Benefits and Costs of the Kansas Comprehensive Highway Program
by David Burress and Patricia Oslund, Institute for Public Policy and Business Research, University of Kansas
At the request of the Kansas Department of Transportation, the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research prepared a benefit-cost analysis for the Kansas Comprehensive Highway Program (KCHP), comparing the consequences of the KCHP with what would have happened had the KCHP not been adopted. The main purpose of the report was to provide benefit-cost ratios (BCRs) for the program as a whole. BCRs measure the quality of a program. Conceptually, if and only if the BCR is greater than 1, then benefits exceed costs and the program has made Kansas as a whole better off.
The report focuses on effects of the program on Kansans only. The purpose of the report is to assist Kansans in making highway policy decisions; in particular, it helps them understand what policies would be in the best interests of Kansans. As in many conventional benefit-cost studies, the report focuses mainly on the aggregate income dimension of costs and benefits.
From the point of view of the Kansas economy, the most important single effect of the KCHP was to raise around $3.1 billion in state tax revenues and spend it on highway costs, and also leverage an additional $1.1 billion in federal highway funds into the state of Kansas, during the calendar years 1990-1996.
There were substantial user benefits from the KCHP. The travel time gains in particular have a very high dollar value. The KCHP also created substantially safer driving conditions; however, although there were fewer accidents, the accidents that did occur were more deadly.
After putting together all costs and benefits that were estimated using detailed modeling, we found an overall BCR of between 3 and 7, depending on the discount rate. However, the most likely value is around 4.
Year 2000 Readiness of Kansas Hospitals, Municipalities, Counties and School Districts
by Joseph A. Aistrup, John W. Durham
, and Tonja Vallin, Fort Hays State University
This study reports the findings from two surveys of Kansas hospitals, municipal and county
governments, and school districts concerning their preparedness for the Y2K problem.
The findings presented in this article suggest that Y2K preparedness is beginning to permeate
into all different types of local organizations. However, only 47 percent of organizations have
an emergency plan in the event of Y2K related failures. Perhaps even more disturbing is that of
those organizations that are uncertain of the possible impact of Y2K on critical services, 61
percent do not have an emergency plan. All this suggests that efforts on the part of all
concerned need to be intensified betwen now and the end of the year to ensure that these
organizations are prepared for the year 2000.
Determinants of Admission Rates for Avoidable Hospitalization Conditions in Kansas
by Donald Lien, and Jiwei Su, Department of Economics, University of Kansas
This note documents the effects of socio-economic factors and insurance status on the
admission rates for patients in Kansas who encountered avoidable hospitalization conditions (AHCs).
AHCs are medical conditions which, if not treated in a primary care setting promptly would lead
to hospitalization. We selected eight AHCs: epilepsy, hypertension, congestive heart failure,
pneumonia, asthma, urinary tract infection, diabetes, and gangrene. Major determinants are
patient characteristics, such as insurance status, income, race, and gender.
County Trade Pull Factors, FY 1998
by David Darling
and Sara Logan, Department of Agricultural Economics, Kansas State University
This report provides the retail market data on all 105 counties for FY 1998.
A County Trade Pull Factor (CTPF) is a measure of retail trade strength. The reader should
interpret at CTPF of 1.00 as a perfect capture of local trade by the county businesses that
collect sales tax on customer purchases. CTPF values greater than 1.00 indicate that local
businesses are capturing or pulling in trade from beyond their county borders; CTPF values of
less than 1.00 indicate that trade is leaking out of the county. A map and tables indicate the
CTPFs and Trade Area Capture for all the counties in Kansas.
In December, 1998, the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation published the Kansas
Innovation Index, 1999, a report card on the status of Kansas, which examined 33 indicators
in four broad categories: Economic Structure, Innovation, Competitiveness, and Human Resources
and Infrastructure. This article describes the Competitiveness category.