Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Inflationary Dynamics In Guatemala, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Miguel Martinez, Wm. Doyle Smith, Adam G. Walke

Departmental Papers (E & F)

Short-run price dynamics for Guatemala are analyzed using a linear transfer function methodology. This approach has previously been employed for other national economies such as the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, and Nigeria. The data for this study range from 1960 to 2010. Inflation is measured using the consumer price index. Explanatory variables include the monetary base, real output, interest rates, and the exchange rate. All of the estimated coefficients exhibit the arithmetic signs hypothesized by the theoretical model. Almost all of the parameter estimates satisfy the 5-percent significance criterion and all exhibit economically plausible magnitudes. Estimation results indicate that …

Latinos Throughout The City: A Snapshot Of Socio-Demographic Differences In Omaha, Nebraska, Jasney Cogua-Lopez, Lissette Aliaga-Linares, Lourdes Gouveia

Latino/Latin American Studies Reports

Researchers from OLLAS have released a new report detailing the demographic makeup of Latinos throughout Omaha. This is the first detailed analysis of the trends of Latinos living in various parts of the entire city. It confirms and challenges generalizations that are frequently made about this population in Omaha.

The report chronicles the dispersion of Latinos throughout the city and their increasing diversity. This publication highlights that geographic location is predictably tied to socioeconomic conditions. The farther west in the city Latinos live, the more advantaged they are. This pattern also holds true for indicators such as educational attainment, income …

Borderplex Economic Outlook To 2017, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr.

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

The Production And Stock Of College Graduates For U.S. States, John V. Winters

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

The stock of human capital in an area is important for regional economic growth and development. However, highly educated workers are often quite mobile, and there is a concern that public investments in college graduates may not benefit the state if the college graduates leave the state after finishing their education. This paper examines the relationship between the production of college graduates from a state and the stock of college graduates residing in the state using microdata from the decennial census and American Community Survey. The relationship is examined across states and across cohorts within states. The descriptive analysis suggests …

Farmland Use Decisions In The Dakota's: Key Results From The 2015 Producer Survey, Larry Janssen, Moses Luri, Md. Chowdhury, Hongli Feng, David Hennessy

Economics Commentator

This newsletter is written to summarize the major findings from the 2015 survey on farmland use decisions in the Dakotas which was completed by 1,026 producers located across 57 counties in South Dakota and North Dakota. We wish to thank each person that completed this survey in March or April of 2015. We are sending this newsletter to their household as our “thank you” for participating. The key findings should be of general interest to a wider audience and the following content is written for this purpose.

Estimating The Economic Impact Of The Construction And Operation Of The Plains And Eastern Clean Line Project, Katherine A. Deck, Mervin Jebaraj

Publications and Presentations

Clean Line Energy Partners LLC (Clean Line) is proposing to build the Plains & Eastern Clean Line project, an approximately 700-mile, high voltage direct current transmission line and associated facilities with the capacity to deliver 4,000 megawatts (MW) of wind power from the Oklahoma Panhandle region to utilities and customers in Arkansas, Tennessee, and other markets in the Mid-South and Southeast, areas that lack access to low-cost renewable power. The project will deliver enough energy to power more than one million homes annually in the MidSouth and Southeastern United States.

Migration And Housing Price Effects Of Place-Based College Scholarships, Timothy J. Bartik, Nathan Sotherland

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Place-based college scholarships, such as the Kalamazoo Promise, provide students who live in a particular place, and/or who attend a particular school district, with generous college scholarships. An important potential benefit from such “Promise programs” is their short-term effects on local economic development. Generous Promise scholarships provide an incentive for families to locate in a particular place, which may change migration patterns, and potentially boost local employment and housing prices. Using data from the American Community Survey, this paper estimates the average effects of eight relatively generous Promise programs on migration rates and housing prices in their local labor market. …

Lca Methodologies An Annotated Bibliography, Xueting Zhao

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Jobless Capital? The Role Of Capital Subsidies, Carlianne E. Patrick

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Using tax abatements, financial incentives, and public investments to attract (or retain) firms is the primary economic development tool for many local governments. Often local job creation policies focus on increasing capital through grants, low-interest financing, and other economic development incentives. Theory predicts that capital subsidies induce firm behaviors that limit their job creation effects. This paper employs the Incentives Environment Index, constructed from state constitutional provisions that limit and structure the ability of state and local governmental entities to aid private enterprises, and five-year county panels to test theoretical predictions on county capital expenditure and input mixes as well …

Cuba's Agricultural Transformations, Armando Nova Gonzalez, Mario A. Gonzalez-Corzo

Publications and Research

The Cuban government has implemented a series of agricultural transformations since 2007 to increase the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency and reduce its dependency on food imports. These include the transfer (in usufruct) of State-owned land to non-State producers (e.g. cooperatives and private farmers), moderate price reforms, the decentralization of decision making, and the gradual relaxation of existing forms of agricultural commercialization. As a result of these measures, the area planted, as well as physical output and agricultural yields (in selected non-sugar crop categories) have shown mixed results, but still remain below desired levels. There are three (3) fundamental unresolved aspects that …

Price Discovery And Local Information In Cattle On Feed Reports, Matthew Diersen, Scott Fausti

Economics Commentator

No abstract provided.

Foundations Of The Wvu Econometric Input-Output Model, Randall Jackson, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Climate And Energy: Opinions Of Nonmetropolitan Nebraskans 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Tonya Haigh

Nebraska Rural Poll

Many rural Nebraskans are concerned about more severe droughts or longer dry periods in their area, insect-borne diseases like West Nile Virus, and more extreme summer temperatures in their area. Fewer rural Nebraskans are concerned about the availability of water for their community or home or more frequent extreme rains or floods. Residents of the North Central region are more likely than residents of other regions of the state to be concerned about more severe droughts or longer dry periods in their area.

Few rural Nebraskans reported their household experiencing health problems during the drought of 2012. However, many persons …

Central Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Report - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Central Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Moderate economic growth in the Central Minnesota planning area is projected over the next several months according to predictions of the Central Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). After experiencing some weakness in the first part of the year, four of the five components of the LEI turned positive in the second quarter. The only negative component of the LEI is St. Cloud area residential building permits, which appear to have been underreported on the Bureau of the Census website over the past several months. Consequently, the Central Minnesota outlook is stronger than a pure reading of the LEI …

Northeast Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Report - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Northeast Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Business conditions in Northeast Minnesota are expected to improve over the next several months according to the predictions of the Northeast Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). Four of the five components of the LEI increased in this year’s second quarter as the overall index rose by 8.22 points. After being in negative territory for the previous two quarters, this quarter’s positive LEI reading is a welcome sign of future improvement in the Northeast Minnesota economy. A recent rise in initial jobless claims in the region was the only drag on the LEI in the second quarter. A rise …

Northwest Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Report - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Northwest Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Northwest Minnesota business conditions are expected to improve over the next several months according to the predictions of the St. Cloud State University (SCSU) Northwest Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). A stronger macroeconomic environment for rural America and rising consumer sentiment have contributed to a 2.06 point increase in the LEI. After two consecutive quarters of decline in the LEI, the Northwest Minnesota economy seems likely to grow more rapidly over the next several months. However, this part of the state is particularly vulnerable to weakness in the agriculture and energy sectors of the economy, so outside factors …

Southeast Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Reports - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Southeast Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Southeast Minnesota business conditions are expected to improve over the next several months according to the most recent prediction of the Southeast Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). All five LEI components were positive in the second quarter of 2015 as the index rose 9.88 points after recording a negative reading in this year’s first quarter. However, the LEI is still 4.8 percent lower than one year ago. A reduction in Southeast Minnesota initial jobless claims, recent improvement in the Minnesota Business Conditions Index (which serves as a general measure of state business conditions), higher new business filings, a …

Southwest Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Report - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Southwest Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Southwest Minnesota business conditions are expected to be steady over the next several months according to the predictions of the St. Cloud State University (SCSU) Southwest Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). An increase in Mankato area residential building permits in the first part of the year and an improvement in the rural outlook made positive contributions to the LEI in the second quarter. Higher initial jobless claims earlier in the year had a negative impact on the index. Also contributing unfavorably to this quarter’s LEI was weaker new business filings earlier this year. The LEI for the second …

Twin Cities Area Economic And Business Conditions Report - Second Quarter 2015, Richard A. Macdonald, King Banaian

Twin Cities Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

The Twin Cities economy is expected to experience stronger growth over the next several months according to the prediction of the Twin Cities Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). The Twin Cities LEI rose by 3.40 points in this year’s second quarter as three of the five index components increased. The LEI is now 6.2 percent below its level of one year ago. Accounting for the increase in the index are higher residential building permits in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), a rise in new business filings, and recent improvement in a general measure of statewide business conditions. …

Perspectives On Community Life In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy

Nebraska Rural Poll

By many different measures, rural Nebraskans are positive about their community. Many rural Nebraskans rate their community as friendly, trusting, and supportive. Most rural Nebraskans also say it would be difficult to leave their community. In addition, most rural Nebraskans disagree that their community is powerless to control its future.

However, the proportion of rural Nebraskans satisfied with many social services and entertainment services has decreased across all nineteen years of the study. Declines in satisfaction levels across all 19 years are seen with nursing home care, medical care services, senior centers, mental health services, entertainment, retail shopping and restaurants. …

Economic Impact Of The Dairy Industy In South Dakota, Gary Taylor

Economics Commentator

No abstract provided.

Object-Oriented Interindustry Systems: Proof Of Concept, Péter Járosi, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document provides a proof-of-concept demonstration of an object-oriented approach to modeling an inter-industry system. The example framework uses a small CGE model based on a three-sector social accounting matrix (SAM). The economy is shocked by changing total factor of productivity in the production function, the new equilibrium is determined in classical CGE fashion, and the original SAM is updated to conform to the new equilibrium solution. In this way, the efficiency of the Object-oriented modeling (OOM) approach can be emphasized in the context of the computational simulations of interindustry systems by a simplified CGE example written in Python. Since …

Impact Evaluation Of Investments In The Appalachian Region: A Reappraisal, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez, Gianfranco Piras, Donald J. Lacombe, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

We evaluate the impact of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s investments on its members counties over almost fifty years. We apply different propensity score methods to find the most appropriate matching and to identify the effect of policy implementation in the most accurate way possible.

The general evidence is that counties that received ARC funding had higher per-capita income growth compared to the control counties. Per-capita income growth rate in ARC counties grew an average of 5.5 percent over the entire study time period compared to the control counties. Employment grew significantly faster in ARC counties compared to the control counties …

Agriculture's Role In The South Dakota Economy, Tyler Holmquist, Matthew Diersen

Economics Commentator

No abstract provided.

Engagement In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska: Civic And Political Participation And Views Of Community Leadership: 2015 Nebraska Rural Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph L. Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans have participated in community involvement activities but they have not been as involved in some political activities. However, most rural Nebraskans have spoken with their pocketbooks on political and social issues by either buying or boycotting products because of the social and political values of the company providing them. And, many rural Nebraskans have signed a written petition about a political or social issue and have contacted a local public official to express their opinion.

Certain groups are more likely than others to have participated in community and political involvement activities. While younger persons are more likely …

Matlab And Python Functions For Weighted Disaggregation, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This technical document describes a weighted disaggregation problem and provides the code for a function in MATLAB and Python to perform such disaggregation.

Looking Behind The Scenes: An Assessment Of The Interdependence Of Brazilian Cultural Industries, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Fernando Perobelli, Alexandre Rabelo

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

How important is Brazil’s cultural industries to its economy? We provide an answer to this question by evaluating the interdependence of the cultural activities in the Brazilian production structure and its evolution over the last few years (2005 – 2009). To accomplish this, we disaggregate 13 cultural economic industries in the Brazilian input-output table and calculate several indexes, such as, the production multiplier, linkage indexes, fields of influence and extraction analysis. Results show that the only cultural sector with high links to other sectors in the production structure is Telecommunication, edition and news agencies and that this sector provides the …

European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (Esfrc) (2015) : Escalating Crisis In The Eurozone: The Case For Conditional Debt Relief For Greece (Statement No. 40), David Veredas, Niels Thygesen, Tom Berglund, Reinhard H. Schmidt, Franco Bruni, Harald Benink, Kern Alexander, Santiago Carbo-Valverde, Rosa Lastra, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In this statement the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) is advocating a conditional relief of Greek's government debt based on Greece meeting certain targets for structural economic reforms in areas such as its labor market and pensions sector. The authors argue that the position of the European institutions that debt relief for Greece cannot be part of an agreement is based on the illusion that Greece will be able to service its sovereign debt and reduce its debt overhang after implementing a set of fiscal and structural reforms. However, the Greek economy would need to grow at an unrealistic …

Quasi-Experimental Methods An Annotated Bibliography, Mulugeta Kahsai, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

No abstract provided.

Central Minnesota Economic And Business Conditions Report - First Quarter 2015, King Banaian, Richard A. Macdonald

Central Minnesota Economic and Business Conditions Report

Central Minnesota business conditions are expected to soften over the next several months according to predictions of the Central Minnesota Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI). Four of the five components of the LEI turned negative in the first quarter with recent weakness in the St.Cloud area building permits driving the projected softening of the regional economy. Also causing a drag on the LEI is recent weakness in a general measure of state business conditions, higher initial jobless claims, and lower new business filing for incorporation at the end of last year. A fifth indicator--national durable goods orders--were largely neutral …