Land prices and railroad building in European Russia, 1860s to the early 1900s

This paper shows that railroad building in Russia, as in Europe and the US in the nineteenth century, improved the value of land, a classic benefit of transportation investment in largely agrarian countries. From a database constructed for this paper, we use cross-sectional data for the fifty European Russian regions to show the association of the length of the railroad (measured in 1894), land prices (measured in 1900) and annual growth of land prices (in rubles) for 1885–1910.

Sustainability Assessment of Aviation Fuel Blends

Stakeholders in the aviation industry committed to a goal of 50% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2050, to be achieved by reducing emissions 1.5% each year from 2020 onwards. There are multiple pathways to achieve this goal however; with, the most promising technology being Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), which are biofuels blended with kerosene. As the industry shifts towards SAF, it is important to evaluate these fuels in terms of their long-term sustainability, and this is the objective of the current study. Sixteen types of fuels were assessed which include fossil, natural gas, electric, and SAF. A Multi Criterion Decision Making methodology was adopted which considers three categories, namely environmental, economic, and social aspects which in turn are broken up into 8 indicators in all (such as ecological footprints, cost of transportation, investment cost, operating costs, employment generation, and health & safety). A Monte Carlo analysis was also performed to analyze sensitivity of the results to the weights attributed to the three categories. The most sustainable fuel was found to be Hydrogen, with a score of 0.91 out of 1.0. The least sustainable were determined to be the military kerosene-based fuels (with the experimental fuel JP-8 + 100LT being the poorest with a normalized score of 0.50).

US COVID-19 local budget squeeze will intensify

Significance States' revenues have fallen sharply while mandatory spending has surged; one projection sees their combined budgetary shortfall amounting to USD615bn over the next three years. As they lack the federal government's ability to print money, states will be obliged to lay off workers in droves unless Congress provides aid. Impacts As eviction moratoriums end, homelessness could rise, with cascading economic consequences and greater costs to states. Measures to ensure schools can open safely will need additional funding for school districts. New local initiatives, such as transportation investment, risk being delayed. Congress Democrats will push for more widespread state funding, but Republicans will only agree to targeted measures.