Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

2019-2020 Annual Report, Caroline L. Osborne

Law Library Annual Reports and Assessments

No abstract provided.

Credit Cards, Credit Utilization, And Consumption, Scott Fulford, Scott Schuh

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Credit bureau data show remarkably stable consumer utilization of unsecured debt over the business cycle, life cycle, and individually quarter-to-quarter, despite massive variation in available credit. To explain these new findings, we propose a life-cycle consumption model with heterogeneous preferences, endogenous payment choice, and the option to revolve debt for consumption smoothing. Using diary data to identify payment use, the estimated model matches consumption and credit use at every frequency and suggests that around half the population has an endogenously high marginal propensity to consume. The results suggest understanding credit availability and heterogeneous use may lead to richer counter-cyclical policies.

Revolving Versus Convenience Use Of Credit Cards: Evidence From U.S. Credit Bureau Data, Scott Fulford, Scott Schuh

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Credit card payments and revolving debt are important for consumer theory but a key data source — credit bureau records — does not distinguish between current charges and revolving debt from the previous month. We develop a theory-based econometric methodology informed by survey evidence to estimate the likelihood a consumer is revolving each quarter. We validate our approach using a new survey linked to credit bureau data. For likely revolvers: (1) 100 percent of an increase in credit becomes an increase in debt eventually; (2) credit limit changes are half as salient as debt changes; and (3) revolving status is …

The Eastern Panhandle Economic Outlook: 2021-2025, Brian Lego, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle (EPH) has ranked as the state’s strongest economic region for a decade, with employment and other major indicators pointing to underlying strength in the EPH economy compared to West Virginia. The COVID-19 pandemic has hurt the EPH’s economy and will weigh on growth over the next few months, but the area should snap back by late-2021. In this report, we present a detailed discussion of the current state of the EPH economy along with our forecast for the likely path of economic activity over the next five years.

Identifying Industrial Clusters For Targeted Economic Development In West Virginia, Eric Bowen, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

In this report, we identify the industry clusters that are present in West Virginia’s metropolitan regions and provide tools to assess the most promising clusters for economic development targeting. This type of cluster analysis has become an important way for regions to understand their local economic structure and more effectively develop strategies to promote economic growth.

North Central West Virginia Economic Outlook 2021-2025, Brian Lego, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

North Central West Virginia has been one of the state’s strongest and steadiest economic regions for the past decade or so. The four-county area did lose some jobs during 2019, but those losses were tied to court-ordered delays of pipeline construction projects and layoffs at a large manufacturer rather than a deterioration in the area’s underlying economic fundamentals. Despite the region’s solid economic foundation, the COVID-19 pandemic did strike a major blow to the region’s economy in early-2020 and continues to affect the area to this day. In this report, we present a detailed discussion of North Central West Virginia’s …

Walking Away From The "Big Deal": Where We Are One Year After Crossing That Bridge, Susan Arnold

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background:

Budgetary constraints at West Virginia University (WVU) in combination with impending expiration/renewal of “big deal” contracts resulted in the unbundling of three major journal packages between 2017-2019: Wiley, Elsevier Science Direct, and Springer. Unbundling these packages saved the library system a total of $1,441,450. This poster will describe longer-term results of these decisions and how we have continued to adapt to improve access to journals for our research community.

Methods:

Since the unbundling, the WVU Libraries’ Collections Advisory Committee has closely monitored ILL usage and costs for canceled titles, as well as faculty complaints and requests. An interactive session …

Commodities Are Not Industries! A Value Chain Example, Randall W. Jackson, Patricio Aroca

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Leontief and Stone both received Nobel Prizes in Economics for development and extension of input-output (IO) analysis, a framework that has gained little traction in mainstream U.S. economics. Although IO modeling has gained renewed focus in several problem domains, many contemporary economists eschew Stone's enhancements, resulting in inconsistent analytics, even in top economics journals. In this paper, we use an increasingly common approach to value chain analysis as one example that demonstrates such conceptual misunderstandings and by presenting properly formulated alternatives, we demonstrate the extent of the consequences of neglecting the Stone enhancements and important role of reproducing results.

The Political Economy Of Vermont’S Abortion Bill, Shishir Shakya, Elham Erfanian, Alexandre R. Scarcioffolo

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Public choice literature divides the rationality of voting between instrumental and expressive. In this paper, we take the Vermont legislature in passing the H. 57 bill as a case to explain some of the determinants of expressive voting empirically. The H.57 bill declares that no government entity can interfere with, or restrict, a consenting individual’s right to abortion care across the entire gestation period. However, the bill has not changed the previously states quo of the state towards abortion rights. Thus, it creates a situation in which we can analyze the legislator’s voting behavior through the lens of expressive voting …

Extending The Macroeconomic Impacts Forecasting Capabilities Of The National Energy Modeling System, Christa D. Court, Randall W. Jackson, Justin Adder, Gavin Pickenpaugh, Charles Zelek, Amanda J. Harker Steele

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

To comprehensively model the macroeconomic impacts that result from changes in long-term energy-economy forecasts, the United States Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) partnered with West Virginia University’s (WVU) Regional Research Institute to develop the NETL/WVU econometric input-output (ECIO) model. The NETL/WVU ECIO model is an impacts forecasting model that functions as an extension of the U.S. energy-economic models available from the United States (U.S.) Energy Information Administration’s National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Market Allocation (MARKAL) model. The ECIO model integrates a macroeconomic econometric forecasting model and an input-output accounting framework along …

Wheeling Area Economic Outlook: 2021-2025, Brian Lego, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

The Wheeling Area economy has seen large swings in economic activity over the past several years. Surging energy production and massive increases in pipeline construction activity fueled strong economic growth during 2017 and 2018. By contrast, the completion of pipeline projects and two large hospital closures weighed on area payrolls in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic dealt the regional economy a major blow in early-2020. In this report, we present a detailed discussion of the Wheeling Area economy along with our forecast for regional economic conditions for the next five years.

Ex Libris, Fall 2020, West Virginia University Libraries

Ex Libris: The WVU Libraries Magazine

KEEPING EVERYTHING MOVING FORWARD The Libraries helped the University community continue their academic journey and research pursuits during the pandemic.; ACHIEVING SUFFRAGE One hundred years ago, West Virginia legislators met at the State Capitol in Charleston to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which extended voting rights to women; WVRHC RECEIVES FIFTH NEH GRANT TO DIGITIZE HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS So far, the WVRHC has digitized more than 400,000 pages from more than 60 historical West Virginia newspapers.

Research Discipline Skeletons: The Librarian’S Bridge To Subject Knowledge, Jenn Monnin

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Purpose: In this project, a structured research discipline skeleton was created and applied with the intent to help librarians create an introductory knowledge of how to research in a discipline in which they have no formal training.

Brief Description: A working research discipline skeleton was created as part of the librarian’s MLIS practicum in 2017, and was put into practice when the librarian entered the health science librarianship profession two years later. This skeleton was created through a multidisciplinary lens, and included broad categories for gathering relevant information all in one place, with the intention to update the document as …

The Health Sciences And Technology Academy (Hsta): Providing 26 Years Of Academic And Social Support To Appalachian Youth In West Virginia, Ann Chester, Sherron Mckendall, Alan Mckendall, Michael Mann, Alfgeir Kristjansson, Robert Branch, Bethany Hornbeck, Catherine Morton, Summer Kuhn, Feon Smith Branch, Charlene Barnes-Rowland

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The Health Sciences and Technology Academy’s, (HSTA) goals are to increase college attendance of African American, financially disadvantaged, first generation college and rural Appalachian youth and increase health-care providers and STEM professionals in underserved communities. Students enter in the 9th grade and remain in HSTA four years. They engage in a rigorous academic program within the nurturing environment of small after-school clubs punctuated by yearly summer camps on multiple college campuses. A distinctive piece of HSTA is its students’ development of research projects under the mentorship of teachers and researchers that examine and address health issues faced by their communities. …

Consistent Regional Commodity-By-Industry Input-Output Accounts, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

A long-standing regional science problem domain focuses on the identification of structural economic change. One of several approaches relies on the use of historical final demand series and a comparison of observed industry output to an estimate of what output would have been were economic structure static. However, these methods were first developed before the introduction of today’s commonly used commodity-by-industry (CxI)input-output (IO) accounting frameworks, and before the application of these methods to regional economies. Correctly formulating the supporting accounting structures for these analyses is essential, but can be challenging even for experienced an- alysts. Related textbook and journal articles …

Enhancing Our Understanding Of A Regional Economy: The Complementarity Of Cge And Eio Models, Andrew Crawley, Geoffrey J.D. Hewings

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Economic impact models are powerful tools for the assessment of policy changes in regional economies. Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have grown in popularity, becoming the dominant choice of practitioners and academics in this field. This popularity has been at the expense of an older class of model, the Econometric Input Output (EIO). The present paper demonstrates how both models, using the same input data, may yield different outcomes. However, the paper suggests that EIO has been underutilized even though it provides a strong complementary tool accompany that enhance analyses using a CGE approach. This paper urges regional economists to …

Undefeated - Women Still Don't Have Equal Rights (Or = Pay) Exhibit Panel, Sally Brown

Undefeated Exhibit Panels

Undefeated - Women Still Don't have Equal Rights (Or = Pay) poster

History of Equal Rights Amendments for Women.

Undefeated - Era And Blm Fold-Out Circles Exhibit Panels, Sally Brown

Undefeated Exhibit Panels

undefeated - ERA and BLM Fold-out Circles posters

Equal RIghts Amendment and Black Lives Matter descriptions

Interstate Protectionism: The Case Of Solar Renewable Energy Credits, Jed J. Cohen, Levan Elbakidze, Randall Jackson

The Nature Conservancy

Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SRECs) are financial instruments created by state policies to offer incentives for generating solar energy. In an effort to support in-state solar energy sectors and boost local employment opportunities, some states have closed off their SREC markets to out-of-state solar facilities. We examine the merits of such protectionist policy from the protectionist states perspective. We find that SREC market closure leads to higher in-state SREC prices, greater solar installation, and lower electricity prices. The study illustrates the economic incentives for protecting in-state SREC markets from out-of-state solar energy producers.

Shift-Share Analysis: Alabama, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Peter Jarosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: Ohio, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: New York, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: North Carolina, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: South Carolina, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: Maryland, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five p arts o f An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of …

Shift-Share Analysis: Mississippi, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: Georgia, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: Pennsylvania, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts of An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further impact. …

Shift-Share Analysis: Kentucky, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five p arts o f An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of …

Shift-Share Analysis: Tennessee, 2005 - 2018, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi

Shift Share Analyses

In County-level CIE Supply Chain Analysis, the second of five parts o f An Economic Analysis of the Appalachian Coal Industry Ecosystem posted to the Commission’s website in January of 2018, we developed a set of metrics that were used to provide insights on the past and future supply chain implications of long-term coal industry decline in Appalachia.[1] These metrics were used to identify counties that have been heavily impacted by the decline of the coal industry, those that remain dependent on the coal industry ecosystem (CIE), and among the dependent counties, those that are at greatest risk of further …