International Economics Commons^™

Essays On Inequality And Macroeconomic Stability, Thomas Hauner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters. . .

Chapter 1: Aggregate Wealth and Its Distribution as Determinants of Financial Crises: Panel Evidence This essay investigates the relationship between wealth inequality and financial crises across a panel of nine advanced economies over the past 100 years. While substantiation of a role for income inequality is ambiguous in the literature, evidence is presented suggesting a unique capacity for the accumulation of assets to increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis episode. Testing long-run panel data with a reduced form, two-way fixed effects model, estimates suggest that increasing wealth inequality, in an …

Essays On The Impact Of Exchange Rate Movements On Stock Return And Country Output, Junnan Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exchange rate movements are widely believed to be a major source of uncertainty at both micro- and macro-economic levels. At the microeconomic level, corporate managers controlling risk and investors seeking to hedge their portfolios are both obviously interested in estimates of a firm’s exchange rate exposure ̶ i.e., how much of the value of a firm will be affected by exchange rate movements. At the macroeconomic level, a currency appreciation may have a contractionary effect on a country's output.

Chapter 1 tests whether the launch of the euro around 1999 significantly reduced stock market volatility and exchange rate risk exposure …

Considerations For Mexican Immigration Policy Reform: How Motivations To Migrate Align With U.S. And Mexican Macroeconomic Conditions, Alix Naugler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The nationalistic rhetoric adopted by the newly-elected president’s administration along with the public’s climaxing anti-immigrant hysteria has recently forced Mexican immigration intervention to the top of the U.S. agenda. Misconceptions regarding Mexicans’ role in stealing jobs, threatening cultural and ethnic traditions, and straining public welfare, educational, and healthcare resources have spurred a fear among the American people. This politically-fabricated “schizophrenia” has ceased the political and economic collaboration between the two nations and has resulted in the unilateral militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border. In this evaluation of the U.S. government’s immigration policies, the proposed economic theories related to Mexicans’ motivations in …

Economic Forecasting With Many Predictors, Fanning Meng

Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation is focused on the analysis of economic forecasting with a large number of predictors.

The first chapter develops a novel forecasting method that minimizes the effects of weak predictors and estimation errors on the accuracy of equity premium forecasts. The proposed method is based on an averaging scheme applied to quantiles conditional on predictors selected by LASSO. The resulting forecasts outperform the historical average, and other existing models, by statistically and economically meaningful margins.

In the second chapter, we find that incorporating distributional and high-frequency information into a forecasting model can produce substantial accuracy gains. Distributional information is …

An Inquiry Into The Effect Of The 2014 Russian Sanctions On European Gasoline Markets, Eric S. Peters

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Twin Crises And The Financial Accelerator, Andrew Calabrese

Senior Theses and Projects

The incidence of simultaneous banking and currency crises is a recurring theme in emerging economies operating under fixed or quasi-fixed exchange rates. This thesis conducts an empirical analysis of the underlying determinants of so called “twin crises” by applying a probit econometric model to a sample of 48 emerging economies during the 1980-2013 period. Current account deficits are found to be a robust driver of twin crises, with vulnerability increasing in the size of the deficit relative to GDP. There is also evidence that real exchange rate appreciation and higher levels of short-term debt relative to reserves increase crisis probability. …

Are Immigrants The Next Great Appliance? The Effects Of Immigration On Female Labor Force Participation, Logan Daniel Callahan

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This paper argues the burgeoning idea that an inflow of low-skilled immigrants into a receiving country can provide benefits for high-skilled native women. In considering the often increased responsibilities held by women in the household, when compared to men, the introduction of immigrants of certain occupations can help ease these responsibilities. A series of regressions explain that the effect is statistically significant, especially when considering low-skilled female immigrants. Policy implications are discussed as well as areas for future research. The paper concludes with a brief secondary theory and discourse on the labor constraints of women.

Modernization Losers, Political Winners: Assessing The Role Of The Declining Position Of Labor In Right-Wing Electoral Successes Across Western Europe, Eva-Marie C. Quinones

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This Senior Project advances the modernization losers thesis, wherein the electoral successes of the far right in Western Europe are attributable to neoliberal fiscal policy, labor market shifts, and the institutional structure of the euro. Building on an existing body of literature that primarily assesses voting behavior through survey research, this paper assesses the relationship between right-wing electoral successes and the socioeconomic status of semi-skilled, blue-collar laborers thought to comprise the core voting base of extreme right parties, by using panel data at the national and provincial levels to answer the question, “To what extent has the declining position of …