Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Towards A Metatheory Of Budgeting, Dan Williams, Thad D. Calabrese

Publications and Research

In this paper. we suggest that many budget theories actually are about appropriating and not about budgeting. We trace this development back to the classic budgeting question posed by V.O. Keys in 1940. To clarify the issue, we examine early normative theories of budgeting, and apply many contemporary theories about budgeting to the budgeting process advocated for in this early work. By analyzing current theories, we show that budget theories are, in many cases, simply focused on parts of the budget process or on the role of techniques in decision making. Our analyses suggest that rather than theories competing with …

Who Enters The Foreclosure Process?, Eric Doviak, Sean P. Macdonald

Publications and Research

Since February 2010, detailed information on every home mortgage default and foreclosure in New York State must be filed with the New York State Banking Department (NYSBD). The data enables us to identify the financial characteristics that make a defaulted borrower more (or less) likely to enter the foreclosure process. Our analysis of the NYSBD data suggests that borrowers in default who took larger loans are more likely to progress to foreclosure. It also suggests that reducing principal balances may reduce the foreclosure rate, but might have an adverse effect on the mortgage industry. Given the frequent criticism of the …

Fathers' Time Investments In Children: Do Sons Get More?, Kristin Mammen

Publications and Research

Evidence suggests that, from birth, fathers treat sons differently than daughters in the U.S., as well as in developing countries. Fathers' time investments in children are one channel through which differential treatment by gender may affect children's outcomes. This paper uses data from the 2003 American Time Use Survey to explore three questions about paternal time in married two-parent families: Does the gender composition of his children affect the amount of time a father spends with them? If so, does the gender of the individual child have an additional effect? And is a girl advantaged or disadvantaged by the presence …

Weight-Related Behavior Among Adolescents: The Role Of Peer Effects, Mir M. Ali, Aliaksandr Amialchuk, Frank W. Heiland

Publications and Research

Purpose To investigate whether social interactions in friendship networks influence the following weight-related behaviors of adolescents: exercising regularly, playing an active sport, hours of TV/Video viewing, sleeping six or fewer hours, eating breakfast on weekdays, frequency of eating at fast food restaurants, eating five servings of fruits/vegetables daily, and consuming calorie-dense snacks.

Method Data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents are used to examine the association between peer and individual weight-related behaviors. Evidence from multivariate regression analysis controlling for an extensive list of individual- and family-level factors as well as school-level unobserved heterogeneity is obtained. Results We find a …

Six Titans Of The Cambridge School: A Review Article, Harvey Gram

Publications and Research

Six volumes in the Great Thinker in Economics Series were chosen by the Editors for this review, which focuses on The Cambridge School of Economics, so very different from the mainstream theory of general economic equilibrium which gives formal expression to Lionel Robbins’ famous definition of the subject as the allocation of scarce means among alternative uses. In recognition of a distinct Cambridge School, the authors of these volumes present a variety of arguments within which three overlapping themes can be discerned: the relationship between ethics and economics; the role of stocks and flows in economic analysis; and the epistemic …

Demand For Cigarettes By Teenagers And Young Adults And Their Smoking Transitions, Ce Shang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of cigarette prices, cigarette excise taxes, smoke-free air laws, youth access laws, state spending on comprehensive tobacco control programs, socio-economic factors, and demographic characteristics on measures of demand for smoking, especially light and intermittent smoking by teenagers and young adults in a long panel. I employ the panel to estimate demand for cigarette smoking by young people and the determinants of transitions from light or intermittent smoking to heavy or regular smoking in the following years. Finally, I estimate transitions in the opposite direction: from regular or heavy smoking to …

Governance And Merger Activity In Banking, Thomas J. Piskula

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

One method of evaluating the success of management decisions regarding acquisitions is to examine equity price movements as the news of the merger is made public. The price movement of the acquiring firm's equity around the announcement of the acquisition indicates if shareholders believe management has acted in their interest. In the banking industry, researchers have found that on average equity values of the acquiring bank do not display abnormal positive returns upon announcement, and often display statistically significant negative returns. Another line of research has documented that CEOs are better compensated for managing larger organizations, particularly when involved in …

Essays On Foreign Direct Investment, Trade And Development, Jing Sun

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Essay 1: Most of studies on developing countries have found evidence that international linkages, such as foreign ownership, exporting, or importing, affect productivity growth, but since these variables are correlated, it is hard to distinguish among their effects. This paper tackles this issue by explicitly investigating and comparing the productivity effects of all three international linkages at plant levels in case of Indonesian manufacturing plants during 1993-2001. Overall, the paper finds that foreign ownership, first, and importing, second, but exporting doubtfully, promoted productivity growth. Productivity jumps in the year when plants are acquired by foreigners or when plants first start …

Smoking, Drinking, And Binge Drinking: An Empirical Study Of The Role Of Price On Consumption By High School Seniors, Jorge L. Medina

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this study, I estimate time-series demand functions using Ordinary Least Squares in order to examine the effects of real cigarette and alcohol prices on their respective consumption. My targeted population is high school seniors in the United States. The data I use come from Monitoring the Future, The Tax Burden on Tobacco, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Using the Ordinary Least Squares real price coefficients, I evaluate how much of the observed change in consumption is explained by the observed change in real price during a particular period of time between 1976 and 2008. Then, I repeat the …

Nafta, Cafta And The Environment: The Role Of Institutions, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

This essay examines the institutionalization of environmental concerns, primarily focusing on NAFTA, and argues that the 1994 agreement should be seen as a positive first attempt to raise the profile of environmental concerns within discussions of expanding global trade. More specifically, NAFTA and subsequent U.S. FTAs have contributed to the growth of procedural environmental rights that have the potential to deepen democracy in the wider political system. Given that free trade agreements represent the U.S. approach to world trade at present, this paper takes the practical position that building on NAFTA’s foundation, opportunities exist to continue promoting environmental sustainability within …

A R&D Based Real Business Cycle Model, Ka Wai Terence Fung

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The New Keynesian Real Business Cycle model with staggered price adjustment is augmented with a R&D producing sector. Two sources of economic shocks are separately considered, namely random participation (perturbances to value of alternative investment opportunities in another sector) and financial intermediation (shocks to the cost of raising capital in the financial intermediation market). We find that, when comparing to the baseline model, both random participation and financial intermediation models can explain pro-cyclical R&D spending. Additionally the investment oversensitivity problem is corrected. However, only the financial intermediation model is consistent with the observed finding that the volatility of R&D is …