Residents of the Mat-Su Borough north of Anchorage say they would be willing to pay substantial amounts for actions that help protect things that drew them to the area in the first place—including salmon streams, local farmland, and opportunities for recreation and hunting. That's the main finding of a recent survey ISER economist Tobias Schwörer conducted of borough residents.
The survey asked respondents to choose among different hypothetical future land-use and development alternatives, with different costs assigned to each alternative. By their choices, the respondents put dollar values on actions that would help protect non-market resources, like healthy salmon runs and public easements for hiking or snowmachine trails. These dollar amounts are hypothetical—no one was actually asked to pay anything—but they are still important measures of what borough residents value and consider worth paying for.
The survey was done for The Nature Conservancy, with funding from the Bullitt Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Read the 4-page summary of survey results, and see technical documentation of the survey and analysis of data. For more information, get in touch with Tobias Schwörer at tschwoerer@alaska.edu.
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The estimated value of construction spending in Alaska in 2013 will be about $8.4 billion, up 8% from spending in 2012. That's according to the 2013 Alaska Construction Spending Forecast, prepared by Scott Goldsmith and Mouhcine Guettabi of ISER for the Associated General Contractors of Alaska. More spending in the oil and gas sector will account for most of the growth.
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Joanna Karet is a new member of the research faculty at the Center for Alaska Education Policy Research, which was established as part of ISER in 2010. She will talk about her findings on whether attending two-year community colleges encourages or discourages students from going on to get four-year or advanced degrees. Existing qualitative research has indicated that attending community colleges causes many students to lower their goals. Dr.
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Alaska’s state government is sitting pretty right now, with oil revenues at record levels, $60 billion in savings, and maybe another $100 billion worth of petroleum in the ground. Still, a new paper by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, finds that trouble is looming, with declining oil production and growing state spending.
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Oil started flowing through the trans-Alaska 35 years ago this summer, on June 20, 1977. Since then, the state government has collected $170 billion in revenues from North Slope oil, in today's dollars. A new paper by Scott Goldsmith, professor emeritus of economics at ISER, assesses what the state has done with its oil wealth so far.
To read the paper, click here (PDF, 944.8KB).
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A new book, The Cool 100, published by the Technical University of Denmark, features a chapter by energy economists Tobias Schwörer and Ginny Fay of ISER and Dennis Meiners of Intelligent Energy Systems. The chapter, “The Chaninik Wind Group,” describes an innovative collaboration among village utilities in four southwest Alaska communities.
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Heather Hudson gave a presentation on “Broadband Policies for the North” for the Anchorage chapter of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) on November 16. Her presentation can be found here. This presentation can be found here.
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In its November 23 edition, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reports on ISER's 50 years as an public policy research organization.
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This course provides an overview of the legal, economic, and political framework for making decisions about resource development. It is intended for students who may work in industry, government, Alaska Native corporations, or consulting firms.
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Dr. Heather Hudson will be the guest speaker at the Alaska Chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) November luncheon to be held on Tuesday, November 8th, from 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. at the BP Energy Center, 900 E. Benson Drive. View PDF of the presentation.