Unemployment rate, cost of gas predict fuel economy of purchased vehicles
Average fuel economy of purchased new vehicles has increased by more than 12 percent since late 2007, due mainly to high unemployment and gas prices, according to a U-M study.
The average fuel economy of purchased new light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, minivans and SUVs) improved from 20.1 mpg in October 2007 to 22.6 mpg in February 2011 — the highest it has ever been.
A new report by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle of the U-M Transportation Research Institute found that the national unemployment rate (currently just below 9 percent) and the price of gasoline (currently above $3.50 a gallon) together account for 83 percent of the variance in the average fuel economy of new cars purchased.
“Our present findings are consistent with those in our two previous studies on the relationship between the unemployment rate and the price of gasoline, and the average fuel economy of purchased new vehicles,” says Sivak, research professor and head of UMTRI’s Human Factors Group.
Sivak and Schoettle performed a regression analysis on monthly data from October 2007 to February 2011 to examine the relationship between the unemployment rate and the price of gasoline on one hand, and the fuel economy of purchased new vehicles on the other hand.
Average fuel economy improved rapidly from 20.1 mpg in October 2007 to 21.7 mpg by May 2008, but dropped to 20.7 mpg by November 2008. It then improved gradually through August 2009, but leveled off thereafter through the end of 2010.
Meanwhile, the price of gasoline peaked at around $4 in summer 2008, while the unemployment rate peaked at about 10 percent in fall 2009.
“Overall, our results provide support for the hypothesis that decisions of U.S. buyers concerning the fuel economy of purchased new vehicles are strongly influenced by both the unemployment rate and the price of gasoline,” Sivak says.
— Bernie DeGroat, News Service
Study illuminates the ‘pain’ of social rejection
Physical pain and intense feelings of social rejection “hurt” in the same way, a new study shows.
The study demonstrates that the same regions of the brain that become active in response to painful sensory experiences are activated during intense experiences of social rejection.
“These results give new meaning to the idea that social rejection ‘hurts,’” says U-M social psychologist Ethan Kross, lead author of the article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “On the surface, spilling a hot cup of coffee on yourself and thinking about how rejected you feel when you look at the picture of a person that you recently experienced an unwanted break-up with may seem to elicit very different types of pain.
“But this research shows that they may be even more similar than initially thought.”
Kross, an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology and faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research, conducted the study with U-M colleague Marc Berman, Columbia University’s Walter Mischel and Edward Smith, also affiliated with the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and with Tor Wager of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
While earlier research has shown that the same brain regions support the emotionally distressing feelings that accompany the experience of both physical pain and social rejection, the current study is the first known to establish that there is neural overlap between both of these experiences in brain regions that become active when people experience painful sensations in their body.
The team that performed the research hopes that the findings will offer new insight into how the experience of intense social loss may lead to various physical pain symptoms and disorders.
— Diane Swanbrow, News Service
Some women worry too much about breast cancer returning, study finds
Most women face only a small risk of breast cancer coming back after they complete their treatment. Yet a new study from the Comprehensive Cancer Center finds that nearly half of Latinas who speak little English expressed a great deal of worry about recurrence.
“Some worry about cancer recurrence is understandable. But for some women, these worries can be so strong that they impact their treatment decisions, symptom reporting and screening behaviors, and overall quality of life,” says study author Nancy Janz, professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health.
The researchers found substantial variation based on racial or ethnic background, with Latinas who speak primarily Spanish expressing the most worry and African-Americans expressing the least worry. For Latinas, the researchers considered acculturation, a measure of how much a person is integrated into American society; a significant factor is whether they speak primarily English or Spanish.
While 46 percent of Latinas who spoke primarily Spanish reported they worry “very much” about recurrence, that number drops to 25 percent for Latinas who speak primarily English, 14 percent for white women and 13 percent for African Americans.
On the other hand, about 29 percent of African-American women said they were not at all worried about recurrence, while only 10 percent of Latinas who spoke little English did.
Results of the study appear in the April 1 issue of Cancer.
In addition, researchers found that women who reported understanding information better, receiving more help with their symptoms and receiving more coordinated care were less likely to worry about recurrence.
Additional U-M authors are Dr. Sarah Hawley, Dr. Jennifer Griggs, Dr. Amy Alderman, Dr. Reshma Jagsi and Dr. Steven Katz.
— Nicole Fawcett, Comprehensive Cancer Center
Report: Government units continue, expand collaboration efforts
A new U-M survey found that most communities statewide already are working together to increase efficiency and decrease costs.
This cooperation is a process through which two or more units of government work together to provide services jointly, such as joint police or fire services, or sharing employees with specialized technical expertise who can serve multiple jurisdictions.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is encouraging local governments to do more work collaboratively, and just announced plans to use revenue sharing incentives.
The newly released findings appear in a report by the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), which is in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
“Overall, the Michigan local government environment appears to offer a large and active marketplace for cooperative endeavors, with many opportunities for expansion,” says Brian Jacob, director of CLOSUP.
Nearly three in four (72 percent) of the state’s local jurisdictions reported they are currently involved in collaboration. Many describe these efforts as “very successful” (49 percent) or “somewhat successful” (32 percent). Fourteen percent report mixed success and failure, and only 2 percent say their efforts have been generally unsuccessful.
Many local leaders (44 percent overall) think that their jurisdiction’s current collaboration efforts are “not enough,” including 85 percent of leaders from the state’s largest jurisdictions (those with more than 30,000 residents).
The report also indicates that many collaborations occur already without additional mandates from Lansing or incentives designed to expand the partnerships, and that many local governments already are looking to expand these efforts.
Meanwhile, in terms of possible state incentives, 50 percent of local leaders believe revenue sharing incentives would be effective, while 69 percent say grants to offset higher costs that are often found in the first few years of new collaborative efforts would be effective at encouraging more cooperation, the survey states.
— Jared Wadley, News Service
Personal income up, but are we better off?
Although U.S. personal income per capita has risen 5.7 percent since 2000, an increase in tax-exempt benefits provided by the government and employers accounted for all of the income growth in the past decade, a U-M economist says.
Thanks to these nontaxable transfer payments, which include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance, unemployment, welfare and disability benefits, inflation-adjusted personal income per capita rose nearly $2,200 since 2000, despite America’s worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
But when growth in transfer payments and employer-paid benefits are excluded, U.S. taxable income per capita actually decreased 3.4 percent from $32,403 to $31,303, says economist Don Grimes of the Institute for Research on Labor, Economics and the Economy.
“(Recently), the Bureau of Economic Analysis released preliminary personal income statistics for all states and the data shows that personal income per capita in the United States increased,” Grimes says. “But, why don’t we feel better off? Because the personal income per capita data includes ‘spending’ that we don’t recognize as contributing to our economic well-being.”
Grimes analyzed personal income statistics — both taxable and nontaxable — in the United States going back each decade to 1929.
The disparity between the growth in taxable and nontaxable income since 2000 is not new, although it was undoubtedly exacerbated by the recession, Grimes says.
Grimes says the good news is that the current economic recovery will help correct this imbalance as it will increase private wages and salaries, proprietors’ income and capital income per capita, the ultimate source of all other income.
— Bernie DeGroat, News Service
