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The problem of reservoir construction and water allocation is addressed by using an optimal timing model

Sensitivity analysis (SA) is often absent, and when present, it is under-utilized. SA can do more than illustrate the implications of uncertainty. SA can make a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) much more informative, can discourage abuse, and can make inadvertent bias more transparent. SA makes it harder for public officials to ignore BCAs that get in the way of special interest politics. Those features are especially important for environmental policymaking. SA could help change the environmentalist attitude about BCA that has produced outright prohibitions of economic analyses such as can be found in the Water Pollution Control Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. SA is a non-confrontational way to handle controversy about key assumptions, calculation methods, and projected data. SA can make public officials more accountable, and SA makes their decision making criteria more transparent. SA lengthens the shelf-life of a BCA, and within a draft BCA, SA can help allocate research resources and narrow the range of relevant alternatives. A case study of a proposed reservoir illustrates many of the benefits of using SA more extensively., I. INTRODUCTION Nearly everyone generally agrees that decision making is a comparison of benefits and costs. Beyond the abstract, there is much controversy, especially about giving benefit-cost analysis (BCA) a [...]

Employers can exploit individuals with high moving costs when local labor markets are not competitive. Along with nurses and university faculty, teachers are sometimes in such a disadvantageous situation. Teachers' price elasticity of supply may be quite low in many regions, and their geographic mobility may be low when they are their household's second wage earner. Their occupational mobility is often low because of the scarcity of alternate employers within commuting distance. Nearly 96 percent of Texas' teachers work in tax-financed school districts, and many regions have only one district. An econometric model developed from school district data from 48 South Texas and 48 North Texas counties supports the hypothesis that teachers are paid less in less competitive labor markets. In Texas, teachers' salaries are not determined by collective bargaining between district officials and teacher unions. That relatively unique feature of Texas makes it especially well-suited to the task of disentangling monopsony effects from other labor market forces. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)