Essential Air Service is a federal government program that provides subsidies to airlines that provide commercial service between certain remote communities and larger hubs, which proponents argue are justified because driving to larger airports would be prohibitively expensive for residents of these communities. I estimate the value of Essential Air Service to local communities using a revealed-preferences approach by formulating and estimating a discrete-choice model of domestic air travel… Read More

This Small Starts study offers sustainable road building materials for rural infrastructure, from an unlikely source. Approximately 7,000 years ago, the eruption of Oregon's Mt. Mazama blanketed the Klamath Basin region with a thick layer of volcanic ash. Matthew Sleep, an associate professor of civil engineering at Oregon Tech, investigated the use of this ash as a natural pozzolan for soil stabilization and unpaved roadway improvement. He found that the ash, prevalent in Southern Oregon, has… Read More