Digital Commons Network^™

Fiscal Administration Versus Fiscal Policy: An Investigation Into The Determinants Of The Real Tax Revenues From Consumption Tax In Egypt, Nariman Zahran

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis highlights the importance of fiscal administration relative to fiscal policies. It presents a broad view of the developments in both fields and tests their effects on real revenues from consumption tax in Egypt from fiscal year 2002 till 2023. It initially explains the proxies used for fiscal administration: the size of the tax base and the collection lag. The major fiscal policy change in Egypt was shifting from sales tax to Value-Added Tax (VAT) during fiscal year 2016/17. The effects of fiscal administration and fiscal policy on real tax revenues will be assessed using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag …

Sleep Restriction Alters The Integration Of Multiple Information Sources In Probabilistic Decision-Making, Jeryl Y. L. Lim, Johanna M. Boardman, Clare Anderson, David L. Dickinson, Daniel Bennett, Sean P. A. Drummond

ESI Publications

The detrimental effects of sleep loss on overall decision-making have been well described. Due to the complex nature of decisions, there remains a need for studies to identify specific mechanisms of decision-making vulnerable to sleep loss. Bayesian perspectives of decision-making posit judgement formation during decision-making occurs via a process of integrating knowledge gleaned from past experiences (priors) with new information from current observations (likelihoods). We investigated the effects of sleep loss on the ability to integrate multiple sources of information during decision-making by reporting results from two experiments: the first implementing both sleep restriction (SR) and …

Learning By Doing, Productivity, And Growth: New Evidence On The Link Between Micro And Macro Data, Brad Humphreys, Scott Schuh, Corey Williams

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

No abstract provided.

Border Confinement And Assistance Markets In Tijuana: Mexican Deportees’ Experiences Of Labor And Violence Between Mexico And The United States, Christian Pacheco-Gómez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnography of deportation and describes how Tijuana’s (Baja California, Mexico) border redevelopment and spatial redesign has impacted in Mexican job seekers’ mobilities, incorporation, and stigmatization after experiencing forced removals from the United States. The dissertation explores three processes interwoven in the deportees’ class experiences of migration and deportation.

First, I trace Mexican job seekers’ trajectories of labor and migratory movement before, during, and after deportation as well as their incorporation stories in Tijuana. Second, I reconstruct the political economy of reception immigrant subjects encounter after being deported from the United States and subjected by Tijuana’s border …

Richard Iii, The Tudor Myth, And The Transition From Feudalism To Capitalism, Thomas E. Lambert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Over the last 10 years or so there has been a resurgence of interest in the English king Richard III, especially after his remains are found in 2012 after being lost or missing for centuries. Prior to this, there are many publications, reports, and documentaries alluding to a “smear” campaign being conducted against the king by either the Tudor monarchs who succeeded him and/or by their confederates and surrogates. It is alleged that this is done in order to promote and make the Tudor dynasty of the 16^th Century (Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary I, and Elizabeth I) appear …

Representation And Bracketing In Repeated Games, Mouli Modak

ESI Working Papers

In this experimental paper, the author investigates the framing effect of different representations of multiple strategic settings or games on a player’s strategic behavior. Two representations of the same environment are employed, wherein a player engages in two infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma games. In the first representation (termed Split), the stage games are shown separately. In contrast, the second representation (termed Linked) displays a combined stage game. The choice bracketing, distinguishing between Narrow and Broad bracketing, is considered a potential cause behind any disparity in behavior between the two representations. The Split representation does not necessitate broad bracketing, whereas the …

Turf War: Interstate Banking And Industry Consolidation, 1965–1998, Erin Cully

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the advent of interstate banking in America during the second half of the twentieth century. To become the giants they are today, US financial institutions had to overcome, in fits and starts, the political limits on their geographical expansion across municipal, county, state, and national borders—and not always in that order. Faced with new competitors and harsh economic conditions, some bankers set their sights on expanding their markets to stay afloat. Many policymakers and regulators were responsive to this demand, hopeful that it could serve as a catalyst for economic growth. Challenging restrictions on interstate banking meant …

The Roaring Lion Of Berlin: The Life, Thought, And Influence Of Eugen Dühring, Arden Roy

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The life and influence of 19th-century German polymath Eugen Dühring remain but a mere footnote in the history of ideas, being primarily relegated to the status of little more than a theoretical rival to Marxism in the German socialist movement and the occasional object of Freidrich Nietzsche's rhetorical flogging. Despite the current consensus on the subject, Eugen Dühring was a scholar of vast, remarkable learnedness, contributing greatly to philosophy, economics, and the natural sciences. The aim of this talk will be to clear the fog surrounding the life and work of the controversial blind scholar and give an account of …

Antisocial Innovation, Christopher Buccafusco, Samuel N. Weinstein

Georgia Law Review

Innovation is a form of civic religion in the United States. In the popular imagination, innovators are heroic figures. Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and (for a while) Elizabeth Holmes were lauded for their vision and drive and seen to embody the American spirit of invention and improvement. For their part, politicians rarely miss a chance to trumpet their vision for boosting innovative activity. Popular and political culture alike treat innovation as an unalloyed good. And the law is deeply committed to fostering innovation, spending billions of dollars a year to make sure society has enough of it. But this sunny …

Poor Oral Health Is Associated With Inflammation, Aortic Valve Calcification, And Brain Volume Among Forager-Farmers, Benjamin C. Trumble, Matthew Schwartz, Andrew T. Ozga, Gary T. Schwartz, Christopher M. Stojanowski, Carrie L. Jenkins, Thomas Kraft, Angela R. Garcia, Daniel K. Cummings, Paul L. Hooper, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Kenneth Buetow, Bret Beheim, Andrei Irimia, Gregory S. Thomas, Randall C. Thompson, Horus Team, Margaret Gatz, Jonathan Stieglitz, Caleb E. Finch, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

Poor oral health is associated with cardiovascular disease and dementia. Potential pathways include sepsis from oral bacteria, systemic inflammation, and nutritional deficiencies. However, in post-industrialized populations, links between oral health and chronic disease may be confounded because the lower socioeconomic exposome (poor diet, pollution, low physical activity) often entails insufficient dental care. We assessed tooth loss, caries, and damaged teeth, in relation to cardiovascular and brain aging among the Tsimane, a subsistence population living a relatively traditional forager-horticulturalist lifestyle with poor dental health, but minimal cardiovascular disease and dementia. Dental health was assessed by a physician in 739 participants aged …

Effects Of Temperature On Economic Preferences: A Cross-Cultural Laboratory Study Of Prosocial Behavior, Nikita Tkachenko

Master's Theses

In light of the pressing issue of climate change, our study investigates the implications of rising temperatures on social and economic behaviors through a laboratory experiment conducted among students at university sites in Mexico, India, Kenya, Colombia, and the United States. This paper examines the influence of temperature differences and exposure length on economic decision-making among students at university sites in Mexico, Kenya, and the United States. Analyzing data from the dictator game, we explored how temperature, both ambient and wet bulb, and session length affect prosocial behavior. Our results suggest a link between temperature measures and prosocial behavior, with …

Regional Commercial Bank Lending To Small Businesses In The Wake Of The Great Recession, Boris D. Higgins

Hunt Institute Working Paper Series

The purpose of this paper is to document and explain the state by state variation in commercial bank lending to small businesses during the Great Recession. To accomplish this purpose will require several steps. These steps include showing the evidence of the variation in lending across states, the theoretical causes and the empirical findings of a capital supply gap based on market imperfections and employing OLS estimation method on carefully selected economic variables. The empirical results indicate that economic conditions, borrower characteristics and lender characteristics influence lending variation where these results can help in policy formulation.

Productivity Within Groups: An Analysis Of Shirking In High School Cross Country Competitions, Nathan J. Ashby

Hunt Institute Working Paper Series

Using enrollment based classification realignments for high school cross country running competitions in the state of Texas, we analyze the impact of changes in the intensity of competition on individual and team performance. The analysis demonstrates significant improvement in the performance of teams promoted to more competitive classifications in the boys’ division but does not yield similar results in the girls’ division. We also analyze the impact on runners according to their rankings within teams and find improvements to be greater for runners ranking lower relative to team leaders driven by heterogeneity in motivation based on ability or the sequential …

Pilot Implementation Of A Nutrition-Focused Community-Health-Worker Intervention Among Formerly Chronically Homeless Adults In Permanent Supportive Housing, Jane E Hamilton, Diana C Guevara, Sara F Steinfeld, Raina Jose, Farrah Hmaidan, Sarah Simmons, Calvin W Wong, Clara Smith, Eva Thibaudeau-Graczyk, Shreela V Sharma

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Food insecurity is a known health equity threat for formerly chronically homeless populations even after they transition into permanent housing. This project utilized a human-centered design methodology to plan and implement a nutrition-focused community-health-worker (CHW) intervention in permanent supportive housing (PSH). The project aimed to increase access to healthy foods, improve nutritional literacy, healthy cooking/eating practices, and build community/social connectedness among 140 PSH residents. Validated food-security screening conducted by CHWs identified low or very low food security among 64% of 83 residents who completed the baseline survey, which is similar to rates found in a previous study among formerly homeless …

Concentrated Liquidity In Uniswap V3: A New Strategy To Optimize The Capital Bear Market, Francesco Spinoglio

Journal of New Finance

This article aims to offer a new vision on concentrated liquidity in Uniswap V3 and how we can effectively optimize liquidity thanks to the new tools provided by the DeFi ecosystem. Since the concept of concentrated liquidity first appeared in 2021 with Uniswap V3, new tools have been emerging to improve the security of smart contracts and offer better incentives to liquidity providers. This paper aims to propose a liquidity strategy concentrated in DeFi in order to draw additional liquidity in times of quantitative tightening and high interest rates, while trying to optimize the choice of the range to mitigate …

How Personalized Networks Can Limit Free Riding: A Multi-Group Version Of The Public Goods Game, Aaron S. Berman, Laurence R. Iannaccone, Mouli Modak

ESI Working Papers

People belong to many different groups, and few belong to the same network of groups. Moreover, people routinely reduce their involvement in dysfunctional groups while increasing involvement in those they find more attractive. The net effect can be an increase in overall cooperation and the partial isolation of free-riders, even if free-riders are never punished, excluded, or recognized. We formalize and test this conjecture with an agent-based social simulation and a multi-good extension of the standard repeated public goods game. Our initial results from three treatments suggest that the multi-group setting indeed raises overall cooperation and dampens the impact of …

Daca, Mobility Investments, And Economic Outcomes Of Immigrants And Natives, Jimena Villanueva Kiser, Riley Wilson

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Exploiting variation created by Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), we document the effects of immigrant legalization on immigrant mobility investments and economic outcomes. We provide new evidence that DACA increased both geographic and job mobility of young immigrants, often leading them to high-paying labor markets and licensed occupations. We then examine whether these gains to immigrants spill over and affect labor market outcomes of U.S.-born workers. Exploiting immigrant enclaves and source-country flows of DACA-eligible immigrants to isolate plausibly exogenous variation in the concentration of DACA recipients, we show that in labor markets where more of the working-age population can …

Thorstein Veblen And His Underlying Philosophical Influences, John B. Hall

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This inquiry recognizes Thorstein Veblen first and foremost as a philosopher who advanced a literature in Social Sciences, generally, and Economic Science, in particular. Veblen’s thinking and writing were supported by rich traditions drawn from notable philosophers that included among several: Charles Sanders Peirce, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Relying upon his strong background in Philosophy, he then sought to challenge mainstream, neoclassical economics, especially. As his career developed, he would turn his talents and energies towards advancing ideas that would ultimately prove foundational for heterodox economics and, relatedly, American Institutionalism.

Journal of Economic Literature Classification Codes:
B15 – Historical, …

Still Waiting For The Shoe To Drop? An Empirical Analysis Of Private College And University Financial Stress, Mary Ellen Benedict, David Mcclough, John Hoag

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This study uses the 2010, 2017, and 2018 data of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to estimate which institutional factors increase the probability that a private, nonprofit, higher education institution will face financial stress. The study first estimates enrollment and net tuition with a reduced form market model. Those estimates, endowment dollars, and college rankings are used to identify institutions that are financially stressed. Our assessment indicates that approximately 11.5 percent of the sample institutions are stressed, suggesting that the earlier predictions of a 25-50 percent reduction are overestimated, at least for private-nonprofit institutions. The study next employs a …

Internal And External Determinants Of Short-Run Inflation In Pennsylvania, Corey Williams

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Using new quarterly data on consumer price inflation for the state of Pennsylvania, we study the persistence and sensitivity of consumer price inflation to both internal and external determinants of potential pass-through. Leveraging an autoregressive distributed lag modeling framework that approximates an augmented state-specific Phillips Curve, we find that the dynamics of house price inflation, and the unemployment gap are the two strongest sources of internal inflation pass-through while producer price inflation, and money supply growth are the two strongest sources of external inflation pass-through. Relative to neighboring states, we find the persistence of inflation to be the strongest in …

The Fallacy Of Composition, Its Wide-Ranging Applications In Economics/Business And Why Systems Science Is Appropriate For Economic And Business Research, Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest, Joachim Wagner, Jennifer Nightingale, Huan Guo, Jennifer Roy

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper explores how widely the erroneous logic of reasoning of the fallacy of composition has been employed in many areas of knowledge, especially in economic and business studies. It then shows why systems science and methodology are truly appropriate for investigating organizations, evolutions and interactions of business entities by focusing on emergent macro-level properties that are not explainable by the characteristics of micro-level individuals. To demonstrate the potentially magnificent consequence of this proposal, a theorem of general systems is displayed to confirm how unintended and uncoordinated micro-level individual desires can naturally lead to macro-level phenomena, such as racial segregation …

Female Labor Force Rates In South Asia, Shagufta Haque, Caleb Johnson

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Female labor force participation rates are an important element of emerging markets. Yet, there have been relatively few analyses of female labor force participation among countries in Asia. This study investigates the demographic, economic, and global factors that determine the female labor force participation rates (FLFPR) in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan with a panel data sample of annual data ranging from 2000-2019. Based on the results of a Hausman (1978) test, a two-way fixed effects model is estimated to account for unobserved country-specific and time-specific heterogeneity. Explanatory variables include remittances, internet access, fertility rates, inflation rates, school enrollment rates, foreign …

Personal Lies, Gary Charness, Ismael Rodriguez-Lara

ESI Working Papers

Using the mind game, we provide experimental evidence that people are more likely to lie when they disclose non-personal information (e.g., reporting a number they thought of) compared with personal information (e.g., reporting the last digit of their birth year). Our findings suggest that the type of information is an important factor for lying behavior.

How Can Smes Effectively Leverage Blockchain? A Roadmap And Five-Step Approach, Naeem Bajwa, Thomas Tudor, Joe T. Felan, Otmar E. Varela Dr.

Pennsylvania Economic Review

This paper presents blockchain technology and its applications, demonstrating how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can easily engage in blockchain initiatives. We start with an introduction to blockchain technology and its business applications. For many small enterprises, engaging in blockchain transactions remains relatively novel. Nevertheless, emerging trends indicate that large enterprises are incorporating smaller business partners, broadening the application scope across the supply chain. We demonstrate how this technology is revolutionizing both supply chain and contract management. We examine how Smart Contracts can streamline complexity and enhance business transaction transparency, facilitating more efficient and effective operations. SMEs can secure strategic …

Infant Growth And Body Composition From Birth To 24 Months: Are Infants Developing The Same?, Shane A. Norris, Lukhanyo H. Nyati, Alexia Murphy Alford, Nishani Lucas, Ina S. Santos, Caroline S. Costa, Rebecca Kuriyan, V Pujitha Wickranasinghe, Shabina Ariff, Andrew P. Hills

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

Background: Given the importance of infancy for establishing growth trajectories, with later-life health consequences, we investigated longitudinal body composition among infants from six economically and ethnically diverse countries.
Methods: We recruited mother-infant dyads using the WHO Multicenter Growth Reference Study criteria. We measured fat-free mass (FFM) in 1393 (49% female) infants from birth to 6 months of age (Australia, India, and South Africa; n = 468), 3-24 months of age (Brazil, Pakistan, South Africa, and Sri Lanka; n = 925), and derived fat mass (FM), fat mass index (FMI), and fat-free mass index (FFMI). Height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for-age (WAZ), and weight-for-length …

The Pittsburg Micropolitan Area Economic Report, Quarter 3, 2024, Pittsburg State University, Gladys A. Kelce College Of Business

Pittsburg Micropolitan Reports

The Pittsburg Micropolitan Area Economic Report is created by the Business and Economic Research Center (BERC) at Pittsburg State University.

The Sudden Escalation In Average Fastball Velocity: A Biomechanical And Cost-Benefit Analysis, Jacob Meiners

Capstone Projects

Average fastball velocity throughout Major League Baseball has increased dramatically over the previous 15 years. This research examines the factors leading to this increase and provides a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether throwing consistently at high velocities is worth the injury risks, compared to financial benefits, from the player perspective. Additionally, this analysis examines if paying hard-throwing pitchers is worth the monetary risk from a team executive’s perspective, due to increases in leaguewide throwing injury rates. The production of advanced motion capture technology to obtain real-time biomechanical data has given way to the optimization of pitchers’ biomechanics, with the goals …

Poverty And Inequality: A New Deal For America’S Most Disadvantaged Communities, Thomas St. Hilaire

Theses and Dissertations

The United States, often hailed as the most affluent nation globally, paradoxically grapples with rates of poverty, disadvantage, and inequality that surpass those of its advanced democratic counterparts. The persistence of poverty and inequality in the United States have often been justified by beliefs of welfare dependency, “free market” thinking and utilitarianism. This master's thesis explores the far-reaching moral, political, and economic consequences of America’s high rates of poverty and inequality. It contends that federal action is urgently needed on more robust social programs that target poverty, such as affordable housing, accessible healthcare, greater worker protections, and deepened social capital …

Part 2: Virginia's Metropolitan Areas: Growth, Challenges, And The Road Ahead, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Commonwealth Reports

In this chapter, we survey the performance of Virginia’s metropolitan areas this decade. We first discuss population trends and the demographic challenges facing metro areas. We then delve into measures of economic activity, including taxable sales and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). We also discuss labor markets in each metro area. We conclude with thoughts about how Virginia can foster growth across its metropolitan areas.

Part 2: Defense, The Port, And Tourism: The Pillars Of The Economy, Dragas Center For Economic Analysis And Policy, Old Dominion University

State of the Region Reports: Hampton Roads

There was (mostly) good news to report about the pillars of the Hampton Roads economy in 2024. More defense spending flowed into the region. While cargo traffic declined at the Port of Virginia in 2023, the declines were mainly driven by outbound cargo traffic. The declines at the Port were also proportionally less than many other ports across the nation. Nominal hotel revenues continued to climb, but real hotel revenues fell in 2023 as occupancy rates dipped slightly. The hotel industry, however, continued to outperform the state and the nation.