Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Economics

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 30 of 154

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Social Hierarchies And Public Distribution Of Food In Rural India, Deepankar Basu, Debarshi Das Sep 2015

Social Hierarchies And Public Distribution Of Food In Rural India, Deepankar Basu, Debarshi Das

Deepankar Basu

In this paper, we develop a simple model that shows that consumption of PDS food grains is significantly different between rich and poor households in states where the PDS functions relatively well; in places where the PDS is non-functional, the difference is not significant. Using household-level data from three recent thick rounds of the consumption expenditure survey (2004-2005, 2009-2010 and 2011-2012), we find evidence in support of the predictions from the model. This suggests that one way to make the PDS functional is to make it more accessible to poor and underprivileged households.


Non-Food Expenditures And Consumption Inequality In India, Amit Basole, Deepankar Basu Sep 2015

Non-Food Expenditures And Consumption Inequality In India, Amit Basole, Deepankar Basu

Deepankar Basu

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate about economic inequality in India during the post-reform period. We analyze consumption inequality through the hitherto neglected lens of nonfood expenditure. Using household level consumption expenditure data from the quinquennial “thick” rounds of the NSS, we show that inequality within food and non-food groups has declined, even as overall expenditure inequality has increased over time. We suggest that the rise in overall expenditure inequality is due to the increased weight in the household budget of non-food spending, which tends to be more unequal than food spending. We also show that inequality is very …


American Inequality, A Prose/Poem 3/2/2014, Charles Smith Mar 2014

American Inequality, A Prose/Poem 3/2/2014, Charles Smith

Charles Kay Smith

Science has made possible an increased productivity that creates an economic surplus--science continually teaches us how to do more with less resources. Why should the fruits of science be enjoyed only by the rich, since most of the innovations of science and technology have been funded or subsidized by citizen taxes. If the added productivity of science were shared among all citizens instead of only the 1%, poverty and homelessness could be ended.


Impact Of Sectoral Allocation Of Foreign Aid On Gender Equity And Human Development, Léonce Ndikumana Jul 2013

Impact Of Sectoral Allocation Of Foreign Aid On Gender Equity And Human Development, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

While developing countries have made some progress in achieving human development since the turn of the century, many are still lagging behind in important human development goals such as education, health, nutrition and access to clean drinking water and improved sanitation. Moreover, gender equity remains a major challenge in most countries. In this paper, we examine the role that foreign aid plays in generating these outcomes, using panel data from OECD-DAC on the sectoral allocation of development aid, in conjunction with country-level data on public expenditures, human development outcomes and other economic, social and political indicators. Specifically, the paper attempts …


Overcoming Low Political Equilibrium In Africa: Institutional Changes For Inclusive Development, Léonce Ndikumana Jun 2013

Overcoming Low Political Equilibrium In Africa: Institutional Changes For Inclusive Development, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

This paper examines the role that institutions have played in the performance of African economies over the past decades. It discusses the institutional changes needed to enable African countries to reach inclusive development in the near future. The paper starts from the premise that growth and development are the outcomes of policy choices, which in turn are the outcome of a complex process of political negotiation among various stakeholders – both domestic and foreign – who have interests that may be divergent. In other words, policy choices and the resulting development outcomes constitute a political equilibrium. It is therefore important …


The Private Sector As Culprit And Victim Of Corruption In Africa, Léonce Ndikumana Jun 2013

The Private Sector As Culprit And Victim Of Corruption In Africa, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

Corruption causes severe waste and misallocation of financial, human, and natural resources, thus retarding growth and social development. It suffocates private sector activity and entrepreneurship, perpetuating the dominance of an inefficient public sector, and undermining economic diversification and structural transformation. While traditionally corruption has been seen as a public sector phenomenon, private sector corruption deserves as much attention as public sector corruption due to its equally debilitating effects on economic activity. In fact private sector operators can be both culprits and victims of corruption. This paper examines the symptoms and impacts of private sector corruption in Africa, from the perspective …


Power, Luck And Ideology In A Model Of Executive, Peter Skott Jan 2013

Power, Luck And Ideology In A Model Of Executive, Peter Skott

Peter Skott

The microprocessor and related technologies have transformed corporate and industry structure; applied in a neo‐liberal environment, the technologies have had profound effects on the relative power of different groups. Skott and Guy (2007) and Guy and Skott (2008) formalized one aspect of this process of power‐biased technical change: firms' increased ability to monitor low‐paid employees and the resulting changes in inequality and employment at the low end of the income distribution. This paper addresses power biases and income inequality at the high end. Increasing firm‐level financial volatility has intensified the agency problem and increased the power of corporate executives. These …


Capital Flight From Sub-Saharan African Countries: Updated Estimates, 1970 - 2010, James K. Boyce, Léonce Ndikumana Oct 2012

Capital Flight From Sub-Saharan African Countries: Updated Estimates, 1970 - 2010, James K. Boyce, Léonce Ndikumana

James K. Boyce

The performance of Sub-Saharan African economies over the past decade has inspired optimism on the region’s prospects. But the region still faces major development challenges, and it is now clear that the majority of its countries will not achieve key millennium development goals.

A key constraint to SSA’s growth and development is the shortage of financing. At the same time, the sub-region is a source of large-scale capital flight, which escalated during last decade even as the region experienced growth acceleration. The group of 33 SSA countries covered by this report has lost a total of $814 billion dollars from …


Comment On Khan, Li And Weisbrot (Thomas Weisskopf Festschrift Conference Paper), James K. Boyce Oct 2012

Comment On Khan, Li And Weisbrot (Thomas Weisskopf Festschrift Conference Paper), James K. Boyce

James K. Boyce

Boyce comments on Shahrukh Khan's " The Military and Economic Development in Pakistan, Minqi Li's "Socialism: The 20th Century and the 21st Century" and Mark Weisbrot's "Economic Growth: The Great Slowdown (1980-2000) and Recovery (2000-2010)." He adds his own thoughts on the theme running through these papers: the need to take the role of the state, both in terms of state control over the means of production and resource allocation, but also about the core issue of control over the state itself. This means engaging, as Khan, Li and Weisbrot do, with the historic struggle to build and sustain real …


Capital Flight From North African Countries, Léonce Ndikumana, James K. Boyce Oct 2012

Capital Flight From North African Countries, Léonce Ndikumana, James K. Boyce

James K. Boyce

Ndikumana and Boyce demonstrate that, while the countries of North Africa have achieved high levels of development relative to their sister nations south of the Sahara, they too have suffered from financial hemorrhages through capital flight. The burden on their economies is substantial in terms of lost investment and foregone government revenue, with adverse effects on economic growth and social service delivery. The authors provide estimates of the total amount of capital flight from four North African countries: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, from 1970 to 2010.


Cooling The Planet, Clearing The Air: Climate Policy, Carbon Pricing, And Co-Benefits, James K. Boyce, Manuel Pastor Sep 2012

Cooling The Planet, Clearing The Air: Climate Policy, Carbon Pricing, And Co-Benefits, James K. Boyce, Manuel Pastor

James K. Boyce

Policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can yield substantial co-benefits via reduced emissions of co-pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and air toxics. Valuation studies suggest that these benefits may be comparable in magnitude to the value of reduced carbon emissions. However, co-pollutant intensity (the ratio of co-benefits to carbon dioxide emissions) varies across pollution sources, and so efficient policy design would seek greater emissions reductions where co-benefits are higher. Moreover, because co-pollutant impacts are localized, the distribution of co-benefits raises important issues of equity, particularly with regard to the unintentional income, racial, and geographic disparities that might result …


Border Wars: Tax Revenues, Annexation, And Urban Growth In Phoenix, Carol E. Heim Jul 2012

Border Wars: Tax Revenues, Annexation, And Urban Growth In Phoenix, Carol E. Heim

Carol E Heim

Phoenix and neighboring municipalities, like many in the South and West, pursued a growth strategy based on annexation in the decades after World War II. This paper explores the link between annexation and competition for tax revenues. After discussing arguments for annexation, it traces the history of annexation in the Phoenix metropolitan area. A long-running series of "border wars" entailed litigation, pre-emptive annexations, and considerable intergovernmental conflict. The paper argues that tax revenues have been a key motivation for annexation, particularly since the 1970s. It then considers several related policy issues and argues that while opportunities for annexation are becoming …


Reform And Political Impunity In Kenya: Transparency Without Accountability, Mwangi Githinji, Frank Holmquist Apr 2012

Reform And Political Impunity In Kenya: Transparency Without Accountability, Mwangi Githinji, Frank Holmquist

Mwangi Wa Githinji

Kenya has been going through a period of political reform since 1991, when section 2A of the constitution, which had made Kenya a de jure one-party state, was repealed. This reform followed a prolonged struggle on the part of citizens both inside and outside the country, and their call for democracy was one that, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was embraced by Western countries. Via diplomatic pressure and conditionality on aid, Western donors played an important role in the repeal of section 2A, the return of multiparty elections, and the creation and reform of a number of political …


Real Exchange Rates And The Long‐Run Effects Of Aggregate Demand In Economies With Underemployment, Peter Skott, Martin Rapetti, Arslan Razmi Apr 2012

Real Exchange Rates And The Long‐Run Effects Of Aggregate Demand In Economies With Underemployment, Peter Skott, Martin Rapetti, Arslan Razmi

Peter Skott

Successful economic development to a large extent derives from the mobilization of underemployed resources. Demand policy can play an important role. It is critical, however, to consider balance of payments constraints and to ensure an expansion of investment in the modern sector. A combination of investment promotion and exchange rate intervention may be required to achieve these goals.


Pluralism, The Lucas Critique, And The Integration Of Macro And Micro, Peter Skott Mar 2012

Pluralism, The Lucas Critique, And The Integration Of Macro And Micro, Peter Skott

Peter Skott

Mainstream macroeconomics has pursued micro founded models based on the explicit optimization by representative agents. The result has been a long and wasteful detour. But elements of the Lucas critique are rele- vant, also for heterodox economists.


Applying Evaluation To Development And Aid: Can Evaluation Bridge The Micro-Macro Gaps In Aid Effectiveness?, Léonce Ndikumana Jan 2012

Applying Evaluation To Development And Aid: Can Evaluation Bridge The Micro-Macro Gaps In Aid Effectiveness?, Léonce Ndikumana

Léonce Ndikumana

Donors and governments in aid recipient countries are under pressure to demonstrate effectiveness of aid, especially due to increasing stress on fiscal balances in the context of the global financial and economic crisis. The evidence on aid effectiveness remains mixed at best: while individual targeted aid interventions appear to produce positive results, the impact of aid at the macroeconomic level remains limited. Furthermore, the reporting on concrete outcomes of aid interventions remains inadequate, thus perpetuating doubts around aid effectiveness. This paper discusses these micro-macro gaps in aid effectiveness and the reporting problem. It proposes some ways in which well-designed and …


The University And Local Economic Development, John Mullin, Zeenat Kotval-K, Jonathan Cooper Jan 2012

The University And Local Economic Development, John Mullin, Zeenat Kotval-K, Jonathan Cooper

John R. Mullin

Increasing pressures on universities and educational institutions to be more involved in the communities that house them have led to a wave of interactions that have been both creative and mutually supportive. These ‘town-gown’ relations have stemmed not only from pressures by government leaders, but also from the sense of civic responsibility and the drive for ‘service learning’ where students move beyond the academic walls to engage in real life situations as part of the learning process. The resultant merits are invaluable lessons and experiences that are mutually beneficial to the students and the communities. Similarly, the involvement of community …


The Influence Of Industry Mix On Regional New Firm Entry, Henry C. Renski Jan 2012

The Influence Of Industry Mix On Regional New Firm Entry, Henry C. Renski

Henry C Renski

Per capita rates of entry are commonly used to measure regional entrepreneurial climate. Yet entry rates vary widely by industry and tend to mirror existing regional specializations. Without controlling for industry mix, factors associated with regional differences in entry may describe the industry base rather than entrepreneurial climate. This study finds that while industry mix explains a potentially large portion regional variation in entry, it does not radically alter the relative standing of the most highly ranked regions. Most of the factors commonly associated with the regional entrepreneurial climate remain significant after purging the data of industry mix effects. However, …


An Empirical Analysis Of Risk Preferences, Compensation Risk, And Employee Outcomes, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi Oct 2011

An Empirical Analysis Of Risk Preferences, Compensation Risk, And Employee Outcomes, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi

Fidan A Kurtulus

We use the NBER Shared Capitalism Database comprised of more than 40,000 employee surveys from 14 firms to explore whether a close match between workers’ risk preferences and the riskiness of their compensation packages relates to improved employee outcomes including lower absenteeism, lower shirking, lower probability of voluntary turnover, greater worker motivation, and higher levels of job satisfaction and loyalty. To do this, we use survey questions reflecting workers’ risk aversion parameters, coupled with a series of measures of the riskiness of workers’ compensation packages including the proportion of pay comprised of various forms of shared capitalism such as profit …


The Great Austerity War: What Caused The Deficit Crisis And Who Should Pay To Fix It?, James Crotty Jun 2011

The Great Austerity War: What Caused The Deficit Crisis And Who Should Pay To Fix It?, James Crotty

James Crotty

Rapidly rising deficits at both the federal and state and local government levels, along with long-term financing problems in the Social Security and Medicare programs, have triggered a one-sided austerity-focused class war in the US. Similar class conflicts have broken out around the globe. A coalition of the richest and most economically powerful segments of society and conservative politicians who represent their interests has demanded that deficits be eliminated by public-sector austerity - severe cuts at all levels of government in spending that either supports the poor and the middle class or funds crucial public investment. These demands constitute a …


What Types Of Diversity Benefit Workers? Empirical Evidence On The Effects Of Co-Worker Dissimilarity On The Performance Of Employees, Fidan A. Kurtulus Jun 2011

What Types Of Diversity Benefit Workers? Empirical Evidence On The Effects Of Co-Worker Dissimilarity On The Performance Of Employees, Fidan A. Kurtulus

Fidan A Kurtulus

This paper explores the consequences of grouping workers into diverse divisions on the performance of employees using a dataset containing the detailed personnel records of a large U.S. firm from 1989-1994. In particular, I examine the effects of demographic dissimilarity among co-workers, namely differences in age, gender and race among employees who work together within divisions, and non-demographic dissimilarity, namely differences in education, work function, firm tenure, division tenure, performance and wages among employees within divisions. I find evidence that age dissimilarity, dissimilarity in firm tenure, and performance dissimilarity are associated with lower worker performance, while wage differences are associated …


Do Women Top Managers Help Women Advance? A Panel Study Using Eeo-1 Records, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Donald Tomaskovic‐Devey May 2011

Do Women Top Managers Help Women Advance? A Panel Study Using Eeo-1 Records, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Donald Tomaskovic‐Devey

Fidan A Kurtulus

The goal of this study is to examine whether women in the highest levels of management ranks of firms help reduce barriers to advancement in the workplace faced by women. Using a panel of over 20,000 private-sector firms across all industries and states during 1990-2003 from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, we explore the influence of women in top management on subsequent female representation in lowerlevel managerial positions in U.S. firms. Our key findings show that an increase in the share of female top managers is associated with subsequent increases in the share of women in mid-level management positions …


The Real Exchange Rate And Economic Development, Arslan Razmi, Martin Rapetti, Peter Skott May 2011

The Real Exchange Rate And Economic Development, Arslan Razmi, Martin Rapetti, Peter Skott

Peter Skott

Recent empirical studies have found a robust correlation between competitive exchange rates and economic growth in developing economies. This paper presents (i) a formal model to help explain these findings and (ii) econometric evidence on the relation between investment and the real exchange rate. The model emphasizes the existence of (hidden) unemployment as a source of endogenous growth, even under constant returns to scale. Growth promoting policies, however, affect the external balance, and two instruments are needed in order to achieve targets for both the growth rate and the trade balance. The real exchange rate can serve as one of …


Worker Attitudes Towards Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing And Variable Pay, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi Mar 2011

Worker Attitudes Towards Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing And Variable Pay, Fidan A. Kurtulus, Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi

Fidan A Kurtulus

Using the NBER Shared Capitalism Database comprised of over 40,000 employee surveys from 14 firms, we investigate worker attitudes towards employee ownership, profit sharing, and variable pay. Specifically, our study uses detailed survey questions on preferences over profit sharing, forms of employee ownership like company stock and stock option ownership, as well as preferences over variable pay in general, to explore how preferences for these different types of output-contingent pay vary with worker risk aversion, residual control, and views of coworkers and management. Our key results show that, on average, workers want at least a part of their compensation to …


The Realism Of Assumptions Does Matter: Why Keynes-Minsky Theory Must Replace Efficient Market Theory As The Guide To Financial Regulation Policy, James Crotty Mar 2011

The Realism Of Assumptions Does Matter: Why Keynes-Minsky Theory Must Replace Efficient Market Theory As The Guide To Financial Regulation Policy, James Crotty

James Crotty

The radical deregulation of financial markets after the 1970s was a precondition for the explosion in size, complexity, volatility and degree of global integration of financial markets in the past three decades. It therefore contributed to the severity and breadth of the recent global financial crisis. It is not likely that deregulation would have been so extreme and the crisis so threatening had most financial economists adopted Keynes-Minsky financial market theory, which concludes that unregulated financial markets are inherently unstable and dangerous. Instead, they argued that neoclassical efficient financial market theories demonstrate that lightly regulated generate optimal security prices and …


Reflections On Development Economics: An Interview With Keith Griffin, James K. Boyce Jan 2011

Reflections On Development Economics: An Interview With Keith Griffin, James K. Boyce

James K. Boyce

In an interview conducted by James Boyce for the journal Development and Change, Keith Griffin reflects on his career and the current state of development economics. Griffin is Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of California, Riverside, and former President of Magdalen College, Oxford University. A prominent critic of orthodox economic development strategies, his books include Underdevelopment in Spanish America; The Political Economy of Agrarian Change; and Alternative Strategies for Economic Development.


Small And As Productive: Female‐Headed Households And The Inverse Relationship Between Land Size And Output In Kenya, Mwangi Githinji, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Andrew Barenberg Jan 2011

Small And As Productive: Female‐Headed Households And The Inverse Relationship Between Land Size And Output In Kenya, Mwangi Githinji, Charalampos Konstantinidis, Andrew Barenberg

Mwangi Wa Githinji

Access to land and particularly its distribution has reemerged as an important part of both academic and policy discussions in the last decade, leading to the resuscitation of the debate on the relationship between size of holdings and output per land unit. Across the world, studies have suggested the existence of a decreasing relationship between land size and output per unit of land. The most-widely accepted explanation for this relationship is that households with smaller holdings tend to be labor rich relative to land, and therefore can achieve higher output through the increased application of labor. Despite the rich literature …


Disjointed Innovation: The Political Economy Of Digitally Mediated Institutional Reform, Jane E. Fountain Jan 2011

Disjointed Innovation: The Political Economy Of Digitally Mediated Institutional Reform, Jane E. Fountain

Jane E. Fountain

Current attention to social media and governance has focused on the enactment of networked communication and information use by and for governance with particular attention to the role of civil society. This paper argues that such a focus, while illuminating a possibly utopian perspective on political participation, often obscures even recent government reforms, existing institutional arrangements, and the myriad processes by which knowledge is translated to action in political settings. Drawing from and extending core perspectives within historical institutionalism, the paper examines three streams of theory and research: temporal models, coordination models, and the political effects of public policies where …


The Real Exchange Rate And Economic Growth: Are Developing Countries Different?, Peter Skott, Martin Rapetti, Arslan Razmi Jan 2011

The Real Exchange Rate And Economic Growth: Are Developing Countries Different?, Peter Skott, Martin Rapetti, Arslan Razmi

Peter Skott

Recent research has found a positive relationship between real exchange rate (RER) undervaluation and economic growth. Different rationales for this association have been offered, but they all imply that the mechanisms involved should be stronger in developing countries. Rodrik (2008) explicitly analyzed and found evidence that the RER-growth relationship is more prevalent in developing countries. We show that his finding is very sensitive to the criterion used to divide the sample between developed and developing countries. We then use alternative classification criteria and empirical strategies to evaluate the existence of asymmetries between groups of countries and find that the effect …


Public Debt In An Olg Model With Imperfect Competition, Peter Skott, Soon Ryoo Jan 2011

Public Debt In An Olg Model With Imperfect Competition, Peter Skott, Soon Ryoo

Peter Skott

Fiscal policy is needed to avoid dynamic inefficiency and maintain full employment in a modified Diamond OLG model with imperfect competition. A distributionally neutral tax scheme can maintain full employment in the face of variations in .household confidence.. No variations in taxes will be needed if households correctly anticipate future taxes: the tax policy functions as an insurance scheme. JEL Categories: E62, E22