Hawaii Research Group
Current Hawaii Research Group Projects Hawaii Economy Forecasting Project. Carl Bonham and Byron Gangnes maintain a Bayesian Vector Autoregression (BVAR) model to forecast key macroeconomic indicators of Hawaii's economy. This ongoing project is assembling a more comprehensive data base for the model; updating the model's structure; and increasing the scope of its forecasts. Principal Investigator: Carl Bonham. Privatization in Hawaii Project. This project aims to (1) clarify the concept of privatization of state and municipal government services; (2) survey the growing international and national literature on privatization, including important trends, case studies, and contracting methods; (3) analyze the costs and benefits of privatization; (4) provide evidence concerning the effects of privatization and its impact on taxpayers, government workers, and private firms; (5) document the current status of privatization in Hawaii; address important Hawaii-specific factors influencing the feasibility of privatization in this state; and conduct four comparative studies of public services in Hawaii that could be candidates for privatization; and (6) present and evaluate different models for privatization of various types of government services. Principal Investigator: Sumner La Croix.