Land use policies favoring compact development have been invoked as a way slow potential climate change. While the linkages between density and greenhouse gas emissions may seem obvious, available data indicate that the connections are weak, bordering on non-existent. Thus, it is clear that...

A recent LNG terminal building boom has, in turn, produced a natural gas pipeline building boom. Some property owners have expressed concern that a pipeline would reduce the values of nearby properties. This study uses the hedonic housing price approach to estimate the impacts of pipeline. The...

Policy initiatives to regulate greenhouse gas emissions are fast becoming a dominant feature of regional public policy. The initiatives commonly involve setting goals to reduce emissions below a baseline or business-as-usual level. The Western Climate Initiative is one such program, and has been...

Minimum wage increases can be politically challenging to implement. Consequently, many states have introduced minimum wage indexing. With indexing, the minimum wage increases automatically each year based on some measure of inflation. The goal of this research is to evaluate quantitatively the...

Antitrust enforcement makes it difficult to test theories of cartel formation because most attempts to form cartels are blocked or kept secret. However, federal laws allow U.S. produce growers to operate marketing cartels through devices called marketing orders. These cartels use quantity...

This literature review examines the existing body of literature on the linkage between residential development and its impacts on the environment through air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. The research finds that, in the absence of reliable scientific studies, policy is often stimulated...

Digital advertising is the economic backbone of much of the Internet. But complaints have recently emerged from a number of quarters alleging the digital advertising market is monopolized by its largest participant: Google. Most significantly, a lawsuit first filed by the State of Texas and 17...

The U.S. economy has recently suffered its deepest and most prolonged recession since the Great Depression. The fundamental causes of the recession and the slow recovery are the result of two decades of poorly conceived housing credit and other policies and the adoption of long-ago discarded...

In October 2022, Kroger and Albertsons announced their intent to merge the two companies in a deal valued at $24.6 billion. The combined company would be the third largest food and grocery retailer, behind Walmart and Amazon. Based on the Federal Trade Commission’s recently release draft...