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Papers by Patrick McCarthy

Policy Studies Journal, 1993

The role of road pricing in travel demand management and congestion mitigation has been gaining s... more The role of road pricing in travel demand management and congestion mitigation has been gaining support in many countries. Although the theory of congestion pricing is persuasive and straightforward, successful application of road pricing mandates that congestion externalities be estimated. Using data from a recent traffic survey in Singapore, this paper estimates congestion prices for alternative time values and vehicle types. These estimates are compared with the existing cost of area licenses, from which implications for economic efficiency and resource allocation are drawn.

Economics Letters, 1994

Focusing upon higher speed limit effects, California accident data are used to estimate monthly t... more Focusing upon higher speed limit effects, California accident data are used to estimate monthly time series and panel data models of highway safety. Although no model finds system-wide effects, the panel data results identify significant redistributive effects not strongly evident in the time series models. Attempts to account for the differences were only partially successful.

Empirical Economics, 2012

This paper examines North American pulp and paper company bankruptcies that occurred between 1990... more This paper examines North American pulp and paper company bankruptcies that occurred between 1990 and 2009. We demonstrate that shareholders suffer substantial losses (37%) during the month a bankruptcy occurs. Encouragingly, we show that financial ratios are useful in predicting firm failure and that failed firms are less profitable, more liquidity constrained and higher in debt leverage. Using a binary logit model in the spirit of Ohlson (1980), we predict financial distress for pulp and paper firms one to two years ahead of the bankruptcy. We also adapt and re-estimate the empirical model on a sample of pulp and paper firms and perform insample and out-of-sample forecasts. For the out-of-sample analysis, our re-estimated Ohlson models correctly predict 93% of bankruptcy and non-bankruptcy outcomes.

China Economic Review, 2006

The economic transition in China poses new questions in studying product demand. In this study, w... more The economic transition in China poses new questions in studying product demand. In this study, we investigate the demand pattern and structural changes during the economic transformation using annual data from the paper and paperboard industry in China. Instrumental variable estimations as well as cointegration analysis and error-correction models are applied to the analysis. Our results show that in the early stages of economic reform, the income elasticity of demand for domestically made paper and paperboard products is about 1; and the own-price elasticity and the cross price elasticity with respect to world market price are both statistically insignificant. After 1992, the own and cross price elasticity increases, respectively, to-0.69 (in absolute value) and .59. With respect to import demands, the estimated income elasticity is not statistically different from 1.0 and the cross-price elasticity with respect to the domestic price is statistically insignificant; the own-price elasticity, on the other hand, increases from-0.60 to-0.50 before and after 1992, respectively. The results indicate that imports are substitutes for domestically made paper and paperboard products, but the reverse is not true, and there was a considerable structural change in the demand during the course of China's economic transition.

This paper employs a unique panel data of 112 small non-metropolitan incorporated cities in Calif... more This paper employs a unique panel data of 112 small non-metropolitan incorporated cities in California during a 108 month period from January 1981 through December 1989 in order to analyze the effect of alcohol availability on highway safety. Negative binomial regression models are estimated and, consistent with expections, the number of alcohol licenses per square mile is important to highway safety. However, a significant finding of the analysis is that the sign of the effect depends upon the type of alcohol license. Increases in the density of off-site consumption licenses and on-site consumption beer/wine licenses are beneficial to highway safety whereas increasing the density of on-site consumption general alcohol licenses is detrimental. Additional findings important to municipal policy makers are that DUI arrests enhance but banning the common site sale of gasoline and alcohol in small non-metropolitan cities is detrimental to highway safety.

Department of Economics and Marketing Discussion Paper No.22 A Nested Logit Model of Vehicle Fuel... more Department of Economics and Marketing Discussion Paper No.22 A Nested Logit Model of Vehicle Fuel Efficiency and Make-Model Choice Patrick S McCarthy Richard S Tay September 1996 Department of Economics and Marketing PO Box 84 Lincoln University ...

The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, 1993

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 1998

Efecto del rendimiento del combustible en la decisión de compra de vehículo Fuel efficiency effec... more Efecto del rendimiento del combustible en la decisión de compra de vehículo Fuel efficiency effect on car buying choice Efeito do rendimento do combustível na decisão de compra de veículo

The increasing proportion of older persons in the population has significant implications for mob... more The increasing proportion of older persons in the population has significant implications for mobility in the US and the safety performance of the US highway system. Health problems, loss of dexterity, medication, and slower reaction times are among the factors that affect older-driver-involved highway safety. Based upon time-series data from January 1981 through December 1998 for California, this study estimates

Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 2002

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1994

Transport Reviews, 2001

ABSTRACT This paper examines recent work on the effect of motor vehicle speed limits on highway s... more ABSTRACT This paper examines recent work on the effect of motor vehicle speed limits on highway speeds and highway safety. The review is empirical and concentrates on identifying the quantitative effects that changes in regulatory speed limit policies on interstate and non-interstate roads have on the distribution of speeds and traffic safety. Among the findings, small speed limit changes on non-limited-access roads will have little effect on speed distribution and highway safety unless complemented with speed-reducing actions. Also, the 10 mph increase in rural interstate speed limits increased nationwide mean speed and speed variance by < 4 and 1 mph respectively. Further, notwithstanding higher rural interstate speed limits leading to speed adaptation on non-affected roads, the evidence is consistent with a zero system-wide effect. Implications for further research relate to the importance of controlling for confounding factors, aggregation, the use of alternative methodologies, and the importance of enforcement in affecting speed distributions and highway safety.

Journal of Health Economics, 1993

Applied Economics, 2011

The United States paper and paperboard industry has experienced significant structural changes ov... more The United States paper and paperboard industry has experienced significant structural changes over the past twenty-five years, including reductions in the number of mills, lower rates of capacity growth, employment cutbacks, and a loss of market share to foreign competitors. These structural shifts portray an industry that increasingly has difficulty adapting to a more competitive global environment. Based on aggregate data from 1965-1996, this paper estimates a short run translog cost function for the industry. The estimated model fits the data well and all sample points satisfy monotonicity and concavity conditions at all points. Among the findings, the industry operates at slightly increasing returns to capital utilization and labor and energy are Allen-Uzawa complements but Morishima substitutes in production. Technological progress generated 0.02% reduction in annual operating costs and consistent with an ailing U.S. industry, estimated marginal costs approximated average operating costs until 1982 after which marginal costs significantly diverged from average operating costs.

Applied Economics, 2001

This study investigates whether recreational boating safety investments and behaviours of current... more This study investigates whether recreational boating safety investments and behaviours of current interest are determinants of boating injury severity, and if so, their effects. An ordered probit analysis of 1989-1993 boating accidents suggests that human capital investments in safety, in the form of operator boating experience and formal instruction, reduce both operator and passenger injury severity. Higher levels of operator

The Annals of Regional Science, 2005

Journal of Urban Economics, 1994

Journal of Regulatory Economics, 1991

ABSTRACT The relationship between deregulation in the trucking industry and highway safety is an ... more ABSTRACT The relationship between deregulation in the trucking industry and highway safety is an important economic and social issue. Analyses thus far have concentrated on the relationship between the downward pressure imposed on freight rates by deregulation and total safety investment by firms. Two issues which have been ignored are the effects that deregulation had on route carriage restrictions and total firm mileage. The authors show that the inclusion of these factors yields a model in which the relationship between motor carrier deregulation and highway safety is dependent upon the relative effects of all three factors. Estimation of the model using accident data implies that trucking deregulation did not deteriorate highway safety and may have actually improved it. Copyright 1991 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Journal of forest economics, 2010

The pulp and paper industry has experienced dramatic changes during the past several decades with... more The pulp and paper industry has experienced dramatic changes during the past several decades with large variations in world regional market shares of production capacity and consumption patterns. Based on panel data available (1961-2000) from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, this paper estimates dynamic demand models for pulp and paper products in four major trading regions: Asia, Europe, the North American Free Trade Agreement Area, and South America. With or without price in the model, short-run demands are generally output inelastic. However, without price in the model, long-run output elasticities were more elastic, particularly in the Paper/ Paperboard, Printing/Writing, and Household/Sanitary sectors with most elasticities greater than 1. With price included in the model, long-run demands were generally output inelastic, with primary exceptions being the Paper/Paperboard sector for all but the NAFTA region and Wrapping/Packaging for Asia and South America. Price was generally significant with long-run elasticities, in absolute value, in the (0.05, 0.11) range. And as a measure of urbanization, the percent of the population living in urban areas significantly affects consumption in total and in the Pulp and Printing/Writing sectors.