Digital Commons Network^™

Trade And Domestic Distortions: The Case Of Informality, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Pinelopi K. Goldberg, Costas Meghir, Gabriel Ulyssea

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the effects of international trade in the presence of a set of domestic distortions giving rise to informality, a prevalent phenomenon in developing countries. In our quantitative model, the informal sector arises from burdensome taxes and regulations that are imperfectly enforced by the government. Consequently, smaller, less productive firms face fewer distortions than larger, more productive ones, potentially leading to substantial misallocation. We show that in settings with a large informal sector, the gains from trade are significantly amplified, as reductions in trade barriers imply a reallocation of resources from initially less distorted to more distorted firms. We …

Clean Investment Monitor: Q4 2022 — Q3 2023, Madison Dwyer, Zachary Billot, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet presents investment trends in clean manufacturing, energy and industry, and retail in the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. This fact sheet examines data from the Q3 2023 update of the Clean Investment Monitor (CIM), a joint project of Rhodium Group and the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

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 …

Embracing Diversity In Agricultural Economics, Timothy Meyer

Cornhusker Economics

To steal an overused cliché, “There’s room in the tent for everyone.” Over the 2023 academic year, I have reiterated this message to all my students, with one addition. Not only is there room for everyone, but all are invited AND welcome. Food is something we all have in common, no matter the background. I think this is why producers in the state of Nebraska feel as strongly as they do about the food they produce; it is life-giving and should be taken seriously. Nebraska Agriculture is part of what makes our state great, and that is not a secret …

Minimum Wage Increases Reduce Racial Disparities During Hiring, Alec Brandon, Justin E. Holz, Andrew Simon, Haruka Uchida

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

New Data Show How Far Graduates Move From Their College, And Why It Matters, Johnathan G. Conzelmann, Steven W. Hemelt, Brad J. Hershbein, Shawn Martin, Andrew Simon, Kevin M. Stange

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Viewing The World Through The Prism Of Cross-Cultural Romances: Film Review Of Christmas As Usual (2023) And Further Reflections, Raja Ramanathan

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Revisiting Late Globalization: A Commentary On Theorizing And Theoretical Deepening, Romeo V. Turcan, Michael Fast

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

Flavors And Frailties Of Globalization, Nikhilesh Dholakia, Deniz Atik

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.

A Path To Food Self-Provisioning And Experiences From Learning New Skills: An Autoethnographic Depiction, Toni Ruuska

The Qualitative Report

In this autoethnographic depiction, I tell a story of change and renewal. In the narrative, I present a story of personal choices and epiphanies that have changed the course of my life. At the turning point, I portray the process of learning new skills regarding food self-provisioning. I come from a privileged, but de-skilled, middle-class suburban background, and the past four years has been a diverse journey of insecurity, alienation, and fatigue, but also of learning, empowerment, and self-realization. From a person with limited skills, to an at least somewhat skilled food neo-self-provisioner, I have partaken in a process of …

Relationship Over Time Between Drug Price News And U.S. Pharmaceutical Companies' Financial Performance And Capitalization, Teresita Mulero-Mulero

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

It May Be A Mistake To Delay Social Security Benefits, Gary N. Smith, Margaret H. Smith

Pomona Economics

Financial planners generally recommend delaying the start of Social Security retirement benefits until age 70. However, two-thirds of recipients begin collecting benefits before full retirement age. We argue that starting benefits before age 70, or even before full retirement age, and investing these benefits sensibly may well be a smart financial decision.

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 …

Legal Risk And Insider Trading, Marcin Kacperczyk, Emiliano Sebastian Pagnotta

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Do illegal insiders internalize legal risk? We address this question with hand-collected data from 530 SEC (the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) investigations. Using two plausibly exogenous shocks to expected penalties, we show that insiders trade less aggressively and earlier and concentrate on tips of greater value when facing a higher risk. The results match the predictions of a model where an insider internalizes the impact of trades on prices and the likelihood of prosecution and anticipates penalties in proportion to trade profits. Our findings lend support to the effectiveness of U.S. regulations' deterrence and the long-standing hypothesis that insider …

Labor Market Effects Of Paid Sick Leave: The Case Of Seattle, Hilary Wething, Meredith Slopen

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We investigate the impact of Seattle’s Paid Sick and Safety Time (PSST) policy on workers’ quarterly hours worked and separation hazard. Using Unemployment Insurance records from before and after the implementation of PSST, we examine individual-level employment behavior at the extensive and intensive margins and compare Seattle workers to workers in Washington state using a difference-in-differences strategy. Importantly, we consider how impacts vary by employment characteristics, including worker wage rate and tenure, and by firm characteristics, including industry and firm size. We find that PSST increased workers’ quarterly hours by 4.42 hours per quarter, or around 18 hours per year. …

Seattle’S Paid Sick Leave Law Increased Work Hours Without Affecting Job Attachment, Hilary Wething, Meredith Slopen

Upjohn Institute Policy and Research Briefs

No abstract provided.

Politics And Institutional Change: The Water Commission Act Of 1913, Mark T. Kanazawa

Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Economists have long argued that increasing resource scarcity can lead to more clearly defined individual property rights, but the precise mechanism whereby this occurs remains unclear to this day. This paper documents the role of politics in shaping the creation of individual property rights within the context of appropriative water law in early 20^th century California, finding evidence of interest group influence in establishing a new system for administering appropriative water rights. It also presents evidence on subsequent irrigation development that is consistent with the influence of irrigating farmers on creation of the new system

Cross-Border Technology Investments In Recession, Juliana Yu Sun, Huanhuan Zheng

Research Collection School Of Economics

Utilizing industry-level foreign direct investment (FDI) from 72 source markets to 122 destination markets between 2003 to 2018, we evaluate how cross-border technology investments respond to economic recessions. We find that FDI embedded with intensive research and development (R&D) drops when the destination market is in a recession and the source market is in a normal state and recovers to the pre-recession levels when both destination and source markets are in recession. However, there is little evidence that recessions affect cross-border investments in other aspects of technology measured by the penetration of robots, intellectual property products and information and communications …

Enhancing Sell-Type Home Reversion Products For Retirement Financing, Koon Shing Kwong, Jing Rong Goh, Ting Lin Collin Chua

Research Collection School Of Economics

Loan-type reverse mortgage plans and sell-type home reversion plans for retirement financing are two well-known equity release plans that entitle homeowners not only to release cash from their properties but also to allow them to age in place. Recently, a new hybrid equity release plan was proposed to incorporate the home reversion plan’s features with an option of staying in the property for a fixed period without being subject to survival. This additional option provides flexibility to homeowners to better meet their retirement financial and personal needs by reducing the financial uncertainty of home reversion products. In this article, we …

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 …

A Pearl Ravaged: The Paradox Of Haiti And Its Socioeconomic Origins, Isabel Ishibe Exel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Saint-Domingue was once the most profitable colony of the Caribbean, the so-called pearl of the Antilles. Nowadays, Haiti is known for being the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, a dramatic shift that raises the question of the factors contributing to Haiti's current state, marked by persistent violence, natural disasters, and political instability. Various discourses have framed Haiti as a country doomed for failure. However, relying on binary concepts such as success and failure is counterproductive to a refined analysis. How, then, should we structure this conversation? My ultimate goal for this work is to provide a nuanced analysis of …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

No Ela Without Ella: Understanding The Naming And Crafting Of Gendered Subjectivities In Puerto Rico, Carmín Quijano Seda

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At the beginning of the 20th century, the official metadiscourses about gendered job titles sedimented the idea that names or indexes pointing to women should be interpreted as unskilled, cheap, or even free labor in Puerto Rico (Azize, 1985; Muñiz Mas, 1998; Baerga-Santini, 1999). For this reason, Puerto Rican women organized and fought for equality in work settings. Furthermore, they became more active in politics and the government. Nevertheless, the Estado Libre Asociado (ELA) and local media discourses and interpretations about women’s labor discouraged them from participating in more senior positions (Acevedo Gaud, 2012).

However, this interpretation seemed to have …

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 …

Essays On Real Estate, Flood Risk, And Political Sentiment, John P. Orellana

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that investigate how climate change, flood risk, and political sentiment influence outcomes in housing markets.

Chapter 1: This chapter offers a brief review and discussion of several recent and seminal papers at the intersection of flood risk, climate change, and real estate, as well as a critique on some of the literature on the effects of sea-level rise on housing outcomes.

Chapter 2: FEMA flood maps serve two functions: they signal risk to homeowners and mandate insurance take-up. How these information and risk transfer mechanisms affect homeowner relocation decisions remains unknown. Combining real estate …

What Does One Billion Dollars Look Like?: Visualizing Extreme Wealth, William Mahoney Luckman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The word “billion” is a mathematical abstraction related to “big,” but it is difficult to understand the vast difference in value between one million and one billion; even harder to understand the vast difference in purchasing power between one billion dollars, and the average U.S. yearly income. Perhaps most difficult to conceive of is what that purchasing power and huge mass of capital translates to in terms of power. This project blends design, text, facts, and figures into an interactive narrative website that helps the user better understand their position in relation to extreme wealth: https://whatdoesonebilliondollarslooklike.website/

The site incorporates …

Stability And Crisis Response: Comparing The U.S. And Canadian Banking Systems, Sarah E. Boslaugh

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In 2007-08, the United States experienced a banking crisis, as 5 of the 6 other G-7 countries. The exception? Canada, which experienced only a mild recession, with no bank failures or government bank bailouts. Further research reveals that while banking crises have been commonplace in the United States (8 occurred in the 19th century alone), they are essentially nonexistent in Canadian history. I find that the primary reasons for these differences in national experience lie not in the strictness of government regulation or the qualifications demanded of borrowers in the two countries, but in the differing structures of the banking …

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 …

Assessment Of Potential Area In Jakarta Capital City Based On Land Performance Weighting, Ika Rosantiningsih, Chotib Hasan

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 3 of 2022 concerning the National Capital has a major impact on Jakarta, challenges for Jakarta to response the relocation of the capital. Jakarta strives to become a Global City by increasing investment, various efforts are made for increasing and economic stabilitation, in line with the sustainable development goals, "Decent Work and Economic Growth". Investment is closely related to spatial planning. Jakarta publish Governor Regulation No. 31 of 2022 concerning the Spatial Planning Detailed, that have using performance assessment with infrastructure services (transportation, road, and public infrastructure factors) weighting, but limited to use …

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 …