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Challenges to Socio-Economic Impact Modeling: Lessons form the Alaska OCS Program
Gunnar Knapp and Lee Husky
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A Social Indicators System for OCS Impact Monitoring
John Kruse and Frank Andrews
This report describes the design of a data collection system to monitor changes in the individual well-bein of Alaska residents who may be affected by OCS development activities. The system employs a limited set of indicators to provide a comprehensive description of individual well-being over time. The indicators are derived from existing data and from formal interviews with random samples of individuals. The justification for designing and implementing this data collection system is found in section 256.82 of Title 30 of the Code of Federal Regulations. The system is designed to contribute to pre-lease assessments and to help fulfill the responsibilities of the Minerals Management Service to monitor the effects of development. The first stage of the design effort consisted of a preliminary identification of social goals recognized by Alaska's rural coastal residents. These goals included universally recognized concerns such as housing, health, and income as well as regionally and culturally specific social goals. These initially identified goals were then field tested through key informant interviews and a comparison of goals with current issues. The goals were modified on the basis of field test results and used as a framework for the identification of indicators of individual well-being. Individual social indicators of well-being were developed according to explicit rules. At least one indicator had to be included for each of the most detailed goals identified (sub goals). The meaning of each indicator had to correspond with the meaning of one, and only one, sub goal. All indicators had to directly measure individual well-being and must accurately reflect reality and actual change. Researchers sough to develop both objective and subjective indicators for each sub goal. Existing data sources were reviewed for potential indicators. Researchers found that existing data sources are inadequate as the sole basis for a social indicators system. Therefore, indicators based on primary data were developed, repeatedly tested and modified, and incorporated into a single questionnaire. The report describes the steps necessary to implement the Alaska OCS Social Indicators System. Data collection efforts are scheduled to coincide with the current leasing schedule. Key subpopulations are identified as the targets for primary data collection. The report concludes with a discussion of how the social indicator data can be used in pre-lease assessments and in studies of the actual effects of OCS development activities on individual well-being.
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Advanced Technology Transfer of Gerontological Training--Linkage Final Report Volume 1
Theodore Lane and Ronald Crowe
This project was designed to demonstrate how centrally based advanced telecommunications can be used to efficiently and economically train older Alaskans Commission project staffs (or other personnel) located in remote communities. This project used Alaska's Satellite Communications System to provide training to eight remote communities in Alaska from a central training station in Anchorage. Researchers used three training modes: (1) audioconferencing (via telephone), (2) audioconferencing with a videotape and workbook, and (3) televised audioconferencing. A total of fifty-six people participated in the demonstration, with an average of twenty-four attending each session. The project demonstrated that: 1. Training can effectively be delivered to remote sites through a variety of techniques. 2. The most effective techniques seem to be: (1) interactive televised audioconferencing; (2) an audioconference which has been prepared for the training through the use of an educational videotape and a workbook which can be used to guide the training; or (3) some combination of the two. Number 2, however, would be most economical. 3. The Remote training resulted in a noticeable change in the participants' knowledge of and attitudes about the training topics (for example, the problems of Alzheimer's Disease and the needs of the frail elderly in their communities) . 4. Training and other dissemination of information by remote means can be performed quite economically-- much more cheaply than by transporting trainees to a central location. Although no single program can solve all the needs of Alaska's rural elderly population, we believe that this demonstration project has taken an important first step in showing how advanced communications can be used to provide cost-effective training to Older Alaskan Commission Staffs, and others, located in remote, isolated communities.
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Alaska Statewide and Regional Economic and Demographic Systems: Effects of OCS Exploration and Development
Matthew D. Berman and Teresa Hull
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The ISER MAP Economic Database Data Sources and Derivations A Companion to the Printed Tables
Oliver Scott Goldsmith, Teresa Hull, and Brian Reeder
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Governing Schools in Culturally Different Communities: Effects of Decentralization in Rural Alaska
Oliver Scott Goldsmith and G. Williamson McDiarmid
Decentralized in 1976, rural Alaska's schools today experience varying levels of lay control. What factors condition lay participation in and influence on school governance? This study examines two factors: the type of governance issue; and the type of community. The hypotheses tested are: professional dominance is greatest on issues considered to be internal to the expertise of professionals; and lay influence will be greatest in small, remote and ethnically homogenous communities. Data used to test these hypotheses are taken from a 1981 survey of rural principals (N = 304) and a 1982 survey of rural teachers (N = 304). Informants provided perceptual data on who participates in and has predominant influence on eleven school governance processes. Interviews conducted with local and district school board members, and both local and central office educational professionals (N = 300) provided qualitative data on the dynamics of school governance processes. Chi-square analysis was used to identify significant differences in levels of participation and influence. The perceptual nature of the data limits the generalizability of the findings. The author found that educational professionals in rural Alaska, like those in the rest of the country, tend to dominate all areas of school governance. Substantial qualitative evidence shows, however, that professionals frame their recommendations to conform to community values and expectations. Other findings were: professionals appear to dominate all issues both those considered to be internal to the expertise of professionals and those considered external, although lay influence was greater on the latter; neither community size nor mean educational level appears to exert an independent effect on lay influence while a high degree of ethnic homogeneity seems to be related to higher levels of lay influence on some school governance processes; and local influence, both lay and professional, appears to be greatest in small, remote, predominantly Native villages. A major implication of these findings is that rural Alaska Natives should beware of efforts to consolidate village schools. Merely having the professionals who teach their children in the community increases the likelihood that local values, needs, and expectations will influence the governance of their children's school.
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Alaska's Economy Since Statehood: The ISER MAP Economic Data Base
Teresa Hull, Brian Reeder, and Oliver Scott Goldsmith
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Allocative Effects of Regulations in the Alaska King Crab Fishery
Gunnar Knapp
In this paper, we have used a simple model to examine possible short-run and long-run allocative effects of regulations in an open-entry fishery. Our model suggests that regulation in an open-entry fishery may affect the distribution of catch between different fleets in a number of ways. Gear restrictions, by directly reducing the efficiency of larger vessels, can increase the share of smaller vessels in total catching power in the short run, and enhance the ability of smaller vessels to compete with larger vessels in the long run. Regulations which separate the fishery, forcing vessels to chose between fishing in different areas, may also affect the distribution of total catch. Examples of these regulations are exclusive area registration requirements and simultaneous scheduling of seasons in different areas. These regulations may affect the distribution of catch between fleets because the relative catching power and relative profitability of boats may be different for individual areas in the fishery than for the fishery as a whole. Data on vessel participation in the Alaska king crab fishery suggest that during the period 1969-1980, regulations in the Alaska king crab fishery benefited small, resident-owned boats. They did so by preventing the large boats which fished in the more productive western fisheries from also fishing in the eastern fisheries where most of the small, resident-owned boats were based, and by restricting gear use in these areas.
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