Manage, Neela D.

Adjusting prices for quality change is an important issue. This study employs a hedonic quality measurement technique to assess the effects of quality on domestic passenger airfare. The econometric analysis utilizes pooled quarterly data on average fare for the largest-share and the lowest-fare carriers, for each of the approximately top 1,000 routes from 1996:Q3 to 1998:Q2. The hedonic regression specifies airfare as a function of distance, total passengers, market share of the airline, and quality variables measuring on-time performance, oversales, baggage handling, complaints, and airline safety. Quality characteristics are found to have several important effects on airfare. Oversales revealed a statistically significant impact on airfare for all distance blocks, passenger complaints were important on short and long routes, and on-time performance and baggage handling were valued by customers only on shorter routes. Competition from low-fare carriers, and differences between airline groups are also identified to be important factors.

Consolidation of the hospital industry is occurring at an increasing pace in the 1990s. This recent rise in mergers and acquisitions has prompted interest in what characteristics make certain hospitals good takeover targets. This study compares hospital and regional differences between 11 acquired versus 296 non-acquired hospitals in Texas one year prior to takeover in 1995. A stochastic frontier model and PROBIT model were used to determine which characteristics suggest takeover likelihood. The findings indicate that inefficiency is highly significant in predicting which hospitals make good takeover candidates. Hospitals in counties with large populations and with a large senior citizen community are also significant indicators of potential acquisition. The results suggest that these acquisitions are a market mechanism for disciplining inefficient hospitals.

Countless studies have been conducted to determine how the real estate market reacts to the economy. The most accurate studies contemplate both macroeconomic and microeconomic variables simultaneously. In analyzing real estate markets, both monetary policy and regional factors must be examined to obtain an accurate portrayal of both national and local trends. One regional factor that has affected all real estate markets, especially in the southern states, is local land use legislation. Due to rapid increases in population, various states have enacted growth management policies to ensure stable expansion within their regions. This study utilizes data for Broward County, Florida, to assess the impact of land use legislation on the local real estate market in comparison to macroeconomic variables. The empirical results clearly demonstrate that legislation can exert a greater influence on local housing market activity during certain periods than can macroeconomic factors such as interest rates.

This thesis empirically analyzes the determinants of national health care expenditures in the United States and five other industrialized economies. A reduced-form model for national health care expenditures, based upon a partial-adjustment mechanism, is specified as a function of supply and demand factors in interrelated markets in the medical sector and estimated for the United States for the period 1960 to 1990. A pooled model is also estimated for a cross-section of six industrialized economies based upon time series data from 1976 to 1990 for each country. The results suggest that income, technological change, and inflation have a significant impact on national health care expenditures.

This thesis empirically examined pollution control success in the United States during the period 1987 to 1992. The purpose of this analysis was to determine whether pollution control success can be predicted by a set of factors suggested by the economics literature as being important to effective control of pollution. Multiple regression analyses were performed on dependent variables representing air, water, and solid waste quality. It was found that although the predictors of pollution control success differ across the three types of pollution, variables representing pollution abatement expenditures and strength of enforcement were important throughout.

In recent years it is widely believed that an increase in economic activity determined by market forces, contributes to higher productivity, faster economic growth, and lower budget deficits. Developing countries, in particular, are attempting to increase the share of the private sector in their economies in order to accelerate the process of development. This thesis describes the concept of privatization and alternative models of the privatization process. A cross-section of forty-nine countries is utilized to empirically assess the impact of privatization on economic growth.

Recent proposals for a European Monetary Union raise the prospect of a European-wide monetary authority. Successful implementation of monetary policy by a European central bank would require the existence of a stable relationship between the quantity of money demanded and other macro-variables. This thesis examines the issues and controversies arising from the movement towards European Monetary Union as envisaged by the Maastricht treaty. The theoretical basis of the estimation of dynamic money demand relationships is presented, and a dynamic error-correction model of a nine-country aggregate money demand function is estimated.

Aspects of the relationship between the term structure of interest rates and bank failure from 1984 to 1989 are explored in the context of a bank-failure-prediction model. For this, the logit technique is employed. Interest rate variables used to characterize the term structure include Treasury, Federal-funds, and bank-certificate-of-deposit rates. The term structure proves a significant factor in determining the probability of bank failure. Changes in long-term rates relative to short-term rates can profoundly affect bank performance. These findings corroborate any measures being taken by banks or regulators to minimize banks' interest rate risk exposure.

This thesis first outlines the main theoretical approaches to the consumption function, such as the Absolute Income Hypothesis, the Relative Income Hypothesis, the Life-Cycle Hypothesis and the Permanent Income Hypothesis. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of expectations for consumption behavior and presents an econometric specification of the consumption function, utilizing the adaptive and rational expectations formation mechanisms. Important empirical issues regarding the inclusion of other determinants of consumption are also discussed. Finally, an econometric analysis of consumption for Greece, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom is presented.

The economic implications of federal government debt and deficits have been the source of much debate in the past, and will continue to be for many years to come. Economists are far from agreement with respect to the effects that government borrowing has on the economy. Two major schools of thought have emerged which arrive at seemingly contrary conclusions. One school of thought contends that government bonds are perceived as net wealth by the public, and that government borrowing crowds out private investment, while the other school of thought arrives at precisely the opposite conclusions. An empirical investigation was used to test the validity of the conclusions of these schools of thought.