Economy
Annual Hawaii Forecast with Global Outlook: After a Cloudy 2019, New Year Looks a Bit Brighter
Hawaii’s economy has entered a soft patch. Falling real visitor spending and a declining population have suppressed demand and halted growth in nonfarm payrolls. But the construction industry is holding up, and the number of visitor arrivals continues to grow. Following this year’s weakness, we expect some improvement in the external environment, which will help […]
Read MoreHawaii Construction Forecast: Planned Projects Support Healthy Construction Outlook
Hawaii construction activity continues at a healthy pace, with a modest pickup over the past year. New and pending projects, particularly high-rise residential building on Oahu, will sustain construction employment near its current level for the next several years. Planned large-scale public sector projects will provide additional support. The primary risk to this forecast is […]
Read MoreUHERO State Forecast Update: Already Weak, Hawaii’s Prospects Look Increasingly Dicey
Hawaii has been slowing for several years. That slowing has deepened in 2019 and extends to most corners of the economy. Two years of population decline have undercut demand in many sectors. Tourism, while still generating impressive visitor numbers, has seen spending slip, and many international markets have fallen back sharply. Add to that the […]
Read MoreUHERO’s Sumner La Croix on minimum wage panel
UHERO’s Sumner La Croix participated in a panel on minimum wage, living wage, and cost of living at the Maui Chamber of Commerce 2019 annual Board Installation Luncheon. La Croix, along with panelists Eugene Tian, state economist with the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, and Keli’i Akina, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii president and […]
Read MoreHawai‘i: Eight Hundred Years of Economic and Political Change
The King Kamehameha V Judiciary History Center is sponsoring a talk on Sumner La Croix’s book, Hawai‘i: Eight Hundred Years of Economic and Political Change. The talk will focus on the economics of Hawai‘i’s annexation by the United States. When: Wednesday, August 7, 5:30 pm Where: Ali‘iolani (the Judiciary building with the King Kamehameha statue […]
Read MoreDynamic Factor Models
Dynamic factor models are parsimonious representations of relationships among time series variables. With the surge in data availability, they have proven to be indispensable in macroeconomic forecasting. This chapter surveys the evolution of these models from their pre-big-data origins to the large-scale models of recent years. We review the associated estimation theory, forecasting approaches, and […]
Read MoreFour Alternative Models for Regulating an Investor Owned Utility of the Future
How do you coerce a monopoly to act as if it were operating in a ruthlessly competitive industry? This is the billion-dollar question of Public Utilities Commissions (PUCs). It’s a tricky thing to do with a mixed history of success. And it’s getting trickier, especially here in Hawaiʻi, where renewable energy and so-called “distributed resources” […]
Read MoreHow high is too high? What’s known and unknown about minimum wage increases
By Ashley Hirashima and Carl Bonham In 2014, while the legislature was debating Senate Bill 2609, which eventually raised Hawaii’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10, we wrote about the growing body of evidence that small minimum wage increases reduce poverty and have little or no adverse effects on employment levels. At the same time, […]
Read MoreRecovery of Lost Nexus Synergy via Payment for Environmental Services in Kumamoto, Japan
The objective of this study is to characterize and quantify the “trans-spatial nexus synergy” benefit of subsidized water ponding in the water-energy-food nexus in Kumamoto, Japan. After years of decreased rice production in upstream areas and associated declines in groundwater levels, the Kumamoto city government implemented a subsidy program whereby farmers in the Shira River […]
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