Regional Economics Commons^™

U.S. Trade And Investment Restrictions: Laudable But Costly Goals, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo’s recent visit to China resulted in the announcement of a new “export control enforcement information exchange” between the United States and China. The laudable goal is to prevent China from using U.S. technology for military purposes against the United States or our allies. An information exchange may be a way to explain things to each other, but the fact remains that the export controls are indeed in place. China represents large revenue streams for three of the largest US chip producers—about 20% for Nvidia, 60% for Qualcomm, and 20-30% for Intel. If these U.S. companies cannot …

U.S. Trade And Investment Restrictions: Laudable But Costly Goals, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo’s recent visit to China resulted in the announcement of a new “export control enforcement information exchange” between the United States and China. The laudable goal is to prevent China from using U.S. technology for military purposes against the United States or our allies. An information exchange may be a way to explain things to each other, but the fact remains that the export controls are indeed in place. China represents large revenue streams for three of the largest US chip producers—about 20% for Nvidia, 60% for Qualcomm, and 20-30% for Intel. If these U.S. companies cannot …

Higher Education Exports Before And After Covid, John C. Beghin, Byungyul Park

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

Historically, the higher education system in countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developing (OECD), a grouping of advanced economies, and especially in the United States, has been a magnet for foreign students, both graduate and undergraduates. Graduate students tend to be supported by teaching and research assistantships from the hosting university and do not generate direct revenues for the hosting institution. They do contribute to the economy with their productivity in research projects and with their private consumption. In contrast, most undergraduate foreign students pay fees and tuition which are often higher than those paid by local …

Could Information About Honey Fraud Increase Consumers’ Valuation Of Domestic Honey In The Face Of Rising Honey Imports In The U.S. And Eu?, Christopher Gustafson, Antoine Champetier

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

The consumption of honey, which has been sought out by humans for use as food and medicine for thousands of years, has been increasing in recent decades with rising incomes and attention paid to food choices and health. In two decades, honey consumption in the U.S. has risen from 1.2 pound per capita per year to 1.9 in 2021. In the European Union, per capita consumption rose from 1.5 to 2.1 pounds per capita over the same period. While this might appear to be a boon for U.S. and EU beekeepers, honey is a heavily traded product, and imports from …

Can Sanctions End Wars?, E. Wesley F. Peterson

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to extensive economic, financial, trade, and other types of sanctions directed at individual Russians and the Russian economy. Most European and North American countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Korea have enacted sanctions and many of them are also supporting Ukraine with military and economic assistance. Many other countries including China, India, and Brazil do not support the sanctions although 141 countries belonging to the United Nations (out of a total membership of 193) voted to condemn the war. Although the use of economic sanctions to influence the behavior of foreign …

Economic Impacts Of Investment Facilitation, Edward J. Balistreri, Zoryana Olekseyuk

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

After the successful adoption of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in 2014, investment facilitation is gaining importance as the next policy priority for a plurilateral agreement under the World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, more than 110 WTO Members aim to conclude the negotiations on the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) Agreement by mid-2023 after only three years of formal negotiations. Investment facilitation refers to actions taken by governments designed to attract foreign investment and maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of its administration through all stages of the investment cycle. The IFD agreement focuses on allowing investment to flow efficiently …

How’S It Going With The Cptpp?, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

There is no doubt that the United States is losing out on market access. But one of the original goals of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was for a rules-based trading regime in the Pacific, namely rules not written by China. Thanks to Australia and Japan that seems to be happening even with the U.S. no longer at the helm.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership or the awkwardly nicknamed CPTPP is a Pacific trading bloc that consists of 11 countries, spanning the Pacific Rim, and includes Malaysia and Chile. The member countries represent 13% of world GDP. Once the UK …

The Pink Tax: A Comparative Case Study Between Tennessee And Washington State, Megha Chitturi

Baker Scholar Projects

The imposition of an additional luxury tax on menstrual health products, otherwise referred to as the “Pink Tax” or the “Tampon Tax”, is present in some states while absent in others. The decision to repeal such a tax is one that has proven to be critical, as it removes the connotation that such products are of “luxury” and make them more accessible to menstruators throughout the state. As of 2023, twenty-three states have eliminated the tax. The state of Washington falls under that parameter while Tennessee does not. The purpose of this undergraduate honors thesis is to explore the potential …

Competing For Innovation: A Case Study Of Knoxville And Similar Metropolitan Areas, Lucille G. Marret

Baker Scholar Projects

Knoxville competes with other mid-sized metropolitan areas for economic development and business attraction at the national level. Cities such as Greenville, SC, Huntsville, AL, and Ann Arbor, MI have similar resources and attributes to Knoxville, yet they are consistently surpassing Knoxville in business attraction and expansion. It is necessary for policy makers to understand what factors are contributing to underperformance in order to better support Knoxville’s efforts to create an innovation fund. Comparing available assets and access to funding for each MSA reveals that Knoxville has the necessary resources through the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to …

Public Support: A Missing Variable In The Trade Policy Equation, Jill O’Donnell

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

As Canada considers launching free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Ecuador, the government wants to know what Canadians think. Ottawa makes it easy for citizens to weigh in, inviting Canadians to “join the discussion” and submit their “views, reflections and priorities” on the potential FTA through a Global Affairs Canada web page that is clear, inviting, and user-friendly. Under a section titled, “Who should participate?” the first answer given is “individuals.”

Although the Biden administration has been clear that it will not seek new FTA negotiations, taking a page from Canada’s public consultation playbook may be instructive, at least when …

Handwringing Over How To Slice The Pie When Ustr Should Be Focused On Growing It, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) recently released its report on the distributional effects of trade and trade policy on U.S. workers and “underrepresented and underserved communities.” The report catalogs a host of information gathered from a literature review and several roundtables on the adverse effects of U.S. manufacturing imports. But the report’s laser focus on manufacturing imports leaves a huge gap for readers interested in the distributional effects of trade.

Manufacturing imports are an important part of trade, but they aren’t all of trade. Trade is imports and exports, goods and services, inputs and final goods. Trade is manufacturing, …

“Friendshoring,” Ag Markets, North American Integration Among Issues Examined At Yeutter Institute Symposium, Geitner Simmons

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

A Nov. 2, 2022, symposium sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Yeutter Institute brought together experts addressing a wide array of trade matters, including global ag market dynamics, North American economic integration and Asia-Pacific economic diplomacy. Among the key questions discussed:

— What complications arise for efforts to shift trade policy toward “friendshoring”?

— How well has North American economic integration fared in the wake of NAFTA and its successor, the USMCA?

— What factors, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, are currently affecting agricultural markets and global food insecurity?

— What guideposts can best direct U.S. economic diplomacy …

Mountain West States Most Dependent On The Federal Government, 2022, Saha Salahi, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet synthesizes data from the SmartAsset report, “States Most Dependent on the Federal Government – 2022 Edition.” This fact sheet explores federal government dependency for the following Mountain West states: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

With No Deterrent Effect, The Wto Dispute Settlement Crisis Leaves Us Exporters Exposed, Especially Us Agriculture, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

The absence of a functioning Appellate Body at the World Trade Organization (WTO) leaves the dispute settlement mechanism weakened, and countries may be more likely to pursue their domestic policy goals in ways that restrict trade. Industries with relatively large export exposure like US agriculture will be particularly vulnerable in this new chaotic regime. The deterrent effect is more important than you think An integral part of the world trading system has been the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, which enables the WTO to enforce the rules the Members signed up for. Knowing you could get sued in the WTO for …

Can Geopolitics Help Restore Missing Tools To The U.S. Trade Toolbox?, Matthew Schaefer

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

When U.S. trade negotiators and trade litigators seek to increase market access for U.S. goods and services abroad, they look in their toolbox to see what might be the best tool. The more well-stocked the toolbox, the more possibilities for increasing foreign market access. Today, when U.S. trade negotiators look in their toolbox, they see several traditional tools missing, specifically legally-binding, comprehensive (including tariff-cutting) regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) and large package deals within the World Trade Organization (WTO). Their trade litigator colleagues face a similar circumstance of missing traditional tools, specifically the loss of binding two-level dispute …

Strengthening The Southern Nevada Workforce Pipeline, Katie M. Gilbertson

Student Research

Workforce development has been a keystone in the discussion of economic diversification of Las Vegas for decades. The leisure and hospitality industry is the lifeline for the Southern Nevada economy due to the reliance on tourism as the city’s main economic driver. The leisure and hospitality industry requires physical labor and more face-to-face customer interaction than other employment sectors. Thus, these jobs often do not require high educational attainment, but rather sharp soft skills like effective listening, nonverbal communication, and negotiation strategies. While these are valuable traits, the lack of educational attainment within the leisure and hospitality workforce suppresses employees’ …

Trade In Value Added In Gross Exports: A Better Metric For Understanding Texas-Mexico Trade Flows, Noé Arón Fuentes, Alejandro Brugués, Gabriel González-König, Melissa Floca

Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center Research

The purpose of this research is to calculate the value-added trade between Texas and Mexico. We argue that a better metric to understand trade flow should be based on value added. U.S. trade deficit with Mexico only reflects gross trade and does not accurately portray the complexities of commercial flows between the two countries. Given that Mexico is Texas' most important trading partner, the transformation of gross trade into value-added trade flows will provide a clearer understanding of this important relationship.

Non-Tariff Measures And Their Impacts On Asean Economic Integration, Myrna S. Austria

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

Using a gravity model that accounts for the asymmetric effects of non-tariff measures (NTMs), the study examined the impact of the five most prevalent NTMs in the region on intra-ASEAN imports. The study found that all five NTMs are significant factors affecting intra-ASEAN imports. However, their effects vary at the sectoral level, by pairs of trading partners, and whether the products are covered by mutual recognition and harmonization agreements (MRA) or not. For example, sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, in general, negatively affect imports and are trade-reducing. Exceptions are prepared foodstuff and medicinal products, both of which are covered by …

Entitled To Property: Inheritance Laws, Female Bargaining Power, And Child Health In India, Plamen Nikolov, Shahadath Hossain

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Child height is a significant predictor of human capital and economic status throughout adulthood. Moreover, non-unitary household models of family behavior posit that an increase in women’s bargaining power can influence child health. We study the effects of an inheritance policy change, the Hindu Succession Act (HSA), which conferred enhanced inheritance rights to unmarried women in rural India, on child height. We find robust evidence that the HSA improved the height and weight of children. In addition, we find evidence consistent with a channel that the policy improved the women’s intrahousehold bargaining power within the household, leading to improved parental …

Local Fiscal Adjustments From Depopulation: Evidence From The Post–Cold War Defense Contraction, Timothy M. Komarek, Gary A. Wagner

Economics Faculty Publications

In this paper, we estimate the long-term causal effect of population losses on local government revenue, expenditure, and debt by exploiting a quasi-exogenous change that reduced the number of US military personnel by about 40 percent between the late 1980s and 2000. Aggregating across governmental units within commuting zones, we find that real per capita total revenues and expenditures remained unchanged for remaining citizens. At the same time, however, we note several important compositional effects. First, local governments appear to have offset reductions in state intergovernmental aid by increasing property tax revenues. Second, they significantly shifted the composition of expenditures …

El Último Acuerdo Con El Fmi Durante El Gobierno De Mauricio Macri: El Impacto De La Deuda Externa En La Soberanía Según Los Actores Políticos Y Sociales De La Argentina / The Latest Agreement With The Imf Under The Government Of Mauricio Macri: The Impact Of Foreign Debt On The Sovereignty Of Argentina According To Social And Political Actors, Sarah Schubert

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Nobel laureate in economics, Simon Kuznets, allegedly commented “There are four kinds of countries in the world: developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan, and Argentina” (Reyes & Sawyer, 2019). Since the mid twentieth century, Argentina has stood out due to the complexity of its ever changing economic and political orientations. Initially recognized as a growing nation with a booming economy, Argentina soon fell victim to macroeconomic instability. Inflation, growing deficits and most notably the assumption of foreign debt have plagued the country’s economy. Known for their tumultuous relationship with the International Monetary Fund, Argentina came to declare the largest sovereign default …

Foreign Direct Investment In Kigali’S Special Economic Zone And Its Impact On Rwanda’S Economic Reconstruction, Sabrina Roberts

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Vision 2020 is a development strategy implemented by the Rwandan government. It aims to make Rwanda a middle-income country with a per capita income of $1240 USD. One pillar of this strategy is increasing regional and international integration. The Kigali Special Economic Zone (KSEZ) was created in direct response to this pillar.

The paper begins with an introduction to Rwanda’s post-conflict economic situation and goes on to describe and explain the role that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the KSEZ has played in reconstructing the Rwandan economy. The study focuses on the impacts of the KSEZ and the significance of …

Do Private Household Transfers To The Elderly Respond To Public Pension Benefits? Evidence From Rural China, Plamen Nikolov, Alan Adelman

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Aging populations in developing countries have spurred the introduction of public pension programs to preserve the standard of living for the elderly. The often-overlooked mechanism of intergenerational transfers, however, can dampen these intended policy effects, as adult children who make income contributions to their parents could adjust their behavior in response to changes in their parents’ income. Exploiting a unique policy intervention in China, we examine using a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) approach how a new pension program impacts inter vivos transfers. We show that pension benefits lower the propensity of adult children to transfer income to elderly parents in the context …

New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Program Assessment 2019, Thomas Edison State University, Pel Analytics, Anderson Economic Group, The John S. Watson Institute For Public Policy

Urban Mayors Policy Center

In 2019, the State of New Jersey sought an evaluation of its Urban Enterprise Zone (UEZ) Program to determine the program’s economic impact and make recommendations for the program’s future. The John S. Watson Institute of Public Policy of Thomas Edison State University joined with PEL Analytics and Anderson Economic Group to produce the following study. The main recommendation of this analysis is to retain the UEZ Program while instituting various changes to make it stronger. Recommended changes in brief include reinstating some form of Zone Assistance Funds (ZAFs), creating a better system to collect data and track outcomes, assisting …

The Economic Value Of A Place-Based Resource For Regional Development, Aisling Conway Lenihan, Helen Mcguirk

Dept. of Management & Enterprise Publications

Regional economic development has long been acknowledged as an important objective of government policy. Natural resources are also recognised as drivers of economic development. However, the importance of place-based resources such as peripheral coastlines and Harbour areas are less understood. This research provides insights into an industry based on its region’s natural resource and the value it generates for sustainable economic development. Using the world’s second largest natural Harbour region, the current research measures the economic activities associated with the Marine Leisure Industry in Cork Harbour, and estimates the economic impact on the local economy. The research establishes a multiplier …

Resource Nationalism And Energy Integration In Latin America: The Paradox Of Populism, Brian Hollingsworth

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationship between resource nationalism and energy integration, and uses Bolivia and Brazil as a test case. Essentially, does resource nationalism affect energy integration? The findings nest within more expansive questions on international political economy and export-driven models of development. Why do populist regimes, historically operating under an economic nationalist cum protectionist paradigm, simultaneously pursue policies of economic integration? What is the relationship between resource nationalists and open markets, especially in the hydrocarbons sector? What is the relationship between populists, who are typically resource nationalists, and their decision to choose policies of energy integration?

The most common …

What Factors Drive Individual Misperceptions Of The Returns To Schooling In Tanzania? Some Lessons For Education Policy, Plamen Nikolov, Nursat Jimi

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Evidence on educational returns and the factors that determine the demand for schooling in developing countries is extremely scarce. Building on previous studies that show individuals underestimating the returns to schooling, we use two surveys from Tanzania to estimate both the actual and perceived schooling returns and subsequently examine what factors drive individual misperceptions regarding actual returns. Using ordinary least squares and instrumental variable methods, we find that each additional year of schooling in Tanzania increases earnings, on average, by 9 to 11 percent. We find that on average individuals underestimate returns to schooling by 74 to 79 percent and …

Vocational Training Programs And Youth Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence From Nepal, S Chakravarty, M Lundberg, Plamen Nikolov, J Zenker

Economics Faculty Scholarship

Lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty. In response, policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in efforts to enhance skill formation among the youth. Using a regression-discontinuity design, we examine a large youth training intervention in Nepal. We find, twelve months after the start of the training program, that the intervention generated an increase in non-farm employment of 10 percentage points (ITT estimates) and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers (LATE estimates). We also detect sizable gains in monthly earnings largely driven by women who start self-employment …

Prosperity And Industrial Development: Review Of Concepts And Measurements, Emma Willingham, Peter Hulseman

Northwest Economic Research Center Publications and Reports

This report, researched and written for the Port of Portland by the Northwest Economic Research Center, summarizes local efforts to measure and improve regional prosperity, both within and outside of Portland, Oregon, and offers a framework for assessing varying industrial land uses with respect to prosperity. As part of this review, definitions of prosperity from a variety of sources are presented. The purpose of the report is dual: First, a context for community and regional economic prosperity is established via the review of existing definitions and initiatives, and secondly, NERC offers a framework for assessing specific uses in terms of …

The Economic Impact Of City-County Consolidations: A Synthetic Control Approach, Joshua Hall, Josh Matti, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Although more rapid development is a primary motivation behind city-county consolidations, few empirical studies explore the impact of consolidation on economic development. No studies look at government consolidation in the United States using modern causal inference methods. We use the synthetic control method (SCM) to examine the long-term impact of city-county consolidations on per capita income, population, and employment. The results from the three cases explored indicate that consolidation does not guarantee development and actually can have negative effects. Additionally, consolidation can deepen the urban-rural divide by accelerating the decline of rural populations relative to those of urban areas. The …