Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

China’S Changing Perspective On The Wto: From Aspiration, Assimilation To Alienation, Henry S. Gao

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Since its accession to the WTO twenty years ago, China’s image has shifted from a good student aspiring to assimilate itself into the multilateral trading system to one that is increasingly alienated from key WTO principles. How has China’s perspective on WTO been evolving? What are the reasons behind China’s changing perspective? This chapter addresses these questions from the Chinese perspective with a comprehensive analysis of the key moments in China’s first two decades in the WTO, followed by practical suggestions on how to engage China more constructively in the WTO and beyond.

Per Capita Gdp’S Potential Effect On The Percentage Of Children In Foster Care, Jenna Mcclain

Honors College Theses

Few studies have been conducted on the presence of a direct connection between per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and the percentage of children in foster care in a given region. GDP is a known indicator of economic growth (Powers, 1995; Roshaniza & Selvaratnam, 2015), as is a child’s potential for foster care placement associated with a parent or family’s financial status (Bald et. al, 2022; Barth et. al, 2010). Poverty is the bridge in many of these scenarios – low GDP can be indicative of higher poverty rates, and financial hardship under poverty classification can lead to child maltreatment …

Essays On The Economics Of Hurricanes, Haishan Yang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This dissertation explores how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected the economy in New Orleans and nearby areas in Louisiana. Using a variety of econometric techniques, my dissertation aims to understand the effects of these storms on employment, wages, and housing prices.

In the first essay, I focus on employment in New Orleans. I find that Katrina led to significant and lasting job losses in nearly every sector, while the construction sector stood as an exception, recovering within just three months. Interestingly, wages increased in most sectors. This suggests that with fewer workers available, those who remained became more valuable, leading …

Joining A Currency Union To Improve Financial Development And Competitiveness: The Case Of Slovakia, Etsub Tekola Jemberu, Bruce Dehning

Accounting Faculty Articles and Research

Enhancing competitiveness is a priority for nations seeking to promote economic growth. One of the critical drivers of a nation’s sustainable competitiveness is financial system development. However, whether joining a currency union has a positive impact on a country’s financial system development requires further investigation. This study evaluates the impact of euro adoption on Slovakia’s financial system development using a synthetic control method with lasso regularization methodology. A comprehensive index that captures the depth, access, and efficiency of financial institutions and markets is used to measure financial system development. Based on a donor pool composed of non-euro OECD countries, the …

International Labour Migration, Farmland Fallowing, Livelihood Diversification And Technology Adoption In Nepal, Karki Nepal, Mani Nepal, Randall Bluffstone

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article investigates the effect of temporary international labour migration on farmland fallowing, adoption of agricultural intensification technologies and livelihood diversification. Using nationally representative data, combined with empirical methods that allow causal inference, the authors find that households with international migrants are over 50 per cent more likely (based on propensity score matching estimates) to have fallow land than those without. Temporary international migration promotes the adoption of some agricultural intensification technologies and causes rural households to diversify their livelihoods. Land fallowing may increase food insecurity, while agricultural intensification may improve it, for an uncertain net effect.

Anticipatory Impacts Of The Repeal Of Roe V. Wade On Female College Applicants, Janna Wisniewski, Brigham Walker, Jillian Torres, Rajiv Sharma

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We examined the relative impact of the anticipated repeal of Roe v. Wade on the share of female applicants to universities in states where abortion was banned compared with universities in states where abortion remained legal. Using the Common Data Sets from 71 of the top 100 institutions in the United States spanning 27 states from academic years 2018–2022, we found that there was a nearly one percentage point relative decrease in the share of female undergraduate applicants to institutions in ban states compared with states in which abortion remained legal. This suggests that undergraduate applicants are sensitive to state …

Three Essays On Energy Markets Using Dynamic Time Series, Zuyi Wang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This dissertation investigates energy markets using dynamic time series and rolling panel approaches, aiming to enhance our understanding of their dynamics and interrelationships. The first essay focuses on the transfer of price bubbles between oil and gas markets. The findings indicate that price bubbles in the oil market have the potential to transfer to the gas market, with the probability of transfer depending on the gas price mechanism. The second essay delves into China’s natural gas market and specifically explores the dynamic relationship between imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) and pipeline prices. This analysis utilizes a price discovery framework to …

How Social Structure Shapes Female Competition Throughout Her Lifetime, Jeffrey Flory, Kenneth L. Leonard, Magda Tsaneva, Kathryn Vasilaky

Economics

Many studies find a consistent gender gap in competitiveness where men are more likely to compete than women given the same level of ability. Using data from experiments with women ages 12 through 90 in matrilocal and patrilocal communities in rural Malawi, we show that this gender gap does not exist uniformly for all women nor across their whole lifetime. We first replicate three main findings from the gender and competition literature: (i) women are less likely to compete on average; and the gender gap differs by (ii) culture and by (iii) age. In a new finding, we show that …

The Matching Function And Nonlinear Business Cycles, Joshua Bernstein, Alexander W. Richter, Nathaniel A. Throckmorton

Arts & Sciences Articles

The Cobb-Douglas matching function is ubiquitous in labor search and matching models, even though it imposes a constant matching elasticity that is unlikely to hold empirically. To examine the implications of this discrepancy, this paper uses a general constant returns to scale matching function to derive conditions that show how the cyclicality of the matching elasticity affects the shape of the job finding rate as a function of productivity and amplifies or dampens nonlinear labor market dynamics. It then shows that modest variation in the matching elasticity, consistent with recent estimates, significantly affects higher order moments and optimal policy. This …

Evaluating Garment Fit Perception For Pregnant Women During 1st, 2nd, Or 3rd Trimesters, Nelima Zipporah Barasa

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During pregnancy, women experience diverse physical body changes as the pregnancy progresses through different periods. It has been noted that anthropometric changes occur during pregnancy in a non-linear manner and can be measured using 3D body scanners at various stages of pregnancy. The changes are diverse, and impact pregnant women's garment fit differently as the pregnancy progresses through each trimester. Pregnant women have experience in dressing their pre-pregnant bodies in stylish garments and would similarly want to dress fashionably when pregnant. This has led to the need for garments that can accommodate body changes comfortably and fashionably without losing the …

Costs Of Wind Erosion In The Northern Agricultural Region, Anne Bennett

Natural resources published reports

Summary

• To date, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development’s (DPIRD) estimated opportunity cost of wind erosion for Western Australia’s (WA) agricultural region has only included the costs of forgone production income and therefore underestimates the broader costs of wind erosion events.
• This underestimation of costs was the impetus to create a case study to give an indication of the magnitude of the costs of wind erosion from agricultural land.
• Farmers in the Northern Agricultural Region (NAR) were contacted to seek information about the on-farm costs of wind erosion events that occurred in 2020. Seventeen farmers responded to the …

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 7, Number12, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

New Data Show How Far Graduates Move From Their College, And Why It Matters, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Feasibility Of Implementing A Dairy Industry In Mauritius, Sophia Ultes

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Mauritius faces food security and economic challenges due to its lack of a domestic dairy industry. To address this, the University of Arkansas partnered with the Ministry of Agro Industry and Food Security to explore the possibility of establishing a dairy sector on the island.

Through surveys and interviews with locals, including restaurant owners and grocery store customers, we investigated the demand for fresh milk. We also studied factors like consumer preferences and production costs. Our research, conducted with IRB approval, aimed to understand if people are willing to buy locally produced milk.

During the summer, our team visited Mauritius …

Heat And Observed Economic Activity In The Rich Urban Tropics, Eric Fesselmeyer, Haoming. Liu, Alberto. Salvo, Rhita P B. Simorangkir

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

We use space-and-time resolved mobility data to assess how heat impacts Singapore, a rich city-state and arguably a harbinger of what is to come in the urbanizing tropics. Singapore’s offices, factories, malls, buses, and trains are widely air conditioned, its public schools less so. We document increased attendance and commuting to workplaces, malls, and the more air-conditioned schools on hotter relative to cooler days, particularly by low-income residents with limited use of adaptive technologies at home. Investment by rich cities may attenuate heat’s pervasive negative consequences on productive outcomes, yet this may worsen the climate emergency in the long run.

The Effect Of Conditional Cash Transfers On The Prepaid And Postpaid Expenditures Of Internet And Cellular Services: The Case Of Filipino Households, Krisann Carmina G. Caoile, Edgar Desher P. Empeño, Raphael Manuel P. Ramos, Marie Angeline A. Trinidad, Myrna S. Austria, Ma. Ella Oplas, Tereso S. Tullao Jr, Winfred M. Villamil

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Technology has been playing a large role in the lives of households regardless of income. How, then, do poor families value the importance of internet and cellular services due to the existence of outcome-improving or outcome-worsening effects associated with these services? At the same time, since the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) substantially affects its beneficiaries’ household expenditures, assessing its effectiveness concerning its objectives is important. Most literature on how poor households spend their cash transfers is centered on directly linked goods such as health and education. However, the relationship between CCTs and expenditures on goods that play a more …

Bitcoin's Technical Foundation And Its Potential For A Decentralized And Environmentally Friendly Future, Iqtiar Md Siddique

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research examines a systematic analysis of Bitcoin, employing a Coefficient of Variation (CV) approach to gauge its degree of decentralization. Bitcoin, an innovative decentralized digital currency, has received much attention for its potential to revolutionize traditional financial systems. This study employs the Coefficient of Variation (CV) to acquire insights into the wealth distribution and concentration among Bitcoin users. This research demonstrates how decentralized the network of Bitcoin is. The methodology uses real data on Bitcoin addresses and their holdings to compute the Coefficient of Variation (CV). This approach provides valuable insights into the ongoing discourse surrounding Bitcoin's decentralization, offering …

How Commonality Persists? (Through Investors' Sentiment And Attention), Chyng Wen Tee, Raja Velu, Zhaoque Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Studies on commonality generally attribute the variation in asset returns to the variation in order flows. In this research study, we show that order flows do not predict asset returns, rather their relationship have been static over time. Thus we model both returns and the order flows as endogenous variables, and use investors' sentiment and attention as exogenous factors via a reduced-rank regression. We provide empirical evidence to demonstrate that cross-sectional commonality in attention (sentiment) is linearly (nonlinearly) associated with both returns and order flows at the intraday level, while the sentiment and attention measures themselvesexhibit a nonlinear mutual relationship, …

Are Bond Returns Predictable With Real-Time Macro Data?, Dashan Huang, Fuwei Jiang, Kunpeng Li, Guoshi Tong, Guofu Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the predictability of bond returns using real-time macro variables and consider the possibility of a nonlinear predictive relationship and the presence of weak factors. To address these issues, we propose a scaled sufficient forecasting (sSUFF) method and analyze its asymptotic properties. Using both the existing and the new method, we find empirically that real-time macro variables have significant forecasting power both in-sample and out-of-sample. Moreover, they generate sizable economic values, and their predictability is not spanned by the yield curve. We also observe that the forecasted bond returns are countercyclical, and the magnitude of predictability is stronger during …

Can The Philippines Achieve Its Co2 Reduction Commitment With Renewable Energy?, James Benedict Cuesta, Edward Josh Cruzado, Princess Camila Martinez, Stephanie Noling, Arlene B. Inocencio, Albert Lamberte, Alellie B. Sobreviñas, Marites M. Tiongco

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The Philippines always aims to achieve economic growth, which requires expanding economic activities, resulting in increased pollution (Stern, 2017). The country signified its intention to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 75% in COP26 (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC], 2021). Part of its strategy to combat CO2 emissions is by increasing its share of renewable energy (RE) sources to at least 35% of the total energy matrix (Department of Energy [DOE], 2021). The Philippines’ ability to reach its COP26 commitment through a scenario approach on the effects of increasing GDP and share of RE to CO2 emissions …

Grads On The Go: Measuring College-Specific Labor Markets For Graduates, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper introduces a new measure of the labor markets served by colleges and universities across the United States. About 50 percent of recent college graduates are living and working in the metro area nearest the institution they attended, with this figure climbing to 67 percent in-state. The geographic dispersion of alumni is more than twice as great for highly selective 4-year institutions as for 2-year institutions. However, more than one-quarter of 2-year institutions disperse alumni more diversely than the average public 4-year institution. In one application of these data, we find that the average strength of the labor market …

Behavioral Economic Factors In Collective Bargaining, Cristal Cardoso Sao Mateus Cardoso Sao Mateus

Masters Theses

The present study evaluated the effects of delay, stake, and hypothetical group size on labor valuation in the context of increasing and decreasing labor demand. Challenges in collective bargaining are associated with work stoppages, which can cause economic losses, lack of service, and worker stress. Participants were asked to value their labor given a set of conditions in two experiments. Participants in experiment 1 (n = 49) valued their labor in both increasing and decreasing demand context. Conversely, participants in experiment 2 (n = 139) valued their labor in only one of the contexts. Delay to changes, stake size, and …

The Determinants Of The Underemployment Gender Gap In The Philippines: A Decomposition Analysis, John Ichiro Arbole, Luisa Martina Gaston De La Paz, Therese Genota, Katrina Hernandez, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy, Maria Zunally Rapada, Krista Danielle Yu

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Underemployment is a prevalent labor market issue around the globe. It reflects how an individual can be employed but is unable to work to their desired number of hours, receive sufficient wages, or fully utilize their skills, leaving them in precarious working conditions. Studies on underemployment and its gendered impact in the Philippines remains limited with most labor studies primarily addressing wage and unemployment. This study addresses this gap by identifying the factors contributing to underemployment and gender-based inequalities in the Philippines. Using quarterly data from the Labor Force Survey from 2012 to 2021, we distinguished between visible and invisible …

Is It True That Immigrants Reduce Social Trust Or Reduce Institutional Quality?, Jacob Sorenson

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

With a presidential race beginning in the United States, one topic that is sure to be discussed a lot in the news and by people trying to decide on who to vote for is whether or not the US should allow more immigrants into the country, and what the regulations surrounding these new entrants should look like. While this topic is usually only discussed during the campaign stretch, it isn’t new nor is it unimportant. For this reason, formal immigration research is abundant and used to inform the debate. This research has many strengths, but one area of focus that …

In Search Of Cryptocurrency Failure, Donglian Ma, Jun Tu, Zhaobo Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper explores the determinants of cryptocurrency failure and the pricing of crypto failure risk. We document different significant market- and characteristic-based predictors for coin and token failures. The introduction of Bitcoin futures and the outbreak of COVID19 affect the importance of many predictors. Investors require extra return for bearing high failure risk of crypto assets. The return difference across high and low failure risk crypto assets is not explained by the market, size and momentum factors in the cryptocurrency market. Finally, investors benefit from diversifying into high failure risk crypto assets that is little correlated with the stock market.

Do Price Controlled Basic Food Items Affect Inflation In Fiji?, Joel Abraham, Akeneta Vonoyauyau, Seema W. Narayan Prof.

Bulletin of Monetary Economics and Banking

This note examines the effects of price-controlled perishable food items on inflation in Fiji. We study year-on-year changes in headline inflation and disaggregate measures of inflation in the form of food and non-alcoholic beverages and vegetables against three perishable food items used daily by Fijian households, namely, potatoes, onion, and garlic over the period 2019:01-2022:08. We also follow Narayan et al (2023), allowing for the lags and leads framework in examining Fiji’s inflation. Our results show that the leads and lags model explain 22%, 27% and 65% of headline, food and non-alcoholic beverages and vegetables inflation rates, respectively, over the …

Predictive Analytics Supporting Labor Market Success: A Career Explorer For Job Seekers And Workforce Professionals In Michigan, Christopher J. O'Leary, Salomon Orellana, Kevin Doyle, Randall W. Eberts, Ben Damerow, Amy Meyers, Kenneth J. Kline, Anna Wilcoxson, Beth C. Truesdale, Scott Powell

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Career Explorer provides customized career exploration tools for workforce development staff and job seekers in Michigan. There are separate Career Explorer modules for mediated staff services and self-service by job seekers. The system was developed by the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics in collaboration with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and Michigan Works! Southwest. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Workforce Investment and the Schmidt Futures foundation’s Data for the American Dream (D4AD) project. In this paper, we describe specifications of the models behind the frontline-staff-mediated version of Career Explorer, which are …

Agriculture And Community Well-Being: A Review Of Three Research Studies., Marilyn R. Schlake

Cornhusker Economics

Personal observations are often obscure to the facts. For instance, recently I worked at a booth at Husker Harvest Days. The booth focused on rural community development. My observations were that many of the agricultural producers decided to not stop at our booth or for those who did stop, conversations showed a disconnect of the importance of their local community to their farm operations. Similarly, when working with communities, I have observed the lack of understanding of the importance of the agricultural producers to the local community’s well-being. Why the disconnect between these two very important components of our rural …

Gains From Reassignment: Evidence From A Two-Sided Teacher Market, Mariana Laverde, Elton Mykerezi, Aaron Sojourner, Aradhya Sood

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Although the literature on assignment mechanisms emphasizes the importance of efficiency based on agents’ preferences, policymakers may want to achieve different goals. For instance, school districts may want to affect student learning outcomes but must take teacher welfare into account when assigning teachers to students in classrooms and schools. This paper studies both the potential efficiency and equity test-score gains from within-district reassignment of teachers to classrooms using novel data that allows us to observe decisions of both teachers and principals in the teacher internal transfer process, and test-scores of students from the observed assignments. We jointly model student achievement …

Coastal Water Temperature Guide, Andrew Allegra

Benefits of Ocean Observing Catalog (BOOC)

● Near real-time temperatures are from NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) tidal stations and Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System (PORTS®).

● Recent and near real-time water temperatures are also from NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) moored buoys.

● Daily Averaged Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is from NOAA NCEI’s 1/4° Daily Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST) data set. It is a blended SST file of buoy, ship, Argo, and satellite observations.