Emil D. Attanasi, Ph.D.

The Federal Government's efforts to induce development of a coal-based synthetic fuel industry include direct subsidies, tax concessions, and assurances that it will purchase the industry's output, even if above the market price. In this note it is argued that these subsidies will enable this industry to secure a region's largest and lowest-cost coal deposits and that the costs imposed...

No abstract available.

Resource estimates alone will not give advance warning of encroaching production difficulties. An analysis of the general stages in the evolution of petroleum production and discovery and of industry statistics provides an estimate of when the stage characterised by increasing production in the market economy countries outside the United States and Canada will end. The analysis indicates...

PART A: A model of the discovery process can be used to predict the size distribution of future petroleum discoveries in partially explored basins. The parameters of the model are estimated directly from the historical drilling record, rather than being determined by assumptions or analogies. The model is based on the concept of the area of influence of a drill hole, which states that...

Computer simulation experiments were conducted to determine the effects of alternative sources of uncertainty on the willingness to pay for flood insurance. Two alternative insurance protection schemes were investigated: coinsurance and fixed coverage. The question investigated here is to what extent does the insurance scheme influence how purchasers respond to flood risks? Floods were...

A detailed theoretical model characterizing the individual's decision to purchase flood insurance is specified and the magnitude of the risk parameter is estimated using data based on transactions of flood insurance purchases. Empirical results for several samples of this subset of the general population indicated that consumers exhibited a relatively uniform degree of risk aversion...

Recent interest in the state of the United States domestic petroleum industry has resulted in an increased concern regarding the ability of current large- scale econometric models to provide useful predictions about supply price sensitivity and about the effects of differing policy options on future supply. The petroleum industry's exploration and reserve response functions appear to...

The Federal Government in the past has provided medical and economic aid to victims of earthquakes and floods. However, regulating the use of hazard-prone areas would probably be more efficient. One way to implement such land use regulation is through the national flood and earthquake insurance program. Because insurance firms base their premium rates on available information, the...

A general method for the economic design of natural resource information systems is presented for a certain class of natural phenomena. The system design is determined by the interaction of the technical input‐output relationship, i.e., the production function, the set of resource constraints, and an economic loss function defined in terms of parameter uncertainty. An application of the...

There is currently some dissatisfaction with macroeconomic approaches to modeling the supply of domestic crude oil. One problem that has been pointed out is that the estimated supply responses of new discoveries brought about by price increases appear to be unrealistically high. Because data frequently used in these models are highly aggregated over time and include diverse geologic...

A substantial number of economic transactions occur through competition in which agents participate by submitting sealed bids.

No abstract available.