Militarization, slow violence, and the emerging threat of condemnation in Hawai‘i

This article examines the environmental impacts of the US military presence in Hawaii, looking specifically at the federal government’s power to condemn land for a ‘public purpose’ under the US Constitution. In 2018, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the State of Hawaii failed its duty to properly manage 23,000 acres of lands leased to the military at Pōhakuloa and must take an active role in preserving trust property. With the expiration of this lease (and several others) approaching in 2029, controversy is stirring as to whether the military will simply condemn these lands if the cost of clean-up is greater than the land’s fair-market value at the expiration of the lease. In other words, as long as it remains cheaper for the military to pollute and condemn than it is for it to restore, what options do we have for legal and political recourse? Considering grassroots movements’ strategic use of media and legal action through an environmental justice lens, this article provides a starting point to consider avenues for ensuring proper clean-up of these lands, and ultimately, negotiating for their return to Kānaka Maoli.

CHANGES IN REAL ESTATE VALUE DYNAMICS DURING SERVICE CYCLES AS A SOURCE OF NEGATIVE PERIODIC PROPERTY DEPRECIATION

Main methodological principles of mathematically describing the patterns of changes in the asset’s value/depreciation dynamics are studied in cases when economic measurements are performed by independent expert evaluation. The basic hypothesis suggests that for all tangible assets, which are characterized by redeemable depreciation, there is a possibility of negative periodic depreciation during short-term service periods when remedial and repair work to eliminate depreciation signs is carried out. The most influential price-forming factors that determine the asset’s depreciation indexes and indicators of value dynamics over long periods are identified and analysed. It is shown that when this period is comparable to the asset’s service life, most of tangible assets are characterized by both positive and negative periodic depreciation indexes at separate times. It is noted that the models used in accounting documents do not describe the actual changes in the value dynamics, and amortization in particular, since they do not take into account the possibility of increasing asset value and periodic negative depreciation. A new kind of mathematical model is proposed that takes into account the opposite signs of periodic depreciation in the operation and service periods. It is proved that the actual indicators of fair market value and periodic depreciation indexes of these types of assets can be determined by performing periodic independent expert evaluation (revaluation).

Legal nature of the ivsc international standards

The article is focused on legal nature of International Valuation Standards Committee (renamed to International Valuation Standards Council in 2008) and implementation of its valuation standards by states and international organizations. The paper concentrates on legal gaps regarding the application aspects of property value calculations in international law. Treaties do not provide substantial determinacy, include no instruction or the appropriate methodology on numerous calculation issues and typically set forth only basic standard of valuation such as standard of fair market value of property for the calculation of compensation. It shows that lack of standards for determining awards of compensation creates a source of uncertainty for protection in international public law. The issue discusses a framework where international valuation standards of international non-governmental organizations are given legal weight and serve as guidelines for the calculation of awards. After establishing the legal basis for an award, tribunals use their impression of valuation best practices as well as discretion to conduct the analysis. The result depends on the assumptions and philosophy of the adjudicating tribunal. It is emphasized that international arbitration practice in measures of compensation should be based on principles of fairness and reasonableness. Part of the issue is based on Directive of European Union with provisions that valuation standards of states should take into account internationally recognised valuation standards, in particular those developed by the International Valuation Standards Committee, the European Group of Valuers’ Associations or the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Member states of European Union admitted valuation standards of international non-governmental organizations as reliable standards for the credit purposes after the financial crisis, which has shown that irresponsible behaviour by market participants can undermine the foundations of the financial system leading to potentially severe social and economic consequences.

Estimating Fair Market Value of Petroleum Assets in Nigeria: A Risk-Based Approach

Many independent Nigerian oil & gas companies have emerged over the last decade out ofthe divestments of ageing petroleum assets by multinational oil companies. Thesetransactions are marked by pervasive cases of overvaluation and huge gap in offers that leadto unnecessarily high acquisition costs. Petroleum analysts around the world adopt the Discounted Cashflow Analysis method forestimating present value of future oil production revenues. Unfortunately, project economicsusing conventional analysis does not de-risk the reserves components appropriately oraccount for the excess and political risk premiums. Even when analysts derive the NetPresent Value from conventional evaluation, say at discount rates of say 10% or 15%, theyface the dilemma of extracting offer price from that figure. Some post a conservative offerbased on 50% NPV, while others throw in all the NPV in a scheme to win the bid at all cost. Some also start by guesstimating value by rule of thumb and then offer the NPV that is leftbehind. The decision to offer a given percentage of the NPV is entirely subjective and variesamongst investors and as such does not depict a logical perception of market value, or therisks thereof. Furthermore, by omitting political risk, buyers are invariably ignoring the mostcrucial risk of all. The adoption of different bases of reserves tend to compound the problemby yielding NPVs that are few and far between each other. They are usually based on un-risked ‘proved plus probable’ (2P) reserves, which is highly speculative and unrealistic forvaluation. For the first time, the concerns of high purchase price and offer gaps were debuggedleveraging the new Risk-Based Valuation approach which is based on a modified Discounted Cashflow model. A research deeply investigates the problems first by reconstructing originaltransaction to identify the root causes. Furthermore, the study concludes that buyers arepaying on average 4 times the value and that regulating reserves base is fundamental inorder to minimize offer gaps that sometimes tend to a billion dollars for large deals. Thus, the Risk-Based Discounted Cashflow Analysis technique can help prevent overpricing orunderpricing of Nigerian assets, minimize offer gaps in the market as well as account for theimpact of political risks (or its mitigation) in valuation.

Making the Trade in the National Basketball Association (NBA): A Research Case Exploring Like-Kind Exchange Treatment Post Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

The primary aim of this activity is to explore tax issues related to an exchange of non-financial assets. Students are presented with a case that involves a fictional trade of players between two teams in the National Basketball Association, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Washington Wizards. Using a trade date of January 1, 2018, students are presented with the opportunity to explore the treatment of a non-financial asset like-kind exchange post Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. In addition, students are challenged to determine the definition of fair market value and how its calculation could have a substantial impact on the finances of a professional basketball team. Data gathered from pre and post-questionnaires, including both objective measures and student experiential feedback, supports the usage of this activity. Results show that this case increased students' ability to understand and summarize relevant information from a complex set of facts while also growing their tax knowledge and tax research skills.

High-resolution land value maps reveal underestimation of conservation costs in the United States

The justification and targeting of conservation policy rests on reliable measures of public and private benefits from competing land uses. Advances in Earth system observation and modeling permit the mapping of public ecosystem services at unprecedented scales and resolutions, prompting new proposals for land protection policies and priorities. Data on private benefits from land use are not available at similar scales and resolutions, resulting in a data mismatch with unknown consequences. Here I show that private benefits from land can be quantified at large scales and high resolutions, and that doing so can have important implications for conservation policy models. I developed high-resolution estimates of fair market value of private lands in the contiguous United States by training tree-based ensemble models on 6 million land sales. The resulting estimates predict conservation cost with up to 8.5 times greater accuracy than earlier proxies. Studies using coarser cost proxies underestimate conservation costs, especially at the expensive tail of the distribution. This has led to underestimations of policy budgets by factors of up to 37.5 in recent work. More accurate cost accounting will help policy makers acknowledge the full magnitude of contemporary conservation challenges and can help improve the targeting of public ecosystem service investments.

CHANGES IN REAL ESTATE VALUE DYNAMICS DURING SERVICE CYCLES AS A SOURCE OF NEGATIVE PERIODIC PROPERTY DEPRECIATION

Main methodological principles of mathematically describing the patterns of changes in the asset’s value/depreciation dynamics are studied in cases when economic measurements are performed by independent expert evaluation. The basic hypothesis suggests that for all tangible assets, which are characterized by redeemable depreciation, there is a possibility of negative periodic depreciation during short-term service periods when remedial and repair work to eliminate depreciation signs is carried out. The most influential price-forming factors that determine the asset’s depreciation indexes and indicators of value dynamics over long periods are identified and analysed. It is shown that when this period is comparable to the asset’s service life, most of tangible assets are characterized by both positive and negative periodic depreciation indexes at separate times. It is noted that the models used in accounting documents do not describe the actual changes in the value dynamics, and amortization in particular, since they do not take into account the possibility of increasing asset value and periodic negative depreciation. A new kind of mathematical model is proposed that takes into account the opposite signs of periodic depreciation in the operation and service periods. It is proved that the actual indicators of fair market value and periodic depreciation indexes of these types of assets can be determined by performing periodic independent expert evaluation (revaluation).