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In the decades prior to 1973, demand for energy, particularly energy liquids and electricity, expanded exponentially. From 1950 to 1973, U.S. aggregate energy use grew by 3.5 percent per year, roughly matching real GNP growth of 3.7 percent. Demand shifted toward petroleum's 4.3 percent annual growth and electricity and away from 1.0 percent annual growth of coal. These trends, reflected throughout the world, were encouraged by flat or gradually declining energy prices. Since 1973 energy price increases have been pervasive, although increases have differed radically among energy carriers and over time, being largest since 1979. From 1973 to 1982, real gasoline prices to consumers have increased 51 percent, natural gas delivered to households 139 percent, and residential electricity average price only 23 percent. Fuel prices delivered to electric utilities have varied more. Oil increased 175 percent, natural gas, 350 percent, while coal price increased but 85 percent. Energy demand adjustments have been profound. Between 1973 and 1982, U.S. consumption of oil and gas has declined, oil averaging a 1.4 percent annual decline, and natural gas 2.3 percent. Electricity growth has been reduced to 2.1 percent per year. Of the fossil fuels, only coal demand has been encouraged, rising at an average annual rate of 2.6 percent.

The increase in U.S. mortgage rates from nine per cent in 1976 to fifteen per cent in 1982 raised monthly mortgage payments by about sixty per cent, even before rising house prices in the United States over this period are taken into account. Not surprisingly, attention has been focused on ways and means of counteracting spiralling housing costs. One proposed solution is land leasing. Under such an arrangement, the homebuyer purchases the house but leases the land. (There may be an option to buy the land at some time in the future.) Land leasing reduces the overall purchase price, and hence lowers the minimum down-payment and the initial monthly mortgage payment. In Hawaii, land leasing has been a readily available alternative to land owning throughout the postwar period. The analysis of residential housing prices in Hawaii provides some quantitative estimates of the relative prices of leasehold versus fee simple properties. The average price differential is surprisingly small. One explanation of these small price differentials, for which a model is developed and tested here, is that borrowing-constrained households use high discount rates to calculate the present value of the future land price that they will, in effect, have to pay at the expiration of the lease. These discount rates are estimated in a nonlinear hedonic property price equation. The results are then employed to answer the question: Under what conditions would a leaseholder buy the land outright before the expiration of the lease? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the need to increase nationals savings rate of the U.S. The U.S. saving rate has been significantly lower than the rate of several other economically advanced nations, especially Japan. According to some economists raising the saving rate would mean, by definition, reducing the consumption rate. Thus, for some economists, the burden of proof is on those who doubt the optimality of the current national saving rate. The U.S. economy indirectly taxes future consumption by taxing capital income. Capital income taxes reduce the future consumption that can be obtained from a given amount of saving. The choice between future and present consumption is therefore distorted, and the market-generated saving rate is suspect. The current market-generated saving rate has been distorted by government interventions-capital income taxes, Social Security, and political incentives for government dissaving. As a result, it is likely that the current saving rate is below what it would have been without these interventions. Hence, the current U.S. saving rate is too low and ought to be raised by appropriate policies.

The article discusses the potential of nuclear power in the contemporary situation. Massive cost overruns, slowly-growing demand and high interest rates dealt heavy blows to nuclear power in the 1980s. Energy conservation and renewable sources now prove less costly. Commercial nuclear power has a short history. Not until the early 1950s did either the United States or the Soviet Union launch major R&D programs to commercialize nuclear power; they were followed by Canada, France, Great Britain and West Germany each pursuing its own technology. But progress was slow: the engineering required was unexpectedly challenging, and all countries had difficulty going from prototypes to commercial plants. Electricity rates in the United States have more than tripled in the past ten years after being quite stable during the previous decade. Much of the increase stems from higher fuel prices, but rising nuclear construction costs have become an increasingly important factor. With such stories dominating headlines in many parts of the country, it is hardly surprising that a revival of reactor orders does not appear imminent.

Focuses on the firm transportation rate design that does not comfort with Order 636 of the U.S. Federal Energy and Regulatory Commission (FERC) and is based on negotiations between a pipeline and its customers. Mandates in Section 4 and 5 of the Natural Gas Act on pipelines; Request of NorAm Gas Transmission Co. for the approval of firm transportation rates that had been negotiated with its customers; Concerns about the FERC's current commitment to cost-based rates and straight fixed variable.

The author responds to G. Dishman's attack on his paper "What is Military?" Arguing that Dishman's assumptions are incorrect, the author cites statistical data for work-related accidental deaths and incidences of accidents in the U.S. armed forces. The author argues that employment in the military can be considered a relatively safe occupation in terms of work-related accidents. The article concludes that selling cut-rate life insurance to military personnel is good business.

This paper focuses attention on spatial pricing patterns of American firms. It identifies price strategies by statistical comparison of firms in Colorado with those located elsewhere in the United States. Competitive factors are found generally to dominate the pricing schedules of firms in other states, while the pricing schedules of Colorado firms are found to be influenced chiefly by demand patterns. Multi-product ease examples are presented which spotlight pricing differences between firms located in a distributional-center type of state, such as Colorado, and those in other states. The eases also help explain why certain variables were uniquely important in Colorado. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract-This paper documents the interstate variation in capital gains taxation and examines the relation between the marginal tax rate on capital gains and aggregated state-level realizations between 1979 and 1990. Using state-level aggregated data rather than data on individual taxpayers alleviates the problem that the marginal tax rate is endogenous to the amount of capital gains realized. The estimated elasticity of realizations with respect to the tax rate is -0.65, smaller than that found by most researchers using panel data. This finding is robust to a variety of alternative specifications.

Focuses the debate issue on electricity rates within the infant electric power industry in the United States. Views of the economist on the electricity rate issue; Emphasis on the wide-ranging basis of electricity rates; Details on the historical context for work on electricity.

The article comments on Walter J. Primeaux Jr.'s paper "The Newspaper Rate Differential: Another Element in the Explanation." Primeaux argues that the national rate is set higher by newspapers, acting under competitive pressures, in order to accommodate retail customers in their practice of double billing. Since most newspapers charge a higher rate to national advertisers, the presumption must be that they and their retail customers are engaged in a continuing collusion to bilk manufacturers. This has been going on for a very long time, and one might suppose that even if it had been ignored by the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission it might have come to the attention of the vendors who pay the cost but who are, according to Primeaux, "usually unaware that double billing is being employed." There is, moreover, on many papers a substantial difference between the maximum or open-line retail rate and the minimum rate that applies for a retail account that advertises with high volume and frequency.

The supply of electricity, at both retail and wholesale levels, has long been subject to detailed state and federal regulation in the USA. However, much has changed since this regulatory structure was established, and the benefits of regulation are increasingly being brought into question. In particular, electric utility systems are now highly interconnected, leading some to believe that wholesale trade among utilities should be substantially deregulated with the determination of wholesale prices being left to competitive market forces. Several observers have called for reduced regulation of electricity generation, sometimes accompanied by mandatory vertical separation of the generation, transmission and distribution functions.[1] This paper reports results from the first year of a market experiment authorized by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to assess the effects of relaxed federal regulation of bulk power transactions. In the experiment, FERC authorized a number of utilities to exchange electricity under substantially modified regulation. Using detailed load, cost and transaction data provided by the participating utilities, this paper analyses the effects of changing regulation of bulk power transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we estimate twelve monthly electricity demand equations for households using a detailed microdata set. The microdata are based largely on a detailed 1975 survey of US households and include variables enabling us to measure block price schedules, family income, socio-demographic variables, appliance stocks, housing characteristics, and heating and cooling degree days of single family units. We find that price elasticities are higher (in absolute value) during peak periods of demand. Income elasticity estimates show no discernible seasonal pattern. Our disaggregated data also allow us to estimate the seasonal usage patterns of several electricity using appliances. The estimates follow expected patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses evaluations of low interest loan programmes in the United States and their effects on the economic growth of the country. Solutions to failure of evaluation programmes; Comparison of different evaluation studies; Reference to the Small Cities Economic Development Programme.

Discusses two cases arising out of the attempt of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under the Packers and Stockyards Act to regulate the rates of marketing agencies in the Kansas City Stockyards. Decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse and remand the judgment of the lower court to deny injunction; Statutory requirement of a hearing; Administrative duties of a Secretary and an assistant secretary.

This article analyses the power of a public utility to fix its rates and charges in the absence of regulatory legislation. According to the author, during the last half-century, courts have become so accustomed to legislative exercise of the power to regulate rates and charges of public utilities that when they are confronted with a legal failure of the legislative plan, because of unconstitutionality or other reason, there is some danger that fundamentals will be forgotten. An examination of the position at common law as that term is here used is deemed important, for in the absence of applicable legislative regulation it is submitted that the common law applies.

Discusses the establishment of the legislative power to restrict rates charged for services of public utilities in the U.S. Result of a constitutional guaranty of a fair return upon a value based upon present earnings; Variation in the market quotations of railroad stocks from day to day; Fluctuation of actual value.

This paper explores passages of the Act to Regulate Commerce and subsequent legislation directly affecting the published rate in interstate commerce in the U.S. By the first amendment in the act of March 2, 1889, a three days' previous public notice of reductions was required. The same act of 1910 enacted paragraph (11) of the Act to Regulate Commerce, which requires the carrier to furnish a written statement of the rate to the shipper and imposes a penalty of $250 for refusal to state, or misstatement, of the rate, such penalty to accrue to the government and not to the shipper. For the first time, the provisions of the Elkins Act made possible the real enforcement of the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act against discrimination, and rendered all departures from the published rates dangerous to both shippers and carriers. Both shippers and carriers soon perceived the utility of uniform classification, and the Interstate Commerce Commission has constantly brought pressure toward that end. A commodity rate will override a class rate when the two conflict. As soon as the tariff reaches the commission, it is carefully examined to see that it complies in every detail with the rules laid down in the tariff circular of the commission. Under the provisions of the law, it is at once apparent that it was the intention of Congress to make the rate in question the only legal rate, and any departure therefrom a violation of the law.

In the U.S., non-industrial communities the use of water for lawn irrigation is the principal determinant of the timing and magnitudes of the peak loads on the water system. This use not only raises the maximum day and peak-hour rates of water delivery far above what they otherwise would be, but it results in a large seasonal concentration of water consumption. Both effects have important implications for the pricing of water services. The main purpose of this article is to consider these implications with attention directed primarily to the problem of capacity cost allocation. The first part of the article deals with some aspects of water pricing on the basis of an allocation of costs. The purpose here is not to detail the technicalities of a particular price-setting formula but rather to consider the general nature of some of the problems involved. It is apparent, of course, that to determine water prices simply by allocating the costs ignores the interrelation between costs and prices. This interrelation is dealt with in the last half of the article, where one examines some theoretical aspects of water pricing and of non-price rationing.

The article studies the extended scope of regulatory activities of Federal Power Commission to issue some new policies for technological development in United States. It includes virtually all wholesale power rates so as to improve coordination of power facilities. Simultaneous pooling of power and interconnection of transmission facilities and physical coordination has led to improvement in utilization of existing plants and increased the amount of wholesaling respectively. The possibility of mutual gain through interconnection and wholesaling has been recognized and satisfactory arrangements have been negotiated. In case of failure to achieve adequate wholesaling arrangements, small utilities will have to either continue small scale generation or eventually be absorbed by the large integrated companies. To avail benefits of technological developments, customers of cooperatives and publicly or privately owned utilities have to regulate wholesale rates at federal level. Federal Power Commission stated to regulate wholesale rates in a manner to reduce the price of electricity throughout the nation.

This article discusses the issuance of insurance at substandard rates in the U.S. in 1946. During this year, insurance issued at substandard rates totaled 1.8 billion dollars out of a total volume of new insurance issued of 21.6 dollars. Life insurance at substandard rates in force at the end of the year was approximately 5% of all insurance in force. The persistency rate after issue is somewhat lower on substandard than on standard business. This article also explores the problems that surround a company which issues substandard insurance.

The Tariff act of 1930 is partly an outcome of the post-war agricultural depression. In form it is much like its predecessor. The general level of rates is appreciably higher than that of the law of 1922. The flexible provision which appeared in the Act of 1922 is retained, and on this provision President Hoover relies to reduce imperfections. The protest of the economists is fairly representative of the feeling of a large part of the public, in tariff legislation we are national minded, while our economic interests are becoming more and more international. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the express charges prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the U.S. In one of the articles, the writer described the more important objects of complaint against rates and practices of express companies that have prevailed heretofore; stated the remedial changes, reached in some cases with the cooperation of companies, that are applicable to practices and methods of handling the traffic; discussed more fully arguments urged in support of complaints against the present classification, rates and charges; and stated the general plan proposed by the Interstate Commerce Commission for dealing with these complaints. A schedule prescribed by the commission, effective from October 15, 1913, is a complete revision of the whole structure of express rates. It becomes at once a matter of considerable interest to know upon what basis or principle the commission proceeded in constructing its brand-new structure of charges. The commission considered a number of bases that have been urged, including: the return on the investment; the capitalization of companies; earnings; the operating expenses; first-class freight rates; and passenger rates. In addition, the commission endeavored to reach some common understanding in the matter with the express companies.

The article focuses on the regulation of minimum rates in transportation. A general assumption that recent reductions in rates merely arise from competitive rate slashing and are not the result of more efficient methods of transportation seems unwarranted. In some instances high costs are desirable, provided these costs are properly defined. The U. S. Interstate Commerce Commission's statement that minimum reasonable rates should be governed by the same standards applicable to maximum reasonable rates is misleading, except with reference to the general directives of the U. S. Congress.

Rate making involves political and social policies, as well as economic policy. These policies have been variously defined in the literature and it is of some value to clarify meanings in connection with geographic rate making for electric utilities. Political aspects take into account consumers in their role of electorate. From this standpoint the commission is the servant of consumers and accordingly, it must consider reactions of consumers to rates. The utility company also must consider these political aspects and deal with them as a problem of public relations. The political aspect gives rise to standards for rates such as equity, simplicity, ease of computation and understanding and uniformity. The political aspect also has some economic content, in as much as reactions of consumers reflect their ideas on economics. Economic policy is sometimes treated in the narrow sense of being limited to an analysis of supply and demand factors in the market. This narrow view leaves a broad field for social policy, under which other aspects of the rate problem are treated. For example, it has been said that low rates to a rural area cannot be justified on economic grounds but that they may be justified on social grounds. The present tendency is to take a broad view of what constitutes economic policy and to include in it much of what used to be distinguished as social policy.

In this paper, the author attempts to make a modest contribution to a subject which has suffered neglect by the transportation economists. I think that the subject is important and I regret the neglect. I am not certain that I can advance any facts or theories that are not already known to you, but I think that results will justify the effort if, by re exploring perhaps familiar ground in what I hope is an interesting and challenging way, I can arouse your interest sufficiently to give the matter further consideration. In any event, I take some comfort in a great statement by researcher D. Johnson, "People need not so much to be informed as to be reminded." In what follows I make three assumptions, which I bring to your attention early in my discussion in order to avoid possible confusion or misunderstanding. My first assumption is that our transportation system will continue to be a mixed one, that is, one owned and operated partly by government and partly by private enterprise. My second assumption is that the private sector will continue to be regulated by government substantially along present lines, because of the persistence of monopoly and other market imperfections. Third, I assume that travelers and shippers will continue to have legal freedom in their choice of means of transportation, even though government powerfully influences bases of such choice by provision of facilities and by regulation of rates and services. The pertinence and importance of these assumptions will become evident as my discussion proceeds.

The article explores the need to stop the unparalleled growth of population, and stresses the problems that may occur when the unparalleled growth continues. The author said that the U.S. and other developed countries must take the leadership in setting up world-wide institutions in which maternal and child health care is intimately coupled with family planning and population control advice. He suggested that the 2% unparalleled rate of population must be reversed to prevent insurmountable problems. He also recommended leadership-related ways that would help and prevent nations from having an overpopulation.

The article reports on the rates of black faculty members at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Liberal Arts Colleges in the U.S. The author inferred that in nationwide, there are 5.3% of blacks who are in full-time faculty at American colleges and universities. He added that at more than half of the nation's 50 highest-ranking liberal arts colleges, blacks are more than 4% of the total full time faculty. An overview about the black faculty as well as the charts indicating its rates are provided.

Focuses on the incentive rate proposal submitted by BP Amoco PLC to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Fundamental purpose of the proposal; Kinds of cost efficiencies that have been experienced in great measure in the exploration and production sector; Benefits of the proposal for gas companies and pipelines.