 3. Protect yourself from dust and debris. 4. Work wet. 5. Work clean.