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Education Equity and Taxpayer Equity: A Review of the Alaska Public School Foundation Funding Program
Eric Larson and Matthew Berman
The Alaska Legislature asked ISER to examine what has driven up costs of Alaska's school districts in the past two decades, and to assess how the state's School Foundation Program could better achieve both taxpayer and education equity. This summary describes what we studied, reports how much specific categories of school costs went up and why, and outlines our conclusions and suggestions about taxpayer and education equity and the foundation program. We examined changes in the major categories of school operating costs over the past two decades. We studied operations spending not only because it makes up most of school district spending, but also because it is recurring, with a similar pattern year after year. Capital projects, by contrast, differ each year, depending on what districts and the legislature decide is most urgent, and on how much money the state has to spend for capital projects.
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Alaska's Gross State Product, 1961-1990
Eric Larson, Scott Goldsmith, and Steve Colt
Alaska's gross state product (GSP) in 1990 was almost $25 billion. That compares with less than $1 billion in 1961. Even if we adjust those figures to remove the effects of inflation, the real gross state product was still nearly 6 times bigger in 1990 than it had been 30 years earlier. GSP is a crucial measure of Alaska's economic capacity: of Alaska's ability to produce for the local, national, and world markets. But only a part of GSP stays in Alaska. A big share goes to multi-national oil companies, the federal government, and others outside Alaska. So when we talk about how much GSP grew in recent times, that doesn't all translate into economic benefits for Alaskans.
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Alaska Review of Social and Economic Conditions: hunting and fishing in southeast
Linda Leask and Monette Dalsfoist
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Who Will Pay for Balancing the Budget?
Linda Leask, Scott Goldsmith, Matthew Berman, and Alexandra Hill
Alaskans will pay more and get less from state government in the 1990s. But how will the burden of spending cuts and tax increases fall on richer and poorer and urban and rural households? That depends on which policies state officials choose. Alaska faces big and growing budget deficits because the petroleum revenues that mostly paid for state government in the 1980s are steadily shrinking. When those deficits will start is uncertain, but low world oil prices are erasing the budget surplus state officials had expected as a result of the Middle East war. This paper assesses how different taxing and spending policies could affect different kinds of households. As a measure of those effects we examine relative losses in disposable household income. Budget deficits will of course have other effects on households. Some households will be hurt a lot more than others by broad economic losses and reduced government services. Alaskans who lose their jobs will obviously suffer bigger losses than we describe. But relative household income loss is a good measure of the equity of various fiscal policies. We estimate losses in disposable household income by comparing how various fiscal policies reduce state transfer pay-ments and increase state and local taxes.
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Development in Remote Regions: What Do We Know?
Thomas Morehouse and Lee Huskey
This article assesses a recent body of research on economic development and socio-political change in northern and other remote regions of developed, western nations. The regions include northern Canada, Alaska, northern Scandinavia, Australia's Northern Territory, and Micronesia. Research topics covered are theoretical perspectives, resource development, Native claims, and village economies. "Remote regions" are physically, economically, and politically distant from centers of wealth and power; they are culturally or ethnically diverse and sparsely settled; and they exhibit extreme limits on their autonomy, self-sufficiency, and welfare. "Development" of these regions is defined as the overcoming of internal and external obstacles to change in conditions associated with their remoteness. The authors ask whether the research has increased our understanding of the nature of these regions and of their development problems. Their answer is generally affirmative, but they also identify specific research gaps, problems, and needs. The latter include needs for more explicit theorizing, comparative and historical approaches, and research on resource ownership, Native claims outcomes, village subsistence, and population migration.
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Developing a Public Consensus on Management of Spruce Beetles on the Kenai Peninsula
Robert Pelz and Jack Kruse
Newspapers and, to a lesser extent, television have actively reported on the spruce beetle Infestation. This may account for the unusually strong public consensus of the most serious problem with Kenai Peninsula forests. Over half of all Anchorage residents have read about the infestation, and public exposure to written accounts Is even higher among Kenai residents. The other major reason why the vast majority of southcentral residents point to the spruce beetle infestation as a major problem Is because over half of them (57 percent) have noticed dead and dying trees as they drive peninsula highways. This translates to 50,000 households who have observed dead trees (see Figure 11). Some 38,000 households have associated these dead trees with the spruce beetle infestation. During our Interviews with government and environmental group representatives we sought to Identify the ways In which dead or dying trees, the direct result of the spruce bark beetle, In turn affect the lives of South-central residents. We then tested out these Ideas In survey pretests, ultimately constructing a sequence of structured questions that we asked of every survey respondent. Our findings indicate that opinions are clearly mixed. Virtually equal percentages of each population group support leaving the areas as is or cutting, burning, and replanting.
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Review of the 1990 Census in Alaska - Report and Research Summary
Robert Pelz and Jack Kruse
Although not required by law to do so, the State of Alaska uses the federal decennial census count of the state's population as a basis for redistricting the state legislature. This study was commissioned by the Reapportionment Board to answer the question of whether the decennial census count is the best source of data for redistricting. The methods used to examine the quality of the decennial census count also offered an opportunity to assess the quality of demographic, social, and economic data collected from samples of households. These same methods provided a useful basis for recommendations on how to improve the next decennial census.
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Planning The First American-Soviet Park
John Tichotsky
The proposed Beringian Heritage International Park is tentatively to include the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve in Alaska and the Chukotka and Provideniya districts of the Chukotka Autonomous Republic. The National Park Service and the National Audubon Society asked ISER to examine resource development, political organization, and other factors that will influence the Societ Union's designation of land for the international park. This research summary provides an overview of the recent report on ISER's recent report on Chukotka - "Use and Allocation of Natural Resources in the Chukotka Autonomous District" by John Tichotsky.
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Use and Allocation of Natural Resources in the Chukotka Autonomous District
John Tichotsky
Chukotka Autonomous District (Okrug) comprises the northeastern-most area of that part of the Soviet Union known as the "Far East". Chukotka can be used to refer to three different areas: the Chukotka Autonomous District (Okrug) is the entire North East half of the Magadan Province (oblast); the Chukotka Peninsula (sometimes written Chukotskyi) describes a geographic unit that is the northeastern peninsula of the Chukotka Autonomous District; and the Chukotka Region is an administrative unit equivalent to a county occupying the northern part of the Chukotka Peninsula. There has been a significant amount of American and Western travel on business, educational, cultural, medical and scientific exchanges in the past two years. Communications have been improved by the increased travel between the regions and the direct microwave link that provides for telephone calls between Alaska and the Soviet Far East at half the rate for calls between the rest of the United States and the Soviet Union.The United States and the Soviet Union have signed an agreement providing for visa-free travel by Soviet and Alaska Eskimos. Currently, the agreement has not been fully implemented and permission for Soviet natives for visa-free travel has been extended only to St.Lawrence Island, Kotzebue and Nome. This report provides geographic, demographic, historical, political, and resource development information that was current in 1991. A short summary report (ISER Research Summary No. 48) was developed based on this report.
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Alaska Statewide and Regional Economic and Demographic Systems: Effects of OCS Exploration and Development , 1990
Matthew D. Berman, Oliver Scott Goldsmith, and Teresa Hull
This report contains projections and analyses of cumulative economic and demographic effects of petroleum exploration and development that may occur in Alaska from areas leased as of January 1990 on the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Econometric modeling techniques are used to develop projections for the state of Alaska and for the Anchorage-Mat-Su Region. The projected cumulative effects of the Leasing Program include an increase of approximately 4 percent in population and employment for both the state and for the Anchorage-Mat-Su Region. The statewide effects begin with exploration activities in the first half of the 1990s, then grow quickly during construction of development and transportation facilities for OCS development near the end of the decade. The effects then decline slowly as petroleum development moves into the operations phase after the year 2000. Economic activity related to expanded OCS development yields significant new petroleum revenues for state and local governments. Including state income taxes potentially available from the expanded employment base, the revenues added by OC development are more than sufficient to offset new demands on public services created by the larger population. The effects on the Anchorage-Mat-Su Region are projected to be nearly as large in 2015 as in 2000 and reach the same percentage increases in population and employment as observed for the state as a whole. The effect of OCS leasing on the Anchorage-Mat-Su Region population and employment is likely to occur slightly later than for the state as a whole due to the lags in the multiplier process producing these largely indirect effects.
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Alaska Housing Markets In 1990: Report and Research Summary
Matthew Berman, Alexandra Hill, and Linda Leask
At the beginning of the new decade, Alaska urban housing markets appear to have largely ended their four-year slide. Population and home sales are up. Residential vacancies and mortgage defaults are down. This report is one of a series prepared for the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) on the economy and housing markets of urban areas of Alaska. It reviews the housing markets in Alaska's major urban centers and discusses the outlook for 1990 and 1991. The geographic areas covered include Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Mat-Su Valley.
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Alaska Economic Database Users' Guide
Kathryn C. Eberhart, Eric Larson, Dona Lehr, and Tracey Bradford
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Evaluation of Future Purposes and Functions of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority
Musa Essayad and David Gordon
In their endeavor to sketch a strategic plan for the 1990s, the board of directors of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) asked the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) of the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) to render independent, professional advice on how to establish a framework for evaluating AIDEA's direction and options for the future. The analysis and findings of the study are based on the policy and functional issues unique to AIDEA, and on the experiences of similar development financing institutions in other countries. A summary of findings and recommendations follows this introduction, and four subsequent chapters detail our findings.
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ISER Fiscal Papers: Alaska Potential Tax Revenues
Oliver Scott Goldsmith, Matthew D. Berman, Lee Gorsuch, and Linda Leask
During the 1980s Alaska's state and local governments spent two to three times more per capita than governments in other states but taxed individuals and businesses only about half as much. They were able to do this because high petroleum revenues paid most government expenses. Petroleum revenues began declining in the 1980s, and by the year 2000, will leave an estimated $1 billion gap in half. This paper analyzes potential revenues for Alaska governments. It examines how much tax Alaska's state and local governments currently collect and estimates how much different tax collections would be if tax rates were at national averages. Taxes paid by individuals and businesses and by resource industries are separately examined. Income tax, property taxes, federal transfers to the state, state transfers to local governments, interest, general sales tax, resource taxes, and resource ownership revenues are discussed with a consideration of the effects of world oil prices and potential economic development. Five arguments against raising taxes are examined. This report contains 11 graphs. (SV)
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Impact: A Model For Estimating Jobs And Income From Energy Programs - User's Guide
Oliver Scott Goldsmith and Steve Colt
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Alaska State Government Spending Since 1979: Tracing The Growth
Scott Goldsmith
During the decade of the 1980s the state of Alaska collected $46.3 billion (1989 $) in revenues, $31.8 billion from the production and ownership of petroleum resources, $8.2 billion as earnings on financial assets (the majority from the Permanent Fund), $3.2 billion from the federal government, and $3.1 billion from all other sources. Since 1979 state government has been on a spending spree of unparalleled proportions. This paper is an attempt to analyze the composition of that spending and in particular to identify the spending which is over and above a "maintenance level". It is a historical analysis but the objective is to use this information to look · into the future, to try to understand how state government will evolve in the next 2 decades. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Economic Association in San Diego, California July 2, 1990
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