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AbstractThe New York legislature granted charters to 28 new banks in 1829. Over $5 million in capital was subscribed by 1745 individuals or entities. The average distance between investor and bank is less than 40 miles, and the average number of investors is 75 per bank, with ownership and control closely aligned. A gravity model fixed effects regression is estimated. Insiders, such as public officials and bank officers account for over one quarter of the invested capital. After accounting for information asymmetry, a strong home bias exists which suggests a high degree of capital immobility. The failure of Northern capital to invest in Southern manufacturing is readily explained by the picture of a thin and localized market dominated by political elite and specialized traders.

Utilizing the duality properties of a production/profit function, this article estimates the risk premium received by Pennsylvania bituminous coal miners in 1915, without recourse to any information related to wages. A Cobb-Douglas coal production function is fitted to data for 694 mining establishments. Miners received modest risk compensation, expressed as the value of a statistical life (VSL), of US$6,020 for fatal injuries and US$3,550 for nonfatal accidents. Converted to current price and wage levels, the death risk VSL is roughly US$400,000—far below modern multi-million dollar life values for workplace risk. JEL Classifications: II0, JI7, J28, LII, L72

In spite of an estimated increase in annual alcohol‐related motor vehicle costs of $2.767 billion (1947 dollars), the net social benefit of repeal of alcohol Prohibition amounts to $432 million per annum in 1934–1937, about 0.33% of gross domestic product. Total benefits of $3.25 billion consist primarily of increased consumer and producer surplus, tax revenues, and reduced criminal violence costs. A Monte Carlo simulation shows the probability of negative net benefits is 16%. The estimated price elasticity of demand for spirits, beer, and wine are –.60, −.56, and –.51 respectively, which is consistent with the modern literature. (JEL D61, I18, K420, I120)

Since the seminal contribution of Haveman and Krutilla(1968), the subject of the potential drawdown from the pool of unemployed versus diversion of labor from existing employments consequent upon a public investment project has been largely neglected in the BCA literature. The advent of a new BLS series on job vacancies now permits direct estimation of the crucial unemployment-vacancies (U-V) relationship, as compared to the ad hoc sine function using the unemployment rate assumed by Haveman and Krutilla. The probability p of a worker being drawn from the pool of unemployed is recast as a function of the job vacancy rate (vacancies/labor force) and shows higher values than Haveman and Krutilla at comparable rates of unemployment. At the height of the 2008-09 Great Recession, about half of Stimulus induced jobs were drawn from the pool of unemployed.

PurposeThis paper aims to estimate empirically the effect on the voluntary turnover (quit) rate of employees when a large public corporation already judged as an outstanding employer is also ranked as being socially responsible by an external review organization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs a cross‐section regression of the turnover rate of 84 of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Employers" against measures of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and several other control variables such as annual wages, ethnic and gender composition of the labor force that economic theory and prior studies have identified as explaining firm labor turnover.FindingsAdoption of business policies that cause the firm to be rated as socially responsible reduce the annual quit rate by 3 percent to 3.5 percent, which amounts to a 25‐30 percent reduction, as compared to non‐CSR public corporations or a larger comparison set including privately held and not‐for‐profit firms.Research limitations/implicationsThe wider universe of public corporations may not realize comparable turnover benefits from CSR as these "best employers" because these firms might be especially vulnerable or sensitive to corporate image when hiring workers.Practical implicationsThe model estimated permits calculation of the annual rise in average wages that would be required to reduce turnover by the same amount as CSR, a sum of approximately $3,700 per year or about 9 percent of the mean wage, with a lower bound estimate of about $1,000. This suggests that these firms can significantly reduce labor costs by investing in worker‐friendly employment policies, which account for half of the entire measured CSR impact.Originality/valueThis is believed to be the first effort to quantify rigorously the effect of CSR on the employment side of firm performance. Prior labor studies have looked at hypothetical employment scenarios involving students.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering regulating radon, a naturally occurring soil gas dissolved in drinking water, because it poses a lung cancer risk. Benefits and costs of compliance are estimated for 29 water systems with radon above the proposed maximum contaminant level. The estimated cancer risk is three times higher than assumed by EPA, making it likely that a national regulatory standard of 300 picocuries per liter of water would pass a cost-benefit test. Site specific estimates of compliance costs are also substantially greater than EPA estimates. Nevertheless, the estimated cost per avoided death is only about $1 million.

Linear programming Data Envelopment Analysis is used to determine the relative efficiency of 184 libraries in New York (U.S.A.). Efficiency is defined as whether or not a library could reduce the inputs it uses equiproportionately and still produce the same output. Inputs are defined programmatically: holdings, opening hours, serials and new books. Output is internal and external circulation.The subject libraries operate at just 67% efficiency, i.e., inputs could be reduced by one‐third without sacrificing output if all libraries were as efficient as the benchmark 23 identified by DEA. Too many hours of opening is the main source of inefficiency.