Economics Commons^™

Investing In America's Workforce 2017, Brad J. Hershbein

Brad J. Hershbein

From the Day 3 Plenary Lunch of the Fed's Capstone Conference in Austin, TX -- Expanding the Capacity to Invest: Policy, Transparency and Accountability. Investments for workforce development require a foundation of institutional supports that will ensure accountability. This panel, representing diverse perspectives from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, explored the institutions, policies and norms needed to establish, reinforce and facilitate new and increased investments.

Bank Lending Channel Effectiveness And Loan Sales In The Us, Sharmila K. King, Michael R. Jonas

Sharmila K. King

This paper examines whether banks that sell loans in the secondary market respond differently to a monetary policy innovation from those that do not engage in loan sales. We answer this question by measuring the policy response while controlling for loan sales activities. Using a simple theoretical model and U.S. bank-level Call Report longitudinal data for the period 1991Q1-2008 Q4, we conduct a dynamic panel regression analysis. We find that the long-run response to a typical policy shock is three times greater for mid-size banks engaging in loan sales. Given the increase in proportion of banks engaging in loan sales, …

Identifying Entrepreneur Characteristics And Attributes In Relation To Small And Medium Sized Enterprises In A Regional Context: A Case Study Of The Greater Illawarra Region, Amir Arjomandi, Scott Burrows, Charles Harvie

Amir Arjomandi

What Do Economists Really Think Of Bernie?, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

How Movie References Can Make Teaching Theories More Accessible, Lukas K. Danner

Dr. Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

Opec, The Seven Sisters, And Oil Market Dominance: An Evolutionary Game Theory And Agent-Based Modeling Approach, Aaron Wood, Charles F. Mason, David C. Finnoff

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

Price Discontinuities In The Market For Rins, Charles F. Mason, Neil A. Wilmot

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

From Bards To Search Engines: Finding What Readers Want From Ancient Times To The World Wide Web, Stephen Maurer

Stephen M. Maurer

Copyright theorists often ask how incentives can be designed to create better books, movies, and art. But this is not the whole story. As the Roman satirist Martial pointed out two thousand years ago, markets routinely ignore good and even excellent works. The insight reminds us that incentives to find content are just as necessary as incentives to make it. Recent social science research explains why markets fail and how timely interventions can save deserving titles from oblivion. This article reviews society’s long struggle to fix the vagaries of search since the invention of literature. We build on this history …

On The Strategic Use Of Border Tax Adjustments As A Second-Best Climate Policy Measure, Charles F. Mason, Edward B. Barbier, Victoria Umanskaya

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

Women Managers And The Gender-Based Gap In Access To Education: Evidence From Firm-Level Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

A number of studies explore the differences in men and women’s labor market participation rates and wages. Some of these differences have been linked to gender disparities in education attainment and access. The present paper contributes to this literature by analyzing the relationship between the proclivity of a firm having a top woman manager and access to education among women relative to men in the country. We combine the literature on women’s careers in management, which has mostly focused on developed countries, with the development literature that has emphasized the importance of access to education. Using firm-level data for 73 …

Are Large Informal Firms More Productive Than The Small Informal Firms? Evidence From Firm-Level Surveys In Africa, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

Using data for over 500 informal or unregistered firms in seven countries in Africa, this study explores how labor productivity varies between small and large informal firms. We find robust evidence that small informal firms have higher labor productivity than large informal firms. Thus, even though poor performance of informal firms is typically attributed to their small size vis-à-vis registered or formal sector firms, incremental increases in the size of informal firms does not necessarily imply a narrowing of the formal-informal firm productivity gap.

Review: Halper, Stefan A. Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism In Our Time. New York, Ny: Basic Books, [2010] 2012. 336 Pp., Lukas K. Danner

Dr. Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

The Time Cost Of Documents To Trade, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

The paper shows that the number of documents required to export and import tend to increase the time cost of shipments. However, this relationship is far from simplistic, varying sharply in magnitude depending on the income level and the size of the country. Specifically, the increase in the time cost of increased documentation is much larger for countries that are relatively poor and large in size. One interpretation of this finding is that the relatively rich countries that have more resources and the relatively small countries that rely more on trade invest more in building efficient documentation systems. Hence, increased …

Online Appendix For: Does Mandating Non-Discrimination In Hiring Practices Influence Women’S Employment? Evidence Using Firm-Level Data, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

This is the online Appendix for the paper titled "Does Mandating Non-discrimination in Hiring Practices Influence Women’s Employment? Evidence Using Firm-level Data" that is forthcoming in Feminist Economics.

Some Matlab Routines To Compute Crps And Quantile Weighted Ps, Michael S. Smith

Michael Stanley Smith

Three routines to compute the CRPS of Gneiting and Raftery (JASA 2007) and the quantile weighted probability score (QWPS) extension in Gneiting and Ranjan (JBES, 2011). They are based on numerical integration as discussed in the Appendix of Smith and Vahey (2015), and I have found them to be much more accurate than using Monte Carlo approximation to the difference of two expectations, as advocated in Panagiotelis and Smith (IJF, 2008).

Pipeline Congestion And Basis Differentials, Matthew E. Oliver, Charles F. Mason, David C. Finnoff

Charles F Mason

No abstract provided.

Female Vs. Male Top Manager Of Private Firms In Developing Countries: Implications For Country And Firm Characteristics, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Gender disparity in various economic dimensions has prompted policy measures aimed at providing greater employment opportunities for women. However, greater employment may not solve the problem much if this is concentrated in low paying and vulnerable jobs such as jobs in informal sector. Hence, it becomes important to understand how women vs. men compare in high paying formal sector jobs such as top managers of private firms. Using data on private firms in 86 developing countries, this paper analyzes how firms with female vs. male managers differ in their structure and performance. Relationship between various country characteristics and the proportion …

The Relevance Of Firm-Size In The Informal Sector: Evidence From Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using newly collected on informal firms in 11 countries in Africa, we explore whether firm-size matters at all for the structure, conduct and performance of the firms. While firm-size is known to be an important attribute of the firms in the formal sector, it is not obvious what the relevance of firm-size is for the informal sector. Informal firms are small, many of them run alone by the owner, and have limited variation in size. Notwithstanding the limited variation in firm-size, our results show that firm-size is highly correlated with a number of firm characteristics such as job growth, labor …

Use Of Foreign Intermediate Inputs In Developing Countries: Determinants And Effects (Short Note), Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam, Po Yin Wong

Mohammad Amin

Theory suggests a number of channels through which use of foreign inputs could contribute to overall economic development and firm performance. However, empirical work on the use of foreign inputs, its determinants and effects is lacking. Using firm-level data from Enterprise Surveys on developing countries, this note highlights the extent to which firms rely on foreign inputs, how the reliance varies with country and firm characteristics and the impact of foreign inputs on firm productivity. Results show that the use of foreign inputs is common among private firms and especially so among the relatively large firms and firms in countries …

Review: Yueh, Linda. China’S Growth: The Making Of An Economic Superpower. New York, Ny: Oxford University Press, 2013. 384 Pp., Lukas K. Danner

Dr. Lukas K. Danner

No abstract provided.

Monetary Intervention Really Did Mitigate Banking Panics During The Great Depression: Evidence Along The Atlanta Federal Reserve District Border, Andrew Jalil

Andrew Jalil

This paper argues that monetary intervention alleviated banking panics during the early stages of the Great Depression. Throughout the course of the depression, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta aggressively intervened to stabilize its banking system. To assess the effectiveness of these policies, I analyze the performance of banks along counties straddling the border of the Atlanta Federal Reserve District. My results indicate that expansionary initiatives designed to inject liquidity into the banking system reduced the incidence of bank suspensions by 32 to 48% in some regions. Moreover, an analysis of the balance sheets of individual Federal Reserve Districts suggests …

The Rise Of The Megacorporation, Richard Adelstein

Richard Adelstein

Welcome To The Amazon: Leading Online Retail From Local Tax Avoidance Into Your Backyard, Sherry Tehrani

Sherry Tehrani

Online sales in the United States have increased by over 250 percent in the last ten years, reaching over 250 billion dollars in 2012.[1] Spearheaded by Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”), online retailers have fed off their competitive advantage of avoiding local sales tax, and have grown to capture roughly 7 percent of the retail market.[2] The juxtaposition of this upsurge of untaxed online sales and our nationwide recession has prompted state governments with crushing deficits to take on the tax loophole.

Local governments across the U.S. have passed legislation to enforce online sales tax collection, referred to as “Amazon …

No Longer The Sleeping Dog, The Fcpa Is Awake And Ready To Bite: Analysis Of The Increased Fcpa Enforcements, The Implications, And Recommendations For Reform, Rouzhna Nayeri

Rouzhna Nayeri

No abstract provided.

The Relevance Of Firm-Size For The Informal Sector, Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Using newly collected on informal firms in 11 countries in Africa, we explore whether firm-size matters at all for the structure, conduct and performance of the firms. While firm-size is known to be an important attribute of the firms in the formal sector, it is not obvious what the relevance of firm-size is for the informal sector. Informal firms are small, many of them run alone by the owner, and have limited variation in size. Notwithstanding the limited variation in firm-size, our results show that firm-size is highly correlated with a number of firm characteristics such as job growth, labor …

Imports Of Intermediate Inputs And Country Size, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

The present paper analyzes the relationship between country size and the use of imported intermediate inputs by firms in 76 developing countries. Recent evidence indicates that the use of imported inputs can have a large positive effect on productivity and growth thus motivating a better understanding of the determinants of imported inputs. Our results confirm that relative to large countries, firms in small countries are both likely to use more imported inputs and a larger share of imported inputs in their total inputs. Interestingly, adjusting for the mean level of imports of inputs and exports of goods in our sample, …

Gender Based Differences In Managerial Experience: The Case Of Informal Firms In Rwanda, Mohammad Amin, Khrystyna Kushnir

Mohammad Amin

The paper contributes to the literature on gender-based disparity in human capital by extending existing results on educational attainment to the number of years of experience that female vs. male managers have among informal or unregistered firms. Using the case of Rwanda, results show that the number of years of experience for female managers is significantly lower equaling 80-88 percent of their male counterparts. We also find that this gender disparity is higher among the relatively older managers and among firms in the relatively less developed city of Butare compared with the more developed city of Kigali.

Do Retail Firms Favor Female Managers? Evidence From Survey Data In Developing Countries, Mohammad Amin, Asif Islam

Mohammad Amin

Using firm-level data for 87 developing countries, the paper analyzes how the likelihood of a firm having female vs. male top manager varies across sectors. The service sector is often considered to be more favorable towards women compared with men vis-à-vis the manufacturing sector. While our results confirm a significantly higher presence of female managers in services vs. manufacturing, the result is entirely driven by the retail firms with little contribution from other service sectors such as wholesale, construction and other services. We also find that the higher presence of female managers in the retail sector vs. manufacturing is much …

New Establishment Dynamics: Business Formation And Survival Trends In Ohio, Afia Yamoah, Ziona Austrian, Joel A. Elvery

Ziona Austrian

The Ohio New Establishments Dynamics data (O-NED) is a new data set, developed by the College and Center. O-NED tracks employment and number of establishments for establishments that first started employing people between the 2nd quarter of 1997 and the 1st quarter of 2008. The report “New Establishment Dynamics: Business Formation and Survival Trends in Ohio” summarizes how trends in employment growth and establishment survivorship differ across sectors of the economy and various regions of Ohio. This new data set allows us to analyze the number of establishments born in a specific year called “birth cohort” and document their survival …

A Guide To Economic Development Practice, Ziona Austrian, Jill S. Taylor

Ziona Austrian

No abstract provided.