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Dr. Brower's Scholarship Page
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You must have Adobe Acrobat, a free utility, to read some files. Files in Adobe Acrobat format (filenames with extension pdf) are formatted for printing on 8.5 by 11 inch paper.
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Data Analysis and Statistics for Economists and Managers
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I am writing a book for courses like EC156: Economic and Business
Statistics. It is called Data Analysis and Statistics for Economists
and Managers, and students in my sections of EC156 use it for
their text. Its purpose is to avoid many of the problems students
have with the course by revising the order and presentation of
topics. Click one of these buttons to see current drafts. All text materials are copyright © 2000. You may print one copy for personal use only.
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Essays
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As I spend more time on teaching and students in general and the book in particular, I spend less time on formal research. Recently, my scholarship has taken the form of ocassional essays, some of which have been published or presented. Click one of these buttons to see the text.
Past Work
The Economics of Crime
Dissertation: The Supreme Court and Police Productivity
Peak Load Pricing
The first research project I worked on looked at the odd fact that people who use a bridge, for example, at rush hour every day pay lower tolls than those who travel that way only once in their lives.
The solution has to do with the "ownership" of the bridge. Such facilities are usually owned by public agencies serving large populations: state highway departments or transportation authorities.
A local example is the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Authority. The agency is operated by the State of New Jersey and Commonwealth of Pennsylvanis to provide bridges across their boundary, the Delaware River.
Commuters who form the peak load live in one state and work in the other. They cross a bridge once a day in each direction. People traveling from Ohio, say, to New Jersey or New York on vacation may use a bridge once in each direction, ever.
It seems reasonable, at first glance, that commuters cause the bridges to be built, cause most of the wear and tear, and should pay a higher toll. The standard economics of peak load pricing, mass transit advocates, and others argue that charging higher fares to commuters is good economics and good policy.
Now we return to the ownership question. Commuter facilities are owned by law, de jure, by public agencies with broad mandates. But the facilties are built to serve commuters. Commuters have a concentrated interest in the facility they use, so they attend hearings and otherwise participate actively in decisions affecting the facility and themselves. They are the owners for practical purposes, the de facto owners.
Dr. Lawrence Southwick, Jr. was my graduate school advisor until my dissertation began, a councilman in his suburban township, and he suggested the project. We used data on the Grand Island bridges on the main route between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY. Commuters travel to work on both sides of the bridges, and many tourists visit the falls each year.
We found that the commuters paid subsidized tolls equal to the marginal cost of operating the bridges, about ten cents per crossing at the time. Tourists provided the subsidy by twenty-five cents per crossing. The tolls could be explained by assuming that the public authority discriminated between the two groups. They maximized profit on the tourists, behaving like a classic monopolist, while they charged commuters only marginal cost. The total cost of operating the bridges was covered, while the local de facto owners saw their interests protected.
Why don't off-peak users complain? A toursits doesn't really care because the toll is such a small part of their trip cost. Room, board, entertainment, and vehicle operation are much larger expenses. Other ocassional users don't complain because the cost of participating in meetings and other ways is much larger than the prospective benefit.
The moral of the story is that assuming everyone has the same ineterest in a public decision or policy is often a mistake. People with more intense interest will spend more time and money to represent their position. They become the de facto owners of the agency controlling the policy and, therefore, of the policy itself. The same thing happens with every interest group influenced decision by legislators and executive agencies.
The full study was published in
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If you have comments or suggestions, email me!
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This personal page is maintained by me, George Brower. The views expressed are my responsibility only. They do not necessarily reflect views held by other persons or institutions, including specifically Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary.
Copyright © 2000. All rights reserved, inclucing but not limited to downloading, reposting, and duplication. Readers are authorized to print a single copy for personal use. As Jan Adkins (1973) put it:
"We have gone to considerable difficulty and expense to assemble a staff of necromancers, sorcerers, shamans, conjurers and lawyers to visit nettlesome and mystifying discomforts on any ninny who endeavors to reproduce or transmit this book in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission from the publisher. Watch yourself."
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Adkins, Jan (1973), Toolchest: A Primer of Woodcraft,
New York: Walker and Company, p.4.
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As far as I know, all images and quotations are used within the fair use limits established by law and their distributors' licenses. Please email me if that assumption is incorrect so I can remove any offending material.
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Last updated July 10, 2000
Ver. 4 created June 26, 2000; Ver. 3 June 12, 1999; Ver. 2 Spring 1996; Ver. 1 Fall 1994
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