Future population growth could be very expensive for residents of the Mat-Su Borough, if the cost of schools and other services increases faster than the revenues needed to pay for them. A big issue looming for the borough—and other local governments—is that state aid, which currently pays most of the bill for Alaska schools, is likely to decline as declining oil production reduces state revenues. The problem is particularly critical for the Mat-Su Borough, which is the fastest growing area in Alaska.
A new analysis by Steve Colt, a professor of economics at ISER, assesses how six different land-use and population alternatives could affect the borough's finances through 2050. It focuses on the potential future costs of borough schools, because schools are by far the borough's biggest expense. The analysis was funded by The Nature Conservancy, the Bullitt Foundation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Download the analysis, Fiscal Impacts of Alternative Land-Use Scenarios for the Mat-Su Borough (PDF, 1.5MB). If you have questions, get in touch with Steve Colt at sgcolt@uaa.alaska.edu.
Alaska has natural resources of many kinds—fish and wildlife; oil and gas and metal deposits; thousands of lakes and rivers; and scenic beauty and wilderness areas, to name some. ISER researchers study many facets of the state’s natural resources—and forces that affect those resources—including commercial, subsistence, and sport fisheries; land and wildlife management issues; health of ecosystems; threats from invasive species; and people’s response to environmental change and risk.
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Jessica Cherry, a research associate professor at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center, will discuss the physics and economics of climate impacts on hydropower, as well as valuation of observational systems relating to climate and water, using examples from Scandinavia, Alaska, and California.
Norway has significant observational infrastructure, allowing researchers to see strong connections between precipitation and supply, air temperature and demand, and electricity price and trade volumes. In Southeast Alaska, which has few such observational systems, there are technological challenges in providing geophysical data to hydropower operators, and additional challenges in measuring the value of improved forecasting.
Jessica Cherry holds a PhD in climate physics from Columbia University in New York. This presentation is open to the public, but Dr. Cherry hopes that it will also lead to discussions and potential research relationships with researchers from ISER and other organizations.
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Jose Polanco, a professor of marketing and economics at the University of Cantabria, in Santander, Spain, is an expert on European seafood retailers and consumers and the Spanish seafood market. He talked about how the Spanish seafood market combines both old traditions—such as consumer fish markets—with new trends, such as growing supermarket sales of frozen fish and rapidly growing imports of farmed pangasius and other whitefish.
Download the presentation (PDF, 1.57MB).
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In the 1970s, the state and federal governments began "privatizing" access to Alaska's commercial fisheries—that is, they either issued permits or assigned shares of the catch to a limited number of fishermen. Those permits and quota shares are commodities that can be bought and sold on the market. Scholars and fishermen alike view this privatization as a fundamental driver of change in fishing livelihoods and communities. Courtney Carothers, an associate professor in the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at UAF, has studied some of the social and cultural effects of the shift to privatization in Kodiak, one of Alaska's major fishing communities. Hear Dr. Carothers talk about the results of her research.
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A new report by ISER economists Gunnar Knapp, Mouhcine Guettabi, and Scott Goldsmith assesses the economic importance of the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, the world's most valuable wild salmon fishery. Nearly half the wild sockeye salmon harvested worldwide come from Bristol Bay. The researchers found that as of 2010, Bristol Bay salmon created $1.5 billion in sales value across the United States—through harvesting, processing, and retailing of Bristol Bay salmon—and the additional economic effects of those activities.
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In a new analysis, Matthew Berman and Jeffrey Armagost of ISER estimate that natural amenities—mainly salmon streams and lakes but also public parks and other protected areas—contribute roughly 37% of the total $7 billion in appraised value of vacant land and residential property in the Mat-Su Borough. The analysis is based on characteristics of residential parcels (both vacant land and land with cabins or houses) sold in the borough in 2009 and 2010. The work was supported by The Nature Conservancy, the Bullitt Foundation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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Gunnar Knapp, ISER director and professor of economics, recently talked to the Alaska Legislature about trends in Alaska and world salmon markets. Read his presentation to learn about how salmon markets are changing, what's driving the changes, and what the future might hold.
Download the PDF of his presentation (4.4MB).
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A preliminary report, Alaska Energy Statistics 1960-2011, by Ginny Fay and Alejandra Villalobos Melendez of ISER and Corinna West of the Alaska Energy Authority, is now available, together with workbook tables. Final figures will be available in spring 2013.
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Lou Pugliaresi is president of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a not-for-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that studies and analyzes energy issues. He will talk about how U.S. energy markets—especially those for natural gas and liquefied natural gas—are changing. Before joining the foundation, Mr. Pugliaresi held a number of government posts and was a consultant on domestic and international petroleum issues. Join us to hear his views on the changing energy markets.
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Frank Asche is a well-known fisheries economist from Norway and a professor in the Department of Industrial Economics at the University of Stavanger, Norway. World seafood markets are changing rapidly, as more seafood species are being farmed and knowledge from agriculture is being used to enhance the competitiveness of aquaculture products. Those changes are likely to influence all parts of the seafood market. Join us at ISER to hear Frank Asche talk about how he sees the global seafood markets of the future.