Digital Commons Network^™

Testing For Exchange Rate Bubbles For The Indian Rupee Versus Major World Currencies: An Empirical Examination Over The Long Run, Adrian M. Austin, Swarna Dyuti Dutt, Dipak Ghosh

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Identifying and dating financial bubbles in real time is at the forefront of current empirical research. The ability to recognize these events in real time can provide very useful alerts to central bankers and fiscal regulators. The complexity, however, of their nonlinear structure and the inherent sudden break mechanisms make econometric testing challenging. Recent econometric advances propose a recursive flexible window methodology that can detect single and multiple financial bubbles. It successfully, ex-ante, identifies the well-known historical episodes of exuberance and collapse and can differentiate between periodically collapsing bubbles and strong financial growth. One sizeable strand of the current research …

Using Web Scraping As A Tool To Collect School Nutrition Data, Aaron Brown

Student Works

Web scraping, a technique for collecting publicly available online data, may facilitate collecting school meal data from large, national samples of school districts in a timely, cost-effective manner. We explore its potential by examining the variation in sodium content of 2 popular entrees served through the US Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program—pizza and chicken nuggets. Daily school menu data were obtained from a national sample of school districts via web scraping. Linking web scraped data to publicly available data on school districts permitted examination of entree sodium content variation across school district geographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Such …

The Use Of Burt’S Method In Rationalizing The Cost Of Time And Evaluating The Performance Companies: An Applied Study In State Company For Textile And Leather Industries - Hilla Textile Factory, Aqeel Jaber Kadhim

Muthanna Journal of Administrative and Economics Sciences

Burt’s method is a significant process research method that provides information that directly affects the scheduling process of complex projects and planning and monitoring their completion. As a result, it has gained notoriety among practitioners in the field of specialization and offers additional advantages through computer systems for completion. It seeks to finish the project as quickly as possible while using the resources and capabilities that are available and at the lowest feasible cost. The evaluation of the performance of companies is represented in the extent of the ability of the company’s management to evaluate the performance of its activities …

Accounting, Marketing, And Technology Needs Of Black Women Business Owners In Pennsylvania Economically Distressed Communities, Darlene Booth-Bell

Pennsylvania Economic Review

In this study, we examine the survey and asynchronous interview responses of thirty-six Black women business owners to determine their self-identified needs in accounting, marketing, technology, and other business services such as supply chain knowledge, and technology. Our participants are located in small, economically distressed towns in Pennsylvania, where the number of families living below the poverty line is greater than the national average, and other indicators place these towns in a category of economically distressed. Respondents indicated a need for assistance with cash flow management and access to capital. Respondents also indicated a need for assistance with networking, online …

The Economic Effects Of Deportation On The U.S. Labor Market, Abigayle Lantz

Proceedings of the Jepson Undergraduate Conference on International Economics

The potential economic consequences of mass deportation policies on the U.S. economy, specifically those reliant on immigrant labor, are examined. Evidence from economic models and various studies reveals that mass deportation would result in significant disruptions, including labor shortages, decreased productivity, and higher costs for firms and people. Contrary to claims that native-born workers would benefit from increased job opportunities and higher wages, the evidence shows that mass deportation would harm native workers. Historical precedents, such as the Secure Communities initiative indicate that deportation efforts in the past have led to detrimental economic outcomes and disproportionately affected native workers. Additionally, …

Health Insurance Benefits As A Tool For Employee Attraction And Retention: Evidence From The Nursing Industry, J. T. Garcia

Proceedings of the Jepson Undergraduate Conference on International Economics

This paper explores the critical role of employer-provided health insurance in employee recruitment and retention, focusing on the nursing industry in Iowa. As labor markets grow increasingly competitive, especially in industries such as healthcare, non-wage benefits like health insurance can be an important factor influencing job choice and employee loyalty. This paper connects labor economic theory with employment data from Iowa nursing homes, to demonstrate that health insurance can significantly enhance employee satisfaction and reduce turnover and can do so more effectively than wage increases alone. The paper argues that in professions especially with high demand, such as nursing, investment …

Pop Culture In Appalachia: West Virginia Pop Culture Conventions, Heather Lauer

Librarian Research

This creative graduate humanities project explores the development, impact, and challenges of pop culture conventions in West Virginia and the implications on the broader Appalachian region. Through in-depth interviews with organizers of eight regional conventions—including HerdCon, Tsubasacon, Causeacon, and the Mothman Festival— I examined the motivations behind organizing such events, the cultural and logistical hurdles faced, and the personal and communal rewards experienced by those involved. By investigating how these events foster community, promote regional tourism, and provide inclusive spaces for fandoms, the project highlights the importance of pop culture in shaping identity and engagement in rural Appalachia. Special attention …

Constitutional Carry, Stand-Your-Ground Laws And Defensive Firearm Use, Mark P. Gius

Pennsylvania Economic Review

Over the past several years, there has been a significant increase in the number of states allowing concealed weapons carry without a permit (constitutional carry), and an increase in the number of states that have enacted stand-your-ground laws. The purpose of the present study is to determine if the enactment of constitutional carry and stand-your-ground laws have had any statistically significant effects on incidents of defensive firearm use. Using a fixed effects, negative binomial model, it was found that both constitutional carry and stand-your-ground laws resulted in an increase in the number of casualties of defensive firearm uses (injured and …

Introduction To The Special Issue: Cities And Economic Development, Shihe Fu, Junfu Zhang

Economics

To a great extent, economic development is urban development. As economies grow, people and firms cluster in cities to take advantage of agglomeration economies, better infrastructure, access to markets and labor, and consumption amenities. Urbanization not only drives productivity gains and enhances consumer welfare but also introduces challenges such as housing affordability, traffic congestion, pollution, and inequality. Understanding these dynamics is essential for promoting efficiency and sustainable development. The evolution of cities is therefore not only a reflection of economic progress but also a key driver of it.

Analyzing Google Maps As A Data Source For Urban Research In Dhaka, Xinyi Du

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper investigates how mass transit infrastructure shapes urban economic activity by examining the impact of Dhaka's first metro line using novel Google Maps data. Leveraging the opening of Metro Line 6 on December 2022, we employ a difference-in-differences framework to analyze changes in business establishment density around metro stations. Our estimates show that every 1% reduction in distance to the nearest metro station adds, on average, about 0.092–0.111 establishments per 40 m × 40 m grid cell—that is, roughly 57 – 69 additional businesses per square kilometer. The effect is even more pronounced for dining: about 1 – 4 …

From Disruption To Integration: Cryptocurrency Prices, Financial Fluctuations, And Macroeconomy, Zhengyang Chen

Faculty Publications

This paper examines cryptocurrency shock transmission to financial markets and the macroeconomy using a Bayesian structural VAR with Pandemic Priors from 2015 to 2024. By affecting overall risk appetite, cryptocurrency price shocks generate positive financial market spillovers, accounting for 18% of equity and 27% of commodity price fluctuations. Real economic effects are significant in driving investment but remain limited, contributing only 4% to unemployment and 6% to industrial production variance. However, cryptocurrency shocks explain 18% of price-level forecast error variance at long horizons. Narrative analysis reveals sentiment and technology as primary shock drivers. These findings demonstrate cryptocurrency's deep financial system …

Estimating How Much Children Work: Questionnaires Versus Time Use Diaries, Juana Lamote De Grignon Pérez, Wenbin Wang, Tanay Kasyap, Matthew Henglong Luo, Jialu Tang

Discussion Papers

Current estimates of child labour often rely on questions such as, “How many hours did you work last week?” While biases in adult self-reports are well-documented in high-income countries, there is limited evidence on the accuracy of children’s responses in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using data from nine LMICs, including China and India, this paper shows that time diaries report more than twice as many work hours as standard questionnaires. This discrepancy suggests that current estimates may significantly understate child labour. Moreover, certain forms of work—such as collecting water or firewood—appear to contribute to these measurement gaps.

War Bonds And Household Saving In Wwii, Gillian Brunet, Eric Hilt, Matthew Jaremski

Economics: Faculty Publications

Household saving increased dramatically during World War II, reaching more than 19 percent of GDP. We study the effects of the war bond program implemented by the U.S. government on the level of household saving during the war. The bonds were heavily promoted in a series of drives, which encouraged thrift and associated subscriptions with patriotism, and also through a payroll deduction program. Yet as Friedman and Schwartz have noted, the main effect of the program may have been to change the form in which savings were held, rather than to increase saving. We use county-level data and an …

Economic Drivers In East Texas- July 2025, Manuel Reyes-Loya, Cecilia Cuellar, Marilyn Young, Pedro Gallardo-Toledo

Hibbs Newsletter

This issue of the Hibbs Newsletter examines the key economic drivers of East Texas, highlighting trends in GDP, employment, and wages across major metropolitan areas. From 2015 to 2023, the region experienced steady economic growth, led primarily by healthcare, manufacturing, and mining industries. The report emphasizes healthcare as a dominant contributor to both employment and high-wage occupations, offering insight into the region’s evolving economic structure

Global Studies Initiative Faculty Report: Economics 101 Course Redesign, Andrew Painter

Global Studies Initiatives in Arts and Sciences 2025

No abstract provided.

Energetic And Economic Aspects Of Rebound, Part Ii: Applications Of The Framework, Matthew Kuperus Heun, Gregor Semieniuk, Paul Brockway

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Widespread implementation of energy efficiency is a key greenhouse gas emissions mitigation measure, but rebound can ‘‘take back’’ energy savings. However, the absence of solid analytical foundations hinders empirical determination of rebound magnitudes. In Part I, we developed foundations of a rigorous, analytical, consumer-sided rebound framework that is approachable for both energy analysts and economists. In this paper (Part II), we develop energy, expenditure, and consumption planes, a novel, mutually consistent, and numerically precise way to visualize and illustrate rebound. Further, we operationalize the macro factor (k) for macroeconomic rebound. Using the framework and rebound planes, we calculate and show …

Can Esg Reduce Credit Risk? An Empirical Investigation Across Asean-5 Markets, Arrafif Pratama Zaini, Maria Ulpah

The Indonesian Capital Market Review

Based on stakeholder theory and signaling theory, companies with strong ESG performance send signals to various stakeholders, thus building trust and influencing better credit risk evaluation. This study empirically examines the effect of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance on the credit risk of non-financial public companies in ASEAN-5 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) over the period 2019-2023. Corporate credit risk is measured using 2 main approaches: the accounting-based and market-based models. Merton's KMV model calculates the probability of default (PD) using a market-based approach. In contrast, the Altman Z-Score predicts bankruptcy risk based on financial ratios in …

Undominated Mechanisms, Tilman Borgers, Jiangtao Li, Kexin Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study the design of mechanisms when the designer faces multiple plausible scenarios and is uncertain about the true scenario. A mechanism is dominated by another if the latter performs at least as well in all plausible scenarios and strictly better in at least one. A mechanism is undominated if no other feasible mechanism dominates it. We show how analyzing undominated mechanisms could be useful and illustrate the tractability of characterizing such mechanisms. This approach provides an alternative criterion for mechanism design under non-Bayesian uncertainty, complementing existing methods.

Do Search Costs Explain Persistent Investment In Active Mutual Funds?, Aljoscha Janssen, Jurre Thiel

Research Collection School Of Economics

Active funds, though losing market share since the 1990s, make up nearly half of all mutual funds but charge more without better performance. We analyze fund data and a search model, highlighting the impact of search costs and active fund preferences. From 1993 to 2018, reduced search costs expanded the market and heightened competition, while a preference shift from active to passive funds increased the latter's market share. However, investors who choose active funds, facing higher search costs, and continue to show a strong preference for them, allow these funds to keep charging higher fees.

The Rising Returns To R&D: Ideas Are Not Getting Harder To Find, Yoshiki Ando, James Bessen, Xiupeng Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

R&D has grown robustly, yet aggregate productivity growth has stagnated. Is this because “ideas are getting harder to find”? Using microdata from the US Census Bureau this paper estimates R&D effectiveness in the manufacturing sector from 1976 to 2018. We find that the marginal effect of R&D on output and the gross marginal returns to R&D have risen sharply. But rivals’ R&D has also gotten more effective, raising expected obsolescence. But firm productivity growth rises with growth in the R&D stock. Higher obsolescence slows the accumulation of R&D capital, reducing the contribution to productivity growth and shortening innovation lives.

Politics And Institutional Change: The Water Commission Act Of 1913, Mark 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 20th century California, finding evidence of both party ideology and interest group influence in establishing a new system for administering appropriative water rights.

Mexico Consensus Economic Forecast, Volume 28, Number 3, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Steven L. Fullerton

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Borderplex Business Barometer, Volume 9, Number 7, Thomas M. Fullerton, Steven L. Fullerton

Border Region Modeling Project

No abstract provided.

Three Essays In Development Economics, Vardaan Chawla

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation explores policy-relevant questions through three empirical studies on issues related to education, human capital formation, and consumer protection in developing countries. The first two chapters focus on education policies in India and examine their intended and unintended impacts on children’s schooling and labour-market outcomes. The third chapter evaluates a new approach to tackle consumer protection issues in digital finance in Uganda and Bangladesh. Across all three, this dissertation reflects an interest and understanding in advancing evidence-based policymaking in developing countries, be it in education or consumer protection.

In the first chapter, we evaluate the impact of the midday …

Trade Secrets Protection And Employment Of Public Firms: Evidence From The Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Andrew Yizhou Liu

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

I demonstrate that the adoption of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) results in a 5.1% increase in employment among public firms in Compustat. The effects are concentrated in firms with below-median initial employment, higher debt costs, and greater potential for knowledge spillovers. R&D expenditures and the accumulation of intangible assets emerge as key drivers of these employment effects. An analysis of labor demand reveals a 9.4% rise in vacancy postings, particularly for skilled workers, following UTSA adoption. Counties with higher initial exposure to public firms' labor demand experience declines in unemployment rates, underscoring the UTSA's non-uniform impact on local …

Competition In The Labor Market: The Wage Effect Of Employer Concentration In China, Jianan Liu, Hongbo Cai, Carl Lin

Faculty Journal Articles

Competition in the labor market theoretically leads to higher wages, yet empirical evidence to substantiate it, particularly in developing countries, has been sparse. Our study delves into the impact of increased competition in the labor market on workers' wages using a panel dataset from Chinese industrial firms spanning 1998 to 2013. Employing OLS and IV regressions, we demonstrate that a decrease in employer concentration is significantly linked to higher wages. The elasticities of employer concentration on wages fall within the range of −0.034 and −0.107. Additionally, our findings suggest that state-owned enterprises gained the most from this upswing in competition, …

Factors Influencing Digital Technology Adoption And Use Among Msmes In Indonesia, Andry Manodotua Panjaitan, Niko Sudibjo, Cahya Pulupi Meilani

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The purpose of this study is to see how attitudes toward behavior, subjective norms, and digital technology literacy affect adoption intentions and their impact on digital technology usage behavior in small and medium enterprises in Indonesia. This study used 532 MSME samples and tested them using SEM PLS analysis. The test findings showed that eight proposed hypotheses were accepted, and one was rejected. Digitally literate MSME owners and leaders can increase market awareness and set clear digital transformation goals for their companies. Furthermore, with government support for technology in MSMEs, digital technology is expected to be used not just for …

Decomposing Crowding Out Effect In The Philippines: Leveraging Fiscal Policy To Drive Inclusive Growth, John Paolo R. Rivera, Mary Grace R. Agner, Viory Yvonne T. Janeo, John Angelo F. Cristobal

DLSU Business & Economics Review

Fiscal stimulus programs have substantively kept the Philippine economy afloat during crises and in facilitating recovery. In pursuing steeper growth, there is a tendency to harness fiscal policy at the expense of crowding out private investment and consumption, which defeats the ultimate purpose of such policy. Using time series analysis, we assess the degree of crowding out effect in the Philippines and its implications for the effectiveness of fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilization and growth driver tool. Although scholarly literature has used aggregate government spending in probing the existence of a crowding out effect on aggregate investment and consumption …

Multifaceted Skepticism: A Comprehensive Approach In Auditing Practice, Ida Ayu Budhananda Munidewi, Unti Ludigdo, Ali Djamhuri, Wuryan Andayani

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This research uses a modified grounded theory approach to understand the behavior of auditors in Indonesia who have an Eastern cultural background in applying professional skepticism. The research results reveal that auditor behavior in practice applies multifaceted skepticism. Multifaceted skepticism refers to the idea that professional skepticism in auditing is not a one-dimensional approach. That recognizes the complexity of the audit environment and the need for auditors to consider various factors when applying their skepticism. Multifaceted skepticism brings us to a less simplistic view of professional skepticism, which until now has only been seen as an on-or-off switch. Instead, this …

Social Message In Advertising And Social Change: An Empirical Investigation Of Relationships, Iqra Manzoor, Zia- Ul-Haq

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This study was carried out to investigate consumer behavior toward advertisements that convey social messages. Not many studies have focused on the social message in ads and the subjective well-being of customers regarding such ads. To study this gap, the paper examined the relationship between (a) the attitude towards the ad with a social message and the purchase intention of the consumer and (b) the purchase intention of the consumer and their subjective well-being. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to study the interrelationships within the proposed model. The data was collected through an experiment and qualitative survey among university …