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Recent Submissions
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Alaska's Unique Economic Structure and Fiscal ChallengesThis presentation is a part of the series of publications and presentations developed as part of the Understanding Alaska project. It covers topics such as the structure of the economy, recent economic history, population trends, future projections, state and local finances and the economic regions of Alaska. Contains many graphical presentations of data available at the time of publication.
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Commercial Fishing Safety Record: A National PerspectiveCommercial fishing safety is an important problem in Alaska. The kinds of problems which exist differ for different fisheries in Alaska - safety problems in the Bering Sea crab fishery are different than those in the southeast troll fishery. This makes it more difficult to define the nature of the Alaska commercial fishing safety problem or to figure out how to deal with it. The same things are true at the national level. Commercial fishing safety is an important problem throughout the United States. The safety problems in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fisheries are different from those in Alaska fisheries. These kinds of differences contribute to the difficulty of defining or addressing the commercial fishing safety problem at the national level. This presentation reviews elements of a report entitled Fishing Vessel Safety: Blueprint for a National Program to provide a picture of what emerged in its exploration of safety problems at the national level. All of the data and graphs are from the committee's report, except some additional data for Alaska. Any opinions expressed are the presenters, not the committee's or the authors of the original report. Presented at the National Fishing Industry Safety and Health Workshop in Anchorage, Alaska on October 9, 1992
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Drainage Pierces ANWR in Alaska Study ScenarioA hypothetical scenario of petroleum industry activities adjacent to the 1002 Area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) suggests that development from leases under State of Alaska jurisdiction could drain reservoirs that extend under ANWR. Anticipation of such drainage might in turn trigger Congressional authorization for limited surface development of trans-boundary fields. This article provides an overview of 5 scenarios developed for an interdisciplinary study of community sustainability in the Arctic. Forty year scenarios are not offered as predictions, but as "science fiction" - stories combining the best available scientific information and a set of fictional but plausible assumptions to explore implication of a range of plausible outcomes. The final scenario hinges on assumptions about continuing trends in technology that reduce future development costs and surface impacts.
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Testimony on SJR 38 "The Cremo Plan"This document was submitted as testimony to the Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee by Professor Scott Goldsmith on January 28, 1994. The Cremo proposal would establish, by constitutional amendment, a system under which all natural resource revenues would be deposited into the Alaska Permanent Fund and each year a fixed percentage of the fund assets, equal to the long run average real return on the Fund would be withdrawn for appropriation by the legislature. Based upon the analysis provided by Mr. Cremo, the amount available for appropriation (income budget) would be $3.079 billion in 1996, the first year of the transition phase, and $2.860 billion in 2005, the last year of the transition phase. In evaluating this plan the potential risks and costs should be identified and the plan should be compared to alternative methods of addressing the problems targeted in the plan. In this testimony, the potential problems and alternative policies are discussed, particularly specific problems associated with dependence on oil revenues.
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What Do Alaskan's with Disabilities Need?More than 20,000 Alaskas - 4 percent of the state population- are disabled and live outside institutions. Most of them of getting medical care, but many lack special equipment, information, and other help they need. These are among the findings of a recent ISER survey of more than 4300 Alaska households. It is the first survey of its kind in the nation to determine how many disabled persons live on their own and what they need to continue living independently.
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A Comparative Reliability Analysis of Aircraft Hangars Made From Steel or Structurally Insulated Panels for Rural Alaskan ApplicationsInfrastructure design and construction in rural Alaska creates challenging hurdles that must be discussed early in the design phase for a project. As is the case for this project, a preliminary structural design of a steel and structural-insulated-panel framed airplane hangar was completed to determine which would be more applicable for rural Alaskan villages. With a chosen location of Kotzebue, Alaska, both structures resulted in adequate designs according to the governing provisions (AISC360-16 and NDS 2015 for the steel and wood framed systems, respectively). A subsequent reliability analysis evaluated different limit states used during the design of both structures and the results were compared to the minimum target beta-value of 2.500. The result of this analysis revealed a minimum beta-value of 2.703 for the entire steel structure and a minimum beta-value of 1.064 for the structural-insulated-panel structure. Additionally, recommendations are made about further evaluating both options utilizing a thorough cost estimate that considers the life-span of the structure.
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Historical Sketch of Elections for Local Control of Alcohol in Alaska CommunitiesThis document provides tabulated information about elections in Alaska which had an option for Local Option Control of Alcoholic Beverages.
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Gulf of Alaska Coastal Communities: An OverviewThe Gulf of Alaska Coastal Communities Coalition is helping Gulf Coast communities find ways to promote development and preserve lifestyles. To assist the Coalition, researchers at the Institute of Social and Economic Research have gathered and organized information for a selection of Gulf Coast communities. The information provides a basis for community residents, the Coalition, Native corporations, regulatory agencies, and others to make decisions about development in these communities. This report summarizes the assembled data and identifies patterns, trends, and significant exceptions in the data. The next section of this report (Part II) provides a broad overview of the entire Gulf Coast. Part III looks in more detail at each region. Part IV contains extensive tables with detailed information for each community. Throughout this report, the footnotes at the bottom of the pages refer to the tables in Part IV with more detailed information.
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Timber Harvest and Wood Products Manufacture in Alaska - 1995 and 1996 UpdateThis report provides information about the timber and wood products industry gathered from a variety of sources. It includes data for the entire state and for three regions within the state, and brings together previously available data on timber harvests and wood products exports, as well as new data derived from information ISER collected in surveys of loggers and wood processors. We hope the data will be useful for both public and private planning efforts, as well as informed policy debate over timber management and development of the forest products industry.
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Simple Fiscal Outlook Model for Rural Alaska CommunitiesThe Northwest Arctic Borough (NAB) faces a growing population and increased demands for education and public services. At the request of the Assembly, I have prepared a fiscal planning model that can be used to explore what might happen to the Borough's revenues and expenses over the next 20 years. The model looks at both general government and the NAB School District (NABSD). The model allows us to ask "what if....?" questions and get quick answers about how things might change. These cases demonstrate that if the Borough issues new debt that is considered to be "in lieu" of existing cash contributions to the School District for deferred maintenance, then it can cause a large decrease in foundation funding to the School District and would require significant additional school budget cuts. (The case presented already assumes continual tightening of the instruction budget.) Obviously there are variations on the assumptions presented here for Case 3 (new bonds) that would improve the foundation funding amounts. However the overall picture that seems to emerge is that without a continuation of local revenues passed through to the School District, the new bonds are not fiscally sustainable.
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Salmon Fish Traps in Alaska: An Economic History PerspectiveSalmon return faithfully to their stream of birth and can be efficiently caught by fixed gear. But since the introduction at the turn of the century of fish traps to the emerging Alaska commercial salmon fishery, most territorial residents fought for their abolition even while admitting to their technical efficiency. The new State of Alaska immediately banned traps in 1959. I estimate the economic rents generated by the Alaska salmon traps as they were actually deployed and find that they saved roughly $4 million (1967 dollars) per year, or about 12% of the ex-vessel value of the catch. I also find strong evidence that the fishermen operating from boats earned zero profits throughout the 20th century. Thus the State's ban on fish traps did allow 6,000 additional people to enter the fishery, but did nothing to boost average earnings.
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Rural Alaska Hydroelectric Assessment: Stage 2 Economic Evaluation of Hydroelectric Projects in Atka, Hoonah, Old Harbor, and UnalaskaThis memorandum summarizes the economic evaluation of four candidate hydroelectric projects. For each site, the evaluation procedure compares the total costs of electric power with and without hydro over a 35 year planning period extending through the year 2032. The memo is organized into four sections, one for each candidate site. An appendix provides further notes on model mechanics.
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Operations and Maintenance Issues in Rural Alaska SanitationToday, many rural Alaskans have inadequate water and sanitation facilities. As a result, they face unacceptable health risks and an unacceptably poor quality of life. While much has been accomplished during the past 30 years, the honey bucket remains the primary form of sanitation in scores of communities. This paper is intended to stimulate discussion about several issues related to operations and maintenance of rural sanitation systems. The paper focuses on operations and maintenance issues because so many observers agree that proper O&M is crucial to success but severely lacking in many communities today. Section 2 reviews the prior recommendations of the Alaska Sanitation Task Force and issues raised during meetings of the Federal Field Work Group. Section 3 provides some discussion of these recommendations and issues, based on subsequent research. Section 4 provides a simple method for quantifying the benefits of preventive maintenance and R&D. Section 5 discusses mechanisms for providing O&M assistance. Section 6 provides three case studies of life cycle costs for three different system types.
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Measured Energy Savings from Weatherization Alaska vs. National ResultsThis memorandum reviews the differences in measured energy savings from 102 Alaska weatherized homes (ISER 1993) compared with savings from a "cold-climate" region of the United States (ORNL 1993). The National study found a significantly higher level of gross energy saving (12.5%) in its sample of 1040 gas-heated homes than the Alaska study found in is sample of 102 homes. Alaska' lower level of percentage gas savings, relative to the US cold-climate region, cannot be attributed to differences in sampling, data retention, or analytical technique using PRISM. When measured by gas consumption per degree-day, the Alaska sample of weatherized homes appears to have higher thermal integrity prior to weatherization. From different starting points, both Alaska and US single-family homes appear to be achieving a post-weatherization thermal integrity of about .155 cf per degree-day. Alaska mobile homes reach a roughly similar final level of .142 ccf per HDD, commensurate with their smaller size.
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Financial Performance of Alaska Native Regional CorporationsThis edition of the Alaska Review of Social and Economic Conditions examines one narrow measure of how well Alaska Native Corporations have done in managing nearly 1 billion dollars and 44 million acres for the benefit of their shareholders. It describes the financial performance of the regional corporations from their beginnings in 1973 through 1990. We also report available information on shareholder employment. The endowment of natural resources in each region explains a lot about the relative financial success of the corporations: some regions just have more marketable resources than others. But aside from the differences attributable to random resource distribution, we can make several points about the corporations' cumulative financial performance over this period.
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Tracking the Structure of the Alaska Economy: The ISER MAP DatabaseThis document is predominantly tabulated data with no interpretive or contextual information.
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Kodiak Population ProjectionsThe City of Kodiak asked the Institute of Social and Economic Research to generate population projections through 2020 for the city and the adjacent area (Service Area l) served by city sewer. The projections currently used in planning a new wastewater treatment facility extremely high to many knowledgeable observers. ISER reviewed the existing population projections and generated an independent set of projections based on our explicit analysis of the Kodiak economy and demography. In the projections for Kodiak Island Borough. tourism and seafood are the driving factors in explaining projected population growth. Other wage and salary and federal government categories also drive some growth, but are less important.
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Structural Analysis of the Alaska Economy: A Perspective from 1997The structure of the Alaska economy is reflected in the share of personal income and employment attributable to each of the BASIC industrial sectors and other external sources of household purchasing power. We identify twelve activities upon which the size and composition of the Alaska economy depends and trace their growth over time. Although an oversimplification of reality, the economic base model is a useful tool for studying the structure of the Alaska economy. In the economic base model, BASIC activities are the source of economic growth for the regional economy. Our analysis offers a consistent methodology but is not a detailed historical investigation of each individual industry. A more comprehensive analysis would further refine the attributions we have made, but we feel that the representation of the structure of the economy presented in this report is valid and useful as a description of the economy.
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Safe Landing: Charting a Flight Path Through the CloudsEverybody’s got an idea about where to find the roughly $1 billion we’ll need to balance the state budget every year from now on. It’s hard to evaluate these proposals, because the budget is complicated—and it’s hard to imagine how much $1 billion really is. This paper looks first at why some popular ideas can’t raise $1 billion a year, although they can certainly help. Then, in the foldout, we try to help Alaskans see through the clouds obscuring the “Safe Landing” strategy, which we first talked about in 1992. This strategy says that dealing with such a big deficit requires using a combination (and there are a number of possible combinations) of budget cuts, windfalls, Permanent Fund earnings, new taxes, and economic development.
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Safe Landing: A Fiscal Strategy for the 1990sAlaska is poised for either a safe landing or a nose dive. Whether we land safely or crash depends on how Alaskans deal with declining oil revenue. Since oil began flowing from the Prudhoe Bay field 15 years ago, Alaska’s government and economy have come to depend on state taxes and royalties from oil production. Oil revenue makes up 85 percent of the state’s general revenue, and it creates 30 percent of Alaskans’ personal income. But North Slope production is now declining as the giant Prudhoe Bay field ages. Luckily, Alaska has the resources it needs to make the difficult transition. This paper outlines a comprehensive but flexible strategy for moving Alaska through the 1990s with a minimum of economic damage and into the next century with a government that is smaller but still able to provide essential services and support a healthy economy.
