ISER Reports

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An Assessment of Safety Belt Use in Alaska Summer 2002

Virgene Hanna

In April 2002, the Alaska Highway Safety Office (AHSO) contracted with the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) to conduct an observational survey of seatbelt use in Alaska. The Alaska Highway Safety Office, along with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, wanted to know the degree to which Alaskans comply with seatbelt laws in Alaska. This report details the results of an observational survey of vehicles in Alaska. During May, June, and July 2002, ISER researchers recorded and analyzed seat belt use by drivers and front seat passengers in both passenger cars and trucks. We sampled seat belt use in cities and towns on the road system. The sample area includes 85 percent of the state's population. In the sample area, 66 percent of drivers and 64 percent of outboard passengers were wearing seatbelts. The share of occupants wearing belts was 66 percent. This number reflects an increase of just over three percent of what we observed in the year 2001. We excluded observations from the analysis where the observer was unsure whether the occupant was wearing a seatbelt. We also compared rates of cars and trucks. Seventy percent of car drivers and 56 percent of truck drivers were using seatbelts. Sixty-six percent of car passengers and 57 percent of truck passengers were belted. The rate for occupants of cars (69%) was higher than that for occupants of trucks (56%).
Kids Count Alaska 2002

Virgene Hanna and Claudia Lampman

Since we published the first Kids Count Alaska data book in 1996, Alaska’s children and teenagers have seen changes for the better and for the worse. This information comes from many sources, as cited in the tables and figures. Our contribution is mostly pulling it all together—to help adults see trends and think about how to make life healthier and safer for Alaska’s children. In this data book, we look at (1) the indicators of children’s well-being the Kids Count program uses nationwide; and (2) other measures that reflect conditions Alaskan children face— and that illustrate the sharp differences among regions of a state twice the size of the 13 original American colonies.
An Evaluation of the Economic Impacts of the September 2001 Kodiak Star Launch

Alexandra Hill

This summary describes the economic impacts on Kodiak and Alaska of the launch of the Kodiak Star (four satellites) on September 29th, 2001 launch from the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation’s Kodiak Launch Complex at Narrow Cape on Kodiak Island. The launch facility is a basic high-tech industry, bringing money into Alaska that otherwise would be spent elsewhere. This contrasts with support industries (such as retail trade), which largely re-spend money already in the state.
Retaining Quality Teachers for Alaska

Alexandra Hill, Eric Larson, and Williamson McDiarmid

Historically, Alaska has depended heavily on teachers educated outside the state. Over time, Alaska has imported roughly 70 percent of its teachers. As a consequence, national trends—in certification of new teachers, teacher shortages, retirements, and salaries—are of immediate relevance to teacher supply and demand in Alaska. Before we delve into data on Alaska educators, therefore, we will look at the wider national picture. Specifically, projections of student enrollment, teacher retirement, turnover, and new entrants to the teaching field seem critical to the issue. The data suggest that a significant number of people do not teach after earning their certificates—perhaps as many as 40 percent of the graduates of teacher education programs nationwide. And the attrition rate for teachers in the first five years of teaching is also high—between 30 and 50 percent, depending on location (Darling-Hammond, 2000; NCES, 1997). Consequently, a graduating class of 100 teachers might yield, five years later, between 30 and 42 teachers in the classroom.
Oceans, Watersheds and Humans: Facts, Myths and Realities

Henry Huntington and Steve Colt

Alaskans expect a great deal from their oceans and watersheds. Commercial fishing, sport fishing, subsistence hunting, recreation, offshore oil and gas development, transportation, and tourism are among the many ways the oceans, coast, watersheds, and their resources are used. These activities, however, can strain or break the capacity of the ecosystem to sustain them and they are not always compatible. Conflicts and controversies between different user groups are increasingly common. The role of societal forces in shaping the human-aquatic relationship is often under-appreciated, but can be critical. Protecting the health of Alaska’s oceans and watersheds requires managing the interactions between humans and those ecosystems, based on an understanding of the dynamics of both the natural and the social systems involved. This paper provides an introductory look at the relationship between humans and the oceans and watersheds of Alaska. We begin by characterizing various aspects of the human interaction with oceans, followed by a critical look at five “myths” concerning oceans and watersheds.
A Doctoral Program in Leadership and Policy Studies: Is It Feasible?

Mary Killorin

In response to requests from the Alaskan community, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) agreed to explore the possibility of developing a doctoral program in leadership and policy studies. This program would be developed in collaboration with the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) and the University of Alaska Southeast (UAS). The goal of the program would be to prepare Alaska leaders in the fields of education, health and human services, government, and business. The report is organized around the six main questions that respondents answered. Each question has a summary of responses indicated by bulleted themes followed by supporting quotations.
Framework for Thinking About Options for Restructuring Alaska Salmon Fisheries

Gunnar Knapp
The 10 Most Important Things to Understand About Alaska's Economy

Gunnar Knapp

Alaska's economy is changing with the times. What changes are occurring? And what are the most important things Alaskans should understand about our economy? This article appeared in the March 2002 edition of the Alaska Business Monthly magazine.
Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic Adult Respondent Consent Form

Jack Kruse
Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: Inuit, Inupiat, Saami, and Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka - Alaska Training Manual

Jack Kruse
Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: Inuit, Saami and the Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka (SLICA)

Jack Kruse, Birger Poppel, and Thomas Anderson
Economic Impact of Studded Tires in Alaska

Eric Larson

Studded tires in Alaska create economic impacts for vehicle owners, the government and the community as a whole. For each of these groups this chapter describes and estimates the economic impacts of studded tires. These impacts include spending for studded tires, revenues collected from the tire tax, the costs of road maintenance, and the savings from traffic crashed avoided by the use of studded tires.
Special Olympics Winter Games Add $22 Million to Anchorage Economy

Eric Larson and Oliver Scott Goldsmith
ISER Review 2000 - 2002

Linda Leask

This report provides summary information from selected research conducted by the Institute of Social and Economic Research between 2000 and 2002. This edition includes challenges to Alaska's salmon fishery, The launch of an online collection of materials on Alaska Native culture, language, and history (Alaskool.org), the economic impact of Anchorage's International Airport, land ownership in Alaska, the contribution of tourism to Alaska's economy, and many more!
Program Evaluation: [Rose] Urban Rural Youth Program

G. Williamson McDiarmid and Rosyland Frazier

This report evaluates how well the Alaska Humanties Forum Urban/Rural Youth Program - intended to build understanding and a statewide sense of community - achieved its aims in the first year of operation. The main body of this report provides information in both table and narrative form. Most of the qualitative information consists of verbatim quotes from students and parents. An executive summary is also available.
Capstone Phase I Interim Safety Study, 2000/2001

N/A N/A

The FAA Alaska Region’s Capstone program is a joint initiative with industry to improve aviation safety and efficiency in Alaska, by using new tools and technology to provide infrastructure and services. The first phase of Capstone is in southwest Alaska, primarily in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (Y-K Delta). This technology is most likely to help prevent mid-air collisions and controlled-flight-into- terrain (CFIT) accidents, which make up only a small part of the small-plane accidents in southwest Alaska but are the most likely to cause deaths. Aside from helping prevent accidents, the technology is designed to make it easier for pilots to fly—by making it easier to navigate, by providing more current weather information, and by making instrument landings possible when weather deteriorates. To learn the benefits and limitations of these new tools and technologies, the Capstone program contracted with the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research and the Aviation Technology Division to evaluate aviation safety changes in the Capstone area. This Capstone Interim Safety Report describes those changes through the end of 2001.
Recreation and Tourism in South-Central Alaska: Patterns and Prospects prepared for the US Forest Service Pacific Northwest Station

Martha Tomeo, Steve Colt, Stephanie Martin, and Jenna Mieren

Based on data from various sources, this report describes the extent and nature of recreation and tourism in south-central Alaska. Current activities, past trends, and prospective developments are presented. Particular attention is given to activities that occur on, or are directly affected by management of, the Chugach National Forest. Recreation and tourism in and around the forest are also placed in a larger context. The Chugach National Forest is heavily used as a scenic resource by motorists and waterborne passengers; road access to the forest supports recreation activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and wildlife viewing. Although the annual rate of increase in visitors to south-central Alaska seems to have slowed in the late 1990s, evidence indicates that currently both visitors and Alaska residents are increasingly seeking active forms of recreation and ?soft adventure.? These demands, combined with likely capacity constraints at well-known attractions in Alaska and entrepreneurial efforts to provide short-duration recreation and tourism experiences, may lead to increasing use of the Chugach National Forest.
Rural/Non-Rural Determination for Federal Subsistence Management in Alaska; Analysis of Economic and Community Infrastructure Variables Relatives to the Determination of Rurality.

Bradford Tuck and Victor Fischer

This report presents alternative methodologies for identifying rural and non-rural areas for federal subsistence management in Alaska. The report develops two alternative methodologies for distinguishing rural and non-rural populations in Alaska for federal subsistence management. The methodologies use measures drawn from the federal decennial census and the State of Alaska’s harvest records, among other relevant data sources. An overriding goal of the project was to use a minimal number of criteria that clearly, effectively, and defensibly distinguish between rural and non-rural populations. The two methodologies are tested on a selection of Alaska communities. It is the final report for the project, Rural/Non-Rural Determinations for Federal Subsistence Management in Alaska (Contract No. 701811CO58), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska Region.
ISER Publications 1997 - April 2002

N/A Unknown
Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic: Inuit, Inupiat, Saami, and Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka - Cue Cards

N/A Unknown
The Alaska Wood Products Industry in 2001

Amy Wiita

This report highlights pertinent issues and summarized current information available about the Alaska forest products industry. Much of the industry activity has historically been in Southeast Alaska-based on harvests from the Tongass National Forest and in more recent times from Alaska Native corporation lands-but there are also activities in Southcentral and interior Alaska. To prepare this report, we examined a wide range of literature and talked to a number of people associated with the Alaska forest products industry.
Alcohol Control Policies and American Indian Communities

Matthew Berman

Alcohol control policies such as taxation, restricting access by youth, or outright prohibition change the supply conditions for alcohol. That is, they aim to reduce the amount that becomes available for people to consume at whatever price level. Alternatively, they may be seem to raise the cost to consumers for obtaining any given quantity (figure l). The figure shows that a control policy such as a tax on alcohol would raise the cost to consumers and therefore reduce consumption....In the final analysis, alcohol control is only one of many opportunities to empower communities. But alcohol control can contribute to community empowerment. How one controls alcohol is likely to be as important, if not more important, than the type of policy implemented.
Public School Finance Programs for the United States and Canada: 1998-99

Matthew Berman

This publication was undertaken by NCES in partnership with two private entities, the The Association for Education Finance and Policy, which contracted for the information collection, and the National Education Association (NEA), which funded the effort. This publication of expert authors' descriptions of each state or province funding system was compiled by education finance researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of Ottawa....The compilers sought to balance the simplicity of the descriptions to make them understandable to a wide audience and, at the same time, technically correct. Some of the terms and concepts might be new to the reader who is unfamiliar with the arcane art of education state aid formulas. To true finance sophisticates, however, these descriptions may lack the abstruse detail to deploy similar formulas in other venues.... The papers in this publication were requested by the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. They are intended to promote the exchange of ideas among researchers and policymakers, no official support by the U.S. Department of Education or NCES is intended or should be inferred.
Alaska Natives and the "New Harpoon": Economic Performance of the ANCSA Regional Corporations

Steve Colt

In this paper I develop and analyze 20 years of data on the economic performance of the 12 regional corporations created by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA).The act was a radical departure from previous U.S. policy toward indigenous peoples. Alaska's 75,000 Aleuts, Eskimos, and Indians received almost $1 billion in cash and acquired clear title to more than 40 million acres of land, an area larger than New England. This wealth was vested in 12 regional and almost 200 village-level business corporations. As a group, the 12 regional corporations lost 80 percent of their original cash endowment -- about $380 million -- in direct business operations between 1973 and 1993. But behind this poor overall financial performance is a surprising amount of cross-sectional variation. I first show that allocation of business assets to different economic sectors plays a statistically significant but empirically minor role in explaining this differential performance. I then construct panel data on shareholder employment, wages, and quasirents and test the hypothesis that the regional corporations traded off business profits for Native jobs. The data strongly reject this hypothesis. Quasirents from Native shareholder employment were important to only three firms -- the rest lost money without any countervailing employment. Case history evidence suggests that internal sharing networks and common preferences helped the high-employment firms to deliver both jobs and dividends. Overall, these results suggest caution in the use of group-based lump-sum transfers as economic development tools.
Economic Importance of Healthy Alaska Ecosystems

Steve Colt

Alaska's healthy ecosystems are scarce and valuable economic resources. As population, income, education and development pressures increase worldwide, the relative scarcity -- and hence the value -- of these ecosystems is almost certain to increase significantly. However, because most ecosystem services are provided as public goods rather than through private markets, the value of these services must be registered and acted on within the public policy arena. this report presents an itiial assessment of the economic importance of Alaska's ecosystesm in their unimpaired state.