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Introduction To The Economics Of Social Institutions, John B. Davis, Asimina Christoforou

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This volume includes thirty-six important contributions to the economics of social institutions by leading figures in the history of the field. Its nine Parts are: Early Contributions, Methodological and Conceptual Issues, Old Institutionalism, New Institutionalism, Social Costs, Growth and Development, Institutions and Change, Institutions and Organizations, and The Third Sphere of the Economy and Institutions. This set of topics provides a comprehensive review of the origins and development of the economics of social institutions. It addresses the main theoretical and policy concerns that have occupied contributors to the approach. The economics of social institutions has a been well-established research program …

Estonia's Post-Soviet Agricultural Reforms: Lessons For Cuba, Mario A. Gonzalez-Corzo

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Primacy Of Context: An Exploration Into The Causes Of Food Insecurity In Kitere, Kenya., William O. Aludo

Capstone Collection

The purpose of this study was to explore the specific reasons why households in Kitere village, Kenya experience persistent food insecurity every year while the region enjoys the advantage of two planting/harvest seasons in a year. Kitere village lies within the lakeside region of Nyanza Province in Kenya, generally considered to be one of the more agriculturally productive parts of the country. The Participatory Rural Appraisal method was employed to gather qualitative data on the causes of food insecurity in Kitere village. The data sources were focus groups and a self-administered, one-time survey of random and non-random samples of key …

Trade Frictions And Market Access Of Developing Countries: A Product-Level Empirical Investigation, Eugene Bempong-Nyantakyi, Steven Husted, Shuichiro Nishioka

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper examines the effects of trade frictions, including tariffs and a variety of factors that raise trade costs, on export market access at the product level and, in particular, the role these frictions have on the ability of developing countries to access world markets. We find that a variety of trade frictions do serve to limit market access. We find distance and efficiency in trade facilitation are significant determinants of the probability of success in entering foreign markets. We examine whether there are any systematic development-related biases from these frictions that further limit market access for exporters from developing …

Examining The Low Volatility Anomaly In Stock Prices, Munish Malhotra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Modern portfolio theory states that investments with greater beta, a common measure of risk, require greater returns from investors in order to compensate them for taking greater risk. Therefore, under the premise that market participants act rationally and therefore markets run efficiently, investments with higher beta should generate higher returns vis-à-vis investments with lower beta over the long run. In fact, many studies suggest that investments with lower beta actually generate equal to or higher returns relative to investments with higher beta. In looking at data for the S&P 500 going back 22 years between 1990 and 2012, this study …

The Impact Of Research And Development On Economic Growth And Productivity In The Us States, Luisa Blanco, James Prieger, Ji Gu

School of Public Policy Working Papers

We estimate the impact of R&D on TFP and output in the private sector at the state level in the US from 1963 to 2007. R&D has a large effect on both output and TFP at the state level in the long run. The R&D elasticity in a state averages 0.056 to 0.143, implying returns to state GDP from R&D spending of 83% to 213%. There are also positive R&D spillovers, with 77% of the total returns accruing to other states. The R&D elasticities are either stable or increase slightly after 1993. The effects of R&D are dependent on the …

Urban Responses To Climate Change: Theories And Governance Practice In Cities Of The Global South, Dirk Heinrichs, Kerstin Krellenberg, Michail Fragkias

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cities around the world have recently started to become ‘proactive’ initiators of climate strategies containing both mitigation and adaptation elements. The experience of these first movers has been studied and documented both empirically and, to a lesser extent, theoretically, primarily for cities in the global North. This symposium addresses related knowledge gaps by exploring case studies of urban regions in the global South confronting their projected climate change challenges, showcasing the experiences of Delhi, Santiago de Chile and Bogotá. Its specific aim is to explore the urban social response to nature change, the adaptation challenges faced by cities across the …

Spatial Lag Models With Nested Random Effects: An Instrumental Variable Procedure With An Application To English House Prices, Badi H. Baltagi, Bernard Fingleton, Alain Pirotte

Center for Policy Research

This paper sets up a nested random effects spatial autoregressive panel data model to explain annual house price variation for 2000-2007 across 353 local authority districts in England. The estimation problem posed is how to allow for the endogeneity of the spatial lag variable producing the simultaneous spatial spillover of prices across districts together with the nested random effects in a panel data setting. To achieve this, the paper proposes new estimators based on the instrumental variable approaches of Kelejian and Prucha (1998) and Lee (2003) for the cross-sectional spatial autoregressive model. Monte Carlo results show that our estimators perform …

Profiting From Regulation: Evidence From The European Carbon Market, James B. Bushnell, Howard Chong, Erin T. Mansur

Dartmouth Scholarship

We investigate how cap-and-trade regulation affects profits. In late April 2006, the EU CO2 allowance price dropped 50 percent, equating to a €28 billion reduction in the value of aggregate annual allowances. We examine daily returns for 552 stocks from the EUROSTOXX index. Despite reductions in environmental costs, we find that stock prices fell for firms in both carbon- and electricity-intensive industries, particularly for firms selling primarily within the EU. Our results imply that investors focus on product price impacts, rather than just compliance costs and the nominal value of pollution permits.

How Do Firms Become Different? A Dynamic Model, Matthew Selove

Business Faculty Articles and Research

This paper presents a dynamic investment game in which firms that are initially identical develop assets that are specialized to different market segments. The model assumes that there are increasing returns to investment in a segment, for example, as a result of word-of-mouth or learning curve effects. I derive three key results: (1) Under certain conditions there is a unique equilibrium in which firms that are only slightly different focus all of their investment in different segments, causing small random differences to expand into large permanent differences. (2) If, on the other hand, sufficiently large random shocks are possible, firms …

Niche Firms, Mass Markets, And Income Across Countries: Accounting For The Impact Of Entry Costs, Pedro Bento

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

I develop a model of monopolistic competition in which I distinguish between niche markets and mass markets, in the spirit of Holmes and Stevens (2013). Firms choose between entering a small niche market with high markups or a large mass market with low markups. Entry costs have a much greater impact on output in the niche market as the gains to specialization are high, relative to the mass market where varieties are highly substitutable. Calibrated to match data from U.S. manufacturing, the model generates an elasticity of total factor productivity with respect to entry costs more than twice that in …

Landscape Ideology In The Greater Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt Plan: Negotiating Material Landscapes And Abstract Ideals In The City's Countryside, Kirsten Valentine Cadieux, Laura E. Taylor, Michael F. Bunce

College of Liberal Arts All Faculty Scholarship

We analyze the role of landscape ideology in the recent Ontario Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH) Greenbelt Plan. Focusing on the “Protected Countryside,” the major land-use designation in the Plan that structures the Greenbelt framework, we explore tensions between abstract ideals of countryside used by policy makers to elicit support for the Plan and people's lived experience of material landscapes of the peri-urban fringe. Approaching “countryside” from the combined perspectives of landscape studies and political ecology, we show how the abstract ideals used to build support for the protection of countryside in the high-level political arena are in tension with existing …

Inefficiency In Japanese Water Utility Firms: A Stochastic Frontier Approach, Michelle Phillips

Economics Faculty Research & Creative Works

I examine inefficiencies in Japanese water utility companies. Efficiency in this context is defined as a firm's capacity to maximize output given a fixed level of inputs. The findings suggest that the average operation rate, customer density and size variables are associated with lower levels of inefficiency (or higher levels of efficiency), while water purification (a conditioning variable capturing low initial water quality), subsidies and outsourcing are associated with higher levels of inefficiency. Since inefficiency exists, there is an opportunity to improve Japanese water utilities by working on emulating "best practice" firms whenever possible and by providing a regulatory framework …

Balancing Conservation And Development: A Case Study Of Economic Efficiency In Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, Louisa Dunwiddie, R.Turner Shaw

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study is a comprehensive economic analysis of Queen Elizabeth National Park’s revenue and expenditures. Queen Elizabeth National Park is located in Southwest Uganda. It is the most visited park in Uganda, welcoming over 34,000 visitors annually and generating more than $1,705,000 US per year in tourist expenditures. The researchers spent three weeks in the field at Queen Elizabeth National Park, and three weeks in the capital city of Kampala, Uganda to assemble a collection of literature, statistics, and interviews with all stakeholders to fully analyze the national park’s current level of economic efficiency. The study includes data on stakeholder …

Evaluate The Effect Of Imf’S Longer-Term Concessional Lending Programs On Growth In The Development Background Of Sub-Saharan Region, Guanyi Yang

Undergraduate Economic Review

Despite different voices from critics, the IMF has put development at the center of its policies. This paper tries to separate the effect of SAF, ESAF, PRGF, and ECF on growth empirically. Selecting a sample of 44 countries in the Sub-Saharan region from 1986 to 2011, it analyzes whether the IMF’s longer-term structural adjustment programs influences economic growth in participating countries. Consistent with previous studies, this research shows that SAF and ESAF have statistically insignificant impact on growth in the short term and long term. PRGF and ECF, on the other hand, are found to have a large and strong …

By Choice Or By Chance? Why Is Nevada Last In Federal Funding And What Can Be Done About It?, Tracy M. Gordon

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The federal government spends more than $600 billion or 17 percent of its budget each year on grants to states and localities. Nevada consistently ranks at the bottom among states in its allocation of federal dollars per capita. This presentation will examine the reasons for Nevada’s “donor state” status including state demographics, federal funding formulas, and state policy decisions. It will focus especially on Medicaid, the largest federal grant program, and Governor Brian Sandoval’s recent decision to participate in the program expansion scheduled for 2014 under the Affordable Care Act. The presentation will also discuss reasons for intergovernmental grants and …

Does Okun’S Law Still Hold Today?, Michael Jeffrey White, Lai Yee Chu

Lingnan Journal of Banking, Finance and Economics

Arthur Okun claimed that when a country’s unemployment rate fell, the GDP expanded. This paper investigates the claim of Arthur Okun and the effect of unemployment rates and GDP of a country on each other. Data from three countries, namely, USA, Japan, and France, were tested to see if there was a causal link between the two variables. It was found that the proposed law of Arthur Okun did not hold. In the USA, there was a two way causality link but different directions of effect. France and Japan did not have a causal link between the two variables.

Price Convergence And Globalization: Evidence From Selected Countries, Fatma Dogruel, A. Suut Dogruel

Topics in Middle Eastern and North African Economies

MENA countries have been confronted with major social, economic and political changes during the last two decades. During this period some emerging countries and transition economies also experienced similar transformation at varying degrees. The transformation of the economic system has affected not only relative domestic prices but also the gap between domestic and international price levels. The paper focuses on how deviation of domestic prices from international market prices is affected by openness in the selected countries. The difference between domestic and international price level is calculated by employing purchasing power parity (PPP). The factors that may have an effect …

Geographic Decomposition Of Inequality In Health And Wealth: Evidence From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

Applying the small-area estimation methods to Cambodia data, we decompose the total inequality in wealth (consumption) and health (child undernutrition) indicators into within-location and between-location components. Because the knowledge of the pattern of spatial disparity in poverty and undernutrition is important for the geographic targeting of resources, we conduct a geographic decomposition of the variance of the Foster-Greere-Thorbecke index in addition to the standard decomposition exercise based on the generalized entropy measures. We find that a sizable proportion of wealth inequality is due to between-location inequality, whereas health inequality is mainly due to within-location inequality.

Geographic Decomposition Of Inequality In Health And Wealth: Evidence From Cambodia, Tomoki Fujii

Research Collection School Of Economics

The small-area estimation developed by Elbers, Lanjouw and Lanjouw (2002, 2003), in which a census and a survey are combined to produce the estimates of welfare measures for small geographic areas, has become a standard tool for poverty analysis in developing countries. The small-area estimates are typically plotted on a map, which are commonly called a poverty map. Poverty maps proved useful for policy analysis and formulation, and have become increasingly popular among policy-makers and researchers. In Cambodia, poverty maps have been used by various international organizations, ministries and non-governmental organizations for analyzing the poverty situations for their operation areas, …

The State Of Play In Poland”S Unconventional Shale And Oil Development, J Wesley Burnett, Randall Jackson, Robert Blobaum

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Following the huge gas and oil rush in the US, the world”s gas and oil companies have been eyeing reserves in other countries including Poland, which is believed to be sitting on one of the largest reserves in the European Union. The Poles, seeking to diversify their energy sources and meet EU emissions standards, which are driving up electricity costs, met the news with tremendous fanfare. Following initial geological assessments, major international oil and gas companies soon made announcements to begin drilling operations in Poland. However, one of the major challenges of shale gas development is that is often requires …

Plain & Simple: The Will To Live Sustainably In An Unsustainable World, Brandi Nichole Button

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sustainability is a buzzword covering a variety of fields and subjects. For the purposes of my research sustainability is “the ability to keep going over the long haul. As a value, it refers to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as well as the present” (Gilman 1). The sustainability movement refers to activists, educators and researchers who are dedicated to finding high quality ways of living in the world that are environmentally benign for all who are now living as well future generations to come (Gilman 1). This research focuses on three women who engage in voluntary …

Failure To Launch? The Role Of Land Inequality In Transition Delays, Andros Kourtellos, Ioanna Stylianou, Chih Ming Tan

Economics & Finance Faculty Publications

This paper provides empirical support for one theory of transition delays: initial land inequality. Using a new historical data set for land inequality (Frankema (2009)) we employ duration analysis to investigate whether higher levels of land inequality lead to longer delays in the extension of primary schooling. Our findings suggest that land inequality is a key determinant of delays in schooling.

Real Effective Exchange Rate And Unemployment Rate: The Difference Between Re-Exporting And Non-Re-Exporting Countries, Xiaolong He

All Theses

In this paper, I examine the relationship between unemployment rate and real effective exchange rate in several countries from 1994 to 2009. The analysis shows that most of countries have a negative relationship between those two factors, which implies increase of exchange rate can improve employment rate in an economy. However, re-exporting countries like the Netherlands, Singapore and Hong Kong has a less negative relationship than other countries. I hypothesize that those results are caused by the different elasticity of demand for imports.

Demographic Changes In Developed And Developing Countries, Sarah Sax

All Theses

I will be observing demographic changes across both developed and developing countries and noting whether or not some developing countries follow the same trends as developed countries. This information can provide insight as to why some countries are so poor and help determine where to focus their attention in order to improve their standards of living. I will be performing a regional and country-specific analysis in order to determine which trends each developing country follows in accordance with the developed countries. I will suggest some policy solutions, which impoverished countries can use in order to improve their circumstances.

Can State And Local Revenue And Expenditure Enhance Economic Growth? A Cross-State Panel Study Of Fiscal Activity, Christopher Arthur Clarke

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The slow economic recovery since the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession requires state and local governments to continue to make difficult decisions concerning which taxes to raise and which expenditures to decrease in order to maintain a balanced budget. As expenditures usually raise economic growth and taxes generally hinder it, seeking the optimum combination of tax structures and expenditure options is necessary to encourage prosperity in a state. In this paper I study the effects of various expenditures and revenue combinations on growth in state personal income from 1977-2010 for 49 states and the District of Columbia. I find …

Essays In Economic Growth And Development, Zhen Zhu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three chapters exploring the Solow Residual of the Solow growth model. Two central components of the Solow Residual have been studied in my doctoral dissertation. The first is the structural transformation, an internal adjustment process that helps the economy attain the optimal points on its Production Possibility Frontier by reallocating resources from the low-productivity sectors to the high-productivity sectors. The second is the technology diffusion, a positive externality process that pushes forward the economy's Production Possibility Frontier if it adopts the newer technology.

The first chapter of my dissertation is devoted to a case study of …

Essays On The Economics Of Child Care And Child Custody, Jennifer Lee Hafer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my first essay I use data from licensed child care centers in the state of Arkansas to examine the relationship between quality and price charged. To measure quality, I use Arkansas's Better Beginnings Quality Rating and Improvement System, a tier-structured voluntary certification program which can be viewed as a voluntary increase in regulations for licensed child care centers which allows them to send an observable signal of quality to consumers. Using an hedonic pricing estimation with controls for varying geographic markets, results indicate firms with Better Beginnings classification charge higher prices once the highest levels of certification are obtained. …

Analysis On Strategies Of Competition And Cooperation Between Shanghai And Ningbo Port, Yuan Lu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Financial Literacy And Household Savings In Romania, Elisabeth Beckmann

Numeracy

We present new evidence from the Euro Survey of the Austrian Central Bank on the level of financial literacy in Romania and analyze how financial literacy is related to household savings. Less than 5% of respondents were able to correctly answer the three “core” financial literacy questions on interest compounding, inflation, and risk diversification, with the risk diversification question posing the greatest difficulties. Twenty percent of respondents are able to answer both the interest compounding and inflation questions correctly. Financial literacy levels differ between regions and across rural and urban areas. Older and less-educated individuals perform worst on the financial …