Browsing by Author "Noonan, Douglas S."

Now showing 1 - 10 of 61
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Arts Districts, Universities, and the Rise of Digital Media
    (2013-06) Breznitz, Shiri M; Noonan, Douglas S.
    In the last decade, arts and culture have been placed at the center of attention when discussing economic growth. In particular, studies on the “creative class” have been using arts and culture as an important factor impacting local economies. In addition, studies on local economic development have frequently viewed universities as a major factor in economic growth. In the middle of this discussion is new economic growth via creativity, via new recipes and new combinations of local capital, and via innovation centers. Combining these disparate literatures brings to center stage both clusters of arts and culture and concentrations of research and human capital development. Hence, the focus of this paper is to analyze the dual impacts of universities and arts districts on innovation and economic growth through employment in digital media. The results indicate that cultural districts have a consistently positive effect on local digital media economic activity—employment and innovation. The same cannot be said for research universities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Arts of the States in Crisis: Revisiting Determinants of State-Level Appropriations to Arts Agencies
    (Elsevier, 2015-04) Noonan, Douglas S.; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
    Clearly, much has happened to the state of public coffers and their ability to finance the arts in the past decade. This study extends Noonan (2007) into the next decade and the “Great Recession” that hit the U.S. (and world) economy–with state public finances severely exposed to the downward economic shock. The emphasis of the empirical analysis here is answering a twofold question: how well have past models predicted the past decade of funding patterns, and how have the funding determinants shifted in recent years. While the previous work found that some predictable patterns (e.g., there is much momentum in funding, demographics and partisan politics matter), there was insufficient evidence to back the claims that SAAs suffer disproportionately during times of fiscal stress. Further, political culture has changed substantially in the US in recent decades. From today's vantage, we can observe how well the older models predict the changes actually experienced. This comparison shows that the severe budget cuts experienced in the wake of the recession were to be expected, but there are some interesting shortcomings in the previous understanding, which points to a shift in the determinants of public arts funding in the U.S.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The arts, Bohemian scenes, and income
    (Taylor & Francis, 2019) Arikan, Yasemin; Nichols Clark, Terry; Noonan, Douglas S.; Tolley, George; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
    Where and how does arts activity drive neighbourhood revitalization? We explore the impact of arts establishments on income in US zip codes, nationally and across quantiles (from four to seven subgroups) of zip codes stratified by disadvantage (based on income and ethnicity/race). We focus on what is new here: how neighbourhood scenes or the mixes of amenities mediate relationships between the arts and income. One dramatic finding is that more bohemian/hip neighbourhoods tend to have less income, contradicting the accounts from Jane Jacobs, Richard Florida and others. Arts and bohemia generate opposing effects, which emerge if we study not a few cases like Greenwich Village, but use more careful measures and larger number of cases. Some arts factors that distinctly influence neighbourhood income include the number of arts establishments; type and range of arts establishments; levels of disadvantage in a neighbourhood; and specific pre­ and co­existing neighbourhood amenities. Rock, gospel and house music appeal to distinct audiences. Our discussion connects this vitalizing role for arts activity to broader community development dynamics. These overall results challenge the view that the arts simply follow, not drive, wealth, and suggest that arts-led strategies can foster neighbourhood revitalization across a variety of income, ethnic, and other contexts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Characteristics of Voluntary Behavior in the Neighborhood Commons: The Case of Dog Parks
    (Sage, 2016-08) Noonan, Douglas S.; Matisoff, Daniel C.; Hoelzel, Nathanael Z.; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
    The neighborhood commons, and dog parks in particular, provide a good laboratory to explore the drivers of voluntarism and trust, as well as the situational and demographic correlates that promote or inhibit voluntarism. This analysis connects a central theme of Ostrom’s work on institutions for overcoming social dilemmas to the literature on voluntary actions and the health of small communities. Survey results from more than 500 users of 14 dog parks in the Atlanta area are examined to understand how variation in park and user characteristics predict variation in individual contributions to the commons, including pro-social attitudes and behavior and dispute resolution behavior. Our analysis shows how institutions foster community commons, which are correlated with both voluntarism and the voluntary enforcement of norms on users. These results from a study in the field contribute to a growing literature that explores the circumstances for successful voluntary supply and maintenance of public goods.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    City Air and City Markets: Worker productivity gains across city sizes.
    (2013-04) Krupka, Douglas J.; Noonan, Douglas S.
    Higher nominal wages in urban areas are well-documented phenomena which imply higher productivity of urban workers. Yankow and Wheeler show that these gains come through a variety of sources including static agglomeration economies and dynamic learning and matching efficiencies in cities. Yet, earlier articles offer little evidence of how the effects of learning and matching on urban wage differentials vary by city size. This article allows for the relative importance of these productivity advantages to differ according to the size of the city and finds significant differences between small, medium, and large cities. We find that learning efficiencies are most important in medium-sized cities, while a mix of learning and matching efficiencies are important in the largest and smallest cities.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The closer the better? Examining support for a large urban redevelopment project in Atlanta
    (2017) Chiang Hsieh, Lin-Han; Noonan, Douglas S.
    The Atlanta BeltLine (BeltLine) is a large urban redevelopment project that is transforming 22 miles of historical railroad corridors into parks, trails, pedestrian-friendly transit, and affordable housing in the center of Atlanta, Georgia. This study examines how proximity to the BeltLine and other factors relate to public support for it, with data from a general public survey conducted in the summer of 2009. The result shows that support significantly declines as distance to the BeltLine increases. However, after controlling for expected use of the BeltLine parks and transit, the role of distance fades. Further, the results show that being a parent within the city limits is associated with the support for the BeltLine, which implies that the concern over tax increment financing (TIF) affecting future school quality hampers the support of the project. The findings point to individual tastes and family circumstances as driving support for the redevelopment project, rather than strictly property-specific attributes (as the homevoter hypothesis would predict). Another contribution of this study is to address the technical problem of missing precise spatial location values. Several imputation techniques are used to demonstrate the risks and remedies to missing spatial data.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Community-scale Flood Risk Management: Effects of a Voluntary National Program on Migration and Development
    (Elsevier, 2019-03) Noonan, Douglas S.; Sadiq, Abdul-Akeem; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Contingent Valuation and Cultural Resources: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Literature
    (2003-11) Noonan, Douglas S.
    Contingent valuation methodology (CVM) has been increasingly applied to cultural resources. CVM employs survey methods to gather stated preference information, which can be used to estimate economic values of various cultural resources and projects. Although popular in other fields, the application of CVM in the cultural arena is relatively recent. This article summarizes this growing body of empirical literature and its range of findings. A meta-analysis gives a statistical view of the “state of the art” of the literature. This preliminary analysis sheds light on the consistency and validity of the use of this method in cultural applications.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Convergence in Environmental Reporting: Assessing the Carbon Disclosure Project
    (2013-07) Matisoff, Daniel C.; Noonan, Douglas S.; O'Brien, John J.
    We perform content analysis on Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) responses from 2003 to 2010, focusing on the extent to which firms account for indirect emissions and have exhibited convergence in carbon reporting. We also examine standardization in reporting and the variation of reporting behavior across industry and country. We find that the CDP has produced a mixed record of improved transparency. In some areas, such as Scope 2 emissions, the CDP has demonstrated an increase in transparency in later years. However, the transparency and quality of direct emissions and Scope 3 emissions have not improved over time. Japanese and European Union firms have increased transparency, while American firms have decreased transparency. Energy-intensive industries have either increased transparency or remained the same, while less energy-intensive industries have become less transparent. We demonstrate some evidence of a learning effect among firms after participating in the CDP survey.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Criterion and predictive validity of revealed and stated preference data: the case of “Mountain Home Music” concert demand
    (Oviedo University Press, 2014) Whitehead, John C.; Noonan, Douglas S.; Marquardt, Elizabeth; School of Public and Environmental Affairs
    Despite a robust literature on nonmarket valuation of cultural assets, serious validity concerns remain. We address this by estimating a demand model for a regional concert series. We survey concertgoers during and then again after the concert season to gather ex ante and ex post stated and revealed preference data. Comparing ex ante stated preference data to ex post revealed preference data we find respondents overstate their concert attendance behavior. An ex ante revealed-stated preference demand model with a stated preference adjustment helps calibrate the results and avoid bias from using solely hypothetical, stated preference data. The results demonstrate how to improve predictive accuracy in contingent behavior models and improve our understanding of demand for live music performances.