Business Commons^™

Retail Landscape Changes May Affect Kroger-Albertsons Deal, Ed Fox, Emily Cotton, Laura O'Laughlin

Marketing Research

No abstract provided.

Are Mexican And U.S. Workers Complements Or Substitutes?, Raymond Robertson

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Fears of NAFTA in the United States were largely based on the belief that Mexicans and U.S. workers were substitutes: lowering barriers would allow competing products into the United States and investment outflows that would cause U.S. workers to lose their jobs to Mexico. While this may have been true when NAFTA first went into effect, subsequent production specialization between Mexico and the United States may suggest that Mexican and U.S. workers are now complements. In particular, NAFTA may have induced production restructuring throughout North America to generate integrated value chains in which workers in the three NAFTA countries work …

Does Migration Cause Income Inequality?, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

Inequality has been rising across the world in recent decades. Latin America has been an exception to what otherwise seems to be the prevalent trend in the U.S., Europe and Asia. In the U.S. the rise in inequality since the 1970s has coincided with the rise in Mexican immigration. In Mexico, inequality has been declining since the mid-1990s, a period during which emigration to the U.S. first increased to historic highs and then declined steeply.

Our review of the literature suggests that low-skilled immigration to the U.S., much of it from Mexico, has only played a minor role in rising …

¿La Migración Causa Desigualdad De Ingresos?, Pia M. Orrenius, Madeline Zavodny

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

La desigualdad ha aumentado en décadas recientes a lo largo del mundo. Latinoamérica ha sido una excepción a lo que, por lo demás, parece ser la tendencia prevalente en los Estados Unidos, Europa y Asia. En los Estados Unidos, la acentuación de la desigualdad desde los años 1970 ha coincidido con el aumento de la migración mexicana. En México, la desigualdad ha disminuido desde mediados de la década 1990, periodo durante el que la emigración a los Estados Unidos se elevó, primero a niveles nunca antes visto, para luego declinar de manera abrupta.

Nuestra revisión bibliográfica sugiere que la inmigración …

Philanthropy And Immigration Enforcement: The Role Of Grantmaking On Nonprofit Influence During Secure Communities, Apolonia Calderon

Latino Public Policy

Uniquely positioned in our American democracy, foundations hold private resources they leveraged to promote their private values within our public arena. The independence of foundations, primarily private and family foundations, allows them to exert influence over public policy down to the local delivery of public good and services. An understudied policy area pertains to understanding how philanthropic funding impacts immigration policy and local enforcement. This report focuses on studying how philanthropic funding for immigration services is associated with reducing the identification of deportable immigrants, during Secure Communities. As foundations leverage their private resources to help fund nonprofits that promote their …

Aggregate Demand Shortfalls And Economic Freedom, Ryan Murphy, Taylor Smith

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Political instability is often exacerbated in periods of aggregate demand shortfall. It has been conjectured that inadequate policy responses to recessions may be inimical to free economic institutions. This paper uses the Economic Freedom of the World index as its measure of economic institutions, and finds that the change in economic freedom in the following five, ten, and fifteen years is negatively impacted by an aggregate demand shortfall as measured by negative NGDP growth.

Minimum Wages And Appropriation Of Quasi-Rents, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

This note argues that the appropriation of the quasi-rents from firms to labor is a more persuasive interpretation of the effects of minimum wages than is generally recognized.

Are Strong States Key To Reducing Violence? A Test Of Pinker, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

STEVEN PINKER CLAIMS in The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) that nearly all social-scientific evidence tells us violence is declining. This paper makes no claims against Pinker’s main argument; criticisms of it having been addressed elsewhere (Pinker 2015). However, one secondary hypothesis Pinker puts forward is that the development of strong states was a key factor in the decline of violence (2011, 42). Summarizing his reading of the evidence, Pinker writes, “[t]he reduction of homicide by government control is so obvious to anthropologists that they seldom document it with numbers… It goes without saying that people that have been …

Beggaring Thy Neighbor At The State And Local Level, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Purpose – This paper aims to address a growing empirical literature which measures the size of the fiscal multiplier at the state and local levels. This literature generally fails to consider the reaction function of the central bank, which typically should be expected to offset local increases in spending by reducing it elsewhere in the currency area. This is true under rather orthodox assumptions, such as an inflation targeting central bank meeting its target.

Design/methodology/approach – The author reviews prominent examples of the literature and establishes the extent to which the empirical methodology avoids the issue he raises. Subsequently, the …

A Short Empirical Note On State Misery Indexes, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

This paper constructs state level Misery Indexes, incorporating recent data on Regional Pricing Parities. As an application, it draws the Phillips curve derived from a panel of fifty states plus the District of Columbia in the years 2008-2011. A state level Misery Index will allow economists and the public to evaluate the overall macroeconomic picture of a regional economy, just as the Misery Index currently allows in the national and international context.

A Simple Empirical Investigation Into The Optimal Size Of The Ngdp Target And Level Targeting, Ryan Murphy, Jiawen Chen

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Abstract This paper constructs an index to study two questions within a growing school of macroeconomic thought, Market Monetarism. This school argues that the central bank has full control over all nominal variables in the economy and is solely responsible for aggregate demand management. To manage aggregate demand, Market Monetarism argues the central bank should target Nominal GDP. We address two issues of contention. First, we measure the optimal size of the optimal NGDP target. Second, we measure the extent to which central banks should engage in level targeting, i.e., whether central banks should correct for past errors when hitting …

The Final Nail In The Cross Of Gold, Ryan Murphy, Eric Li

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

There is little, if any, academic support for viewing gold as an effective primary investment strategy. Yet the idea persists in the public and has seen a revival in the years following the Great Recession. We perform a novel epirical comparison of gold with the S&P 500 from 1975 to 2016 in demonstrating how poor of a choice it is as a general strategy. A particularly striing finding is that gold outperforms S&P 500 (27% of the time) approximately as often as holding cash outperforms gold (28% of the time).

Intergovernmental Organisations And Economic Freedom: Wise Technocrats Or Black Helicopters?, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

This article explores the relationship between country membership in major intergovernmental organisations and economic freedom. While it makes no claims to have found any broad theoretically bound, robust causal mechanism, baseline fixed effects models establish relationships amongst economic freedom and membership in the EU, NATO, WTO, UN, OECD, World Bank, and IMF. Though the results are not simple, the strongest findings are negative relationships with the UN, IMF, and WTO, and positive relationships with the World Bank and possibly the EU.

The Plucking Model, The Great Recession, And Austrian Business Cycle Theory, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

This brief note points out that Milton Friedman’s “Plucking Model” has not held following the Great Recession. Friedman argued that the Plucking Model offered evidence against theories like Austrian Business Cycle theory; the bust was what needed explanation, not the boom. But as many economists have pointed out, the years leading up to the Great Recession fit many of the stylized predictions of the Austrian Business Cycle. Given their observations, it is of interest that the bust in recent years has not followed the Plucking Model.

The Unconstrained Vision Of Nassim Taleb, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

No abstract provided.

Rational Irrationality Across Institutional Contexts, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Abstract: This paper considers how Bryan Caplan’s concept of rational irrationality may manifest in various political institutional arrangements, building off the demand curve for irrationality. Mob democracy, anarchy, autocracy, and constitutionally constrained democracy are the governance structures addressed. While anarchy is strictly better than mob democracy, under certain conditions, democracy, anarchy, or constitutionally constrained democracy may yield the best outcomes depending on the circumstances.

The Impact Of Economic Inequality On Economic Freedom, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

This paper tests the hypothesis that the presence of economic inequality may lead to erosions of economic freedom. Using Economic Freedom of the World as a measure of free economic institutions, it finds that a one standard deviation increase in the gini coefficient reduces the presence of free economic institutions by 0.18 standard deviations. This effect is modest but not at all trivial, and the magnitude of the effect may be especially important in increasing the size of government. Surprisingly, the evidence is mixed for the effect of inequality on regulation, with modest evidence suggesting it may improve the regulatory …

Heterogeneous Moral Views In The Stateless Society, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

A growing literature has explored the workability and efficacy of governance without the state. The difficulties typically raised in the context of these studies concern under which conditions cooperation or Hobbesian chaos would arise in the absence of a monopolist of coercion. This paper challenges the idea of the stateless society from another vantage point, arguing the institutions articulated by proponents of the stateless society would struggle at reconciling heterogeneous views regarding the rights of third parties. This is relevant for many of the most contentious policy debates, such as abortion and animal rights.

The Willingness-To-Pay For Caplanian Irrationality, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Bryan Caplan’s The Myth of the Rational Voter popularizes the “near-neoclassical” demand curve for irrationality. This article attempts to show that there is a demand for irrationality at prices higher than zero. This may change policy implications. Many instances of consumer behavior, such as paying a premium for locally produced and “fair trade” goods, the use of local currencies, and the failure to vaccinate children, are other instances of the means-ends irrationality that Caplan observes in political markets.

Unconventional Confidence Bands In The Literature On The Government Spending Multiplier, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

Macroeconomists have applied many versions of vector autoregression to measuring the size of the government spending multiplier. Very frequently in the literature on that multiplier, the statistical significance of results is held to an unconventionally low standard of one standard error. This paper will document the pervasiveness of the issue among thirty-one papers. Five of the six papers with at least 500 Google citations use that unconventionally narrow band.

What Do Recent Trends In Economic Freedom Of The World Really Tell Us?, Ryan Murphy

Bridwell Institute for Economic Freedom Research

No abstract provided.

When Does The Devil Make Work? An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Workload On Worker Productivity, Tom Tan, Serguei Netessine

IT & Operations Management Research

We analyze a large, detailed operational data set from a restaurant chain to shed new light on how workload (defined as the number of tables or diners that a server simultaneously handles) affects servers’ performance (measured as sales and meal duration). We use an exogenous shock - the implementation of labor scheduling software - and time-lagged instrumental variables to disentangle the endogeneity between demand and supply in this setting. We show that servers strive to maximize sales and speed efforts simultaneously, depending on the relative values of sales and speed. As a result, we find that, when the overall workload …

Integrated Communications Plan For The Smu Spanish Club, Jordan Noelle Fields

Collection of Engaged Learning

SMU Spanish Club debuted in January 2013 with temporary charter status. This paper explains my role as a public relations advisor to the club.

The Implications Of Worker Behavior For Staffing Decisions: Empirical Evidence And Best Practices, Tom Tan, Serguei Netessine

IT & Operations Management Research

Employees in service organizations such as restaurants are humans, and their productivity is often heterogeneous due to innate abilities, motivation, and environmental factors. However, none of these considerations are taken into account by typical workforce planning models and software packages. In this paper we describe the results of a study on how workers respond to workload, an integral work environment factor, and we provide operational insights to improve efficiency and strengthen restaurant financials. We study a comprehensive data set from a family-style restaurant chain to clarify how workload, which is defined as the number of tables or diners that a …

The Role Of Accounting In The Use Of Employee Options, Hemang Desai, Zining Li, Suning Zhang

Accounting Research

The determinants of the dramatic increase in the use of employee stock options in the 1990s and the subsequent decline in their popularity have been the subject of intense debate. Some have argued and found evidence to support that the discretion granted to firms to avoid recognizing the fair value of options as an expense led to their overuse for employee compensation. Others have argued and found evidence that the market “sees through” the accounting treatment for options and values firms as though options were expensed at fair value, regardless of financial statement treatment. We revisit this issue with the …

Shifting Media Uses And Gratifications Among Singaporean Teens And University Students: A Future Ripe For Mobile Applications, Carrie La Ferle, Steven M. Edwards

Temerlin Advertising Institute Research

An exploratory study examining the various opportunities and challenges facing advertisers wanting to reach the teen and young adult segments of the future was undertaken in Singapore. Media patterns from traditional channels to the Internet and mobile phones were assessed to provide a context for the study. Beyond frequency of use, actual online and mobile phone activities were assessed. In the case of mobile phones, everything from talking on the phone and text messaging to receiving advertisements were examined. Implications for advertisers are discussed.

The Impact Of Tax Policy On Economic Growth, Income Distribution, And Allocation Of Taxes, Robert Lawson, James Gwartney

Business Law Research

Using a sample of seventy-seven countries, this paper focuses on marginal tax rates and the income thresholds at which they apply to examine how the tax changes of the 1980s and 1990s have influenced economic growth, the distribution of income, and the share of taxes paid by various income groups. Many countries substantially reduced their highest marginal rates during the 1985-1995 period. The findings indicate that countries that reduced their highest marginal rates grew more rapidly than those that maintained high marginal rates. At the same time, the income distribution in several of the tax cutting countries became more unequal …

Positioning Store Brands Against National Brands: Get Close Or Keep A Distance?, Raj Sethuraman

Historical Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Teens' Use Of Traditional Media And The Internet, Carrie La Ferle, Steven M. Edwards, We-Na Lee

Temerlin Advertising Institute Research

As the teen market segment expands and spending power increases, advertisers are cognizant of the importance in understanding traditional and emerging media trends in reaching this new generation of consumers. Increasing penetration of the internet at home and at school encouraged the authors to examine teens' relationships with media. Time allocation across media and the needs fulfilled by each medium were investigated. The study further explored how the internet, given its ability for two-way communication, stacks-up against interpersonal communication sources. Influences of gender and home access to the internet were analyzed, as were the methods teens use to learn about …

Cross Media Promotion Of The Internet In Television Commercials, Steven M. Edwards, Carrie La Ferle

Temerlin Advertising Institute Research

Increasing presence of internet addresses across traditional media spurred the current study. Specifically, the study examined the cross media promotion of website addresses in television commercials to determine if and when they were being used, and by whom? For comparison purposes, other formsof direct response channels were also measured. A clearer understanding of the practice of promoting web sites in television commercials was garnered by examining website addresses for their size, length, positioning, frequency, product categoy representation, and other important attributes. The findings provide an initial base from which future growth and style of web site advertising in traditional media …