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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
National Integration And Institution Building, Haiwen Zhou
National Integration And Institution Building, Haiwen Zhou
Economics Faculty Publications
The mutual dependence between national integration and institution building is established in a formal model. It is shown that a decrease in transportation costs, but not necessarily an increase in population size, reduces the equilibrium number of states and the adoption of rule-based institutions. With endogenous transportation costs or endogenous population size, the unification process can feed on itself. The model is illustrated by the state of Qin's unification of China in 221 BC. During this process of national integration, transformations from relation-based governance to rule-based governance happened.
Unification And Division: A Theory Of Institutional Choices In Imperial China, Haiwen Zhou
Unification And Division: A Theory Of Institutional Choices In Imperial China, Haiwen Zhou
Economics Faculty Publications
Ancient China experienced various rounds of division and unification. Unification was maintained through economic and political institutions such as low tax rates to reduce peasant rebellions and the division of authority among government officials to reduce usurpation of power. A ruler’s choice of institutions to maintain unification is studied in a theoretical model. Interactions among external threats, internal rebellions by peasants, and usurpation of power by government officials are established. A higher level of external threats induces the ruler to choose a higher level of autonomy for government officials and a higher tax rate. That is, equilibrium probability of internal …
Pulling Back The Veil: What Determines Hbcu Campus Enrollments, James V. Koch, Omari H. Swinton
Pulling Back The Veil: What Determines Hbcu Campus Enrollments, James V. Koch, Omari H. Swinton
Economics Faculty Publications
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are among the least researched sectors of American higher education. This article addresses a portion of this knowledge deficit by focusing on the determinants of the full-time equivalent enrollments of 50 HBCUs between fiscal year FY 2005 and FY 2018 and then comparing them to a broad sample of 182 non-HBCUs. The most noteworthy specific results generated by our analyses are: (1) increased recruitment of white students by HBCUs may not hold the key to HBCU enrollment success; (2) the incomes of the households from which students emanate have a major positive influence on …
Antecedents To The Crisis: Mandeville, Smith, And Keynes, Jonathan B. Wight
Antecedents To The Crisis: Mandeville, Smith, And Keynes, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
The purpose of this paper is to present the methods of teaching about the global financial crisis (GFC) from a social economic perspective. Using primary texts from the history of economic thought, the moral underpinnings for collective social action are examined in times of economic depression. The deregulation of financial markets raises two questions: to what extent is deregulation the result of a misunderstanding about human nature and the behavioral lessons of social economics; and to what extend does deregulation ignore the moral lessons of Adam Smith’s invisible hand?
Ageing And Long-Term Care Planning Perceptions Of Hispanics In The Usa: Evidence From A Case Study In New London, Connecticut, María Amparo Cruz-Saco, Mónika López-Anuarbe
Ageing And Long-Term Care Planning Perceptions Of Hispanics In The Usa: Evidence From A Case Study In New London, Connecticut, María Amparo Cruz-Saco, Mónika López-Anuarbe
Economics Faculty Publications
This paper explores the ageing attitudes and long-term care planning behavior of adult Hispanics in New London, Connecticut, a town with 30 thousand inhabitants that is rapidly ageing. We conducted six focus groups and had 37 participants share their ageing perceptions and long-term care needs. Our main findings suggest that informal care arrangements are vulnerable and unsustainable especially since women have historically and disproportionately provided most family eldercare even at their own personal and financial expense. Though male participants expected their female relatives to care for them when they age and need personal assistance, female participants did not necessarily expect …
More Educated And More Equal? A Comparative Analysis Of Female Education And Employment In Japan, China And India, Sucharita Sinha Mukherjee
More Educated And More Equal? A Comparative Analysis Of Female Education And Employment In Japan, China And India, Sucharita Sinha Mukherjee
Economics Faculty Publications
This paper attempts to explore the connections between expanding female education and the participation of women in paid employment in Japan, China and India, three of Asia's largest economies. Analysis based on existing data and literature shows that despite the large expansion in educational access in these countries in the last half century, women have lacked egalitarian labour market opportunities. A combination of social discouragement and individual choice largely explains the withdrawal, non-participation or intermittent female presence in the labour force, notwithstanding increased educational access. In taking stock of these issues and debates across these countries, it is argued that …
More Than Altruism: Cultural Norms And Remittances Among Hispanics In The U.S., Monika Lopez Anuarbe, María Amparo Cruz-Saco, Yongjin Park
More Than Altruism: Cultural Norms And Remittances Among Hispanics In The U.S., Monika Lopez Anuarbe, María Amparo Cruz-Saco, Yongjin Park
Economics Faculty Publications
Cultural norms embody the communalism and familism that characterize social structures and traditions of care among certain identity groups, notably, Hispanics. In turn, they affect remitting behavior as they do family dynamics, thereby extending care transnationally. Using the 2006 Latino National Survey, the largest instrument that captures socio-economic variables and political perspectives among Hispanics residing in the U.S., we construct a Hispanic identity index that is used to capture the role of cultural norms in remittance behavior. This index is used as an explanatory variable in a logit model for the probability and frequency of remitting money. We find that …
Are Religion And Environmentalism Complements Or Substitutes?: A Club-Based Approach, Feler Bose, Timothy M. Komarek
Are Religion And Environmentalism Complements Or Substitutes?: A Club-Based Approach, Feler Bose, Timothy M. Komarek
Economics Faculty Publications
In this article, we analyze the causal link between membership in environmental groups and active participation and membership in religious groups. We use a club-based model and employ OLS and spatial econometrics with controls to test for whether membership and participation in a religious group is a substitute or complement for membership in environmental groups. Instrumental variables estimation was used as a robustness check. We found that religious participation and religious membership in evangelical groups are a substitute for environmental membership. Much of the work on environmental concerns has focused on answers to survey questions, not on membership. We used …
The Choice Of Technology And Equilibrium Wage Rigidity, Haiwen Zhou
The Choice Of Technology And Equilibrium Wage Rigidity, Haiwen Zhou
Economics Faculty Publications
In this general equilibrium model, firms engage in oligopolistic competition and choose increasing returns technologies to maximize profits. Capital and labor are the two factors of production. The existence of efficiency wages leads to unemployment. The model is able to explain some interesting observations of the labor market. First, even though there is neither long-term labor contract nor costs of wage adjustment, wage rigidity is an equilibrium phenomenon: an increase in the exogenous job separation rate, the size of the population, the cost of exerting effort, and the probability that shirking is detected will not change the equilibrium wage rate. …
Gender Dimensions Of The U.S. Consumer Borrowing Expansion, Barbara E. Hopkins, Zdravka Todorova
Gender Dimensions Of The U.S. Consumer Borrowing Expansion, Barbara E. Hopkins, Zdravka Todorova
Economics Faculty Publications
The article calls attention to gender as a dimension of the expansion of U. S. consumer borrowing. The first section emphasizes that gender is not a dummy variable, but an evolution of habits of thought. The second section discusses how changing gender relations are connected to gendered product differentiation and market expansion. The final section connects gendered market expansion and changing gender habits of thought to the expansion of consumer borrowing. We argue that, in addition to the acknowledged role of credit, gender relations also mask the structural financial fragility of households.
Rethinking The Connections Between Female Empowerment And Gender Bias In Child Births And Survival In Urban India, Sucharita Sinha Mukherjee
Rethinking The Connections Between Female Empowerment And Gender Bias In Child Births And Survival In Urban India, Sucharita Sinha Mukherjee
Economics Faculty Publications
Notwithstanding improvements in female work and educational achievements persistent and increasing female survival disadvantage is a feature of urban India’s demography. A temporal and cross sectional analysis of most recent available data from the Census of India while reaffirming the positive association between female work and the birth and survival of more female children, fails to reconfirm the oft emphasized positive connection between female education and increased survival of girl children. Relatively high levels of female education, by being indicative of household socioeconomic status may be associated with increased ability to discriminate especially in the presence of cultural biases resulting …
Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight
Ethics And Critical Thinking, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
This chapter seeks to demonstrate that investigations in positive economics rely on ethical perspectives and practices, and further, that critical thinking requires a wider ethical viewpoint than normative economics generally permits. Positive economics generally relies, for example, on the unsung virtues of the investigator who demonstrates honesty and transparency in the search for truth. Ethical failures in this regard are not uncommon (DeMartino, 2011). But another unstated ethical perspective appears in the worldview from which a researcher sets out to model behavior. Modelers almost always assume that rationality requires that an economic actor undertake an action in pursuit of a …
Confucianism And The Legalism: A Model Of The National Strategy Of Governance In Ancient China, Haiwen Zhou
Confucianism And The Legalism: A Model Of The National Strategy Of Governance In Ancient China, Haiwen Zhou
Economics Faculty Publications
The Confucian school emphasizes family value, moral persuasions, and personal relations. Under Confucianism, there is a free-rider issue in the provision of efforts. Since national officials are chosen through personal relations, they may not be the most capable. The Legalist school emphasizes the usage of incentives and formal institutions. Under the Legalism, the ruler provides strong incentives to local officials which may lead to side effects because some activities are noncontractible. The cold-blood image of the Legalism may alien citizens. By exploiting the paternalistic relationship between the ruler and the ruled under Confucianism and the strength of institution-building under the …
Review Of Brooks, Stephen, Ed., Montgomery And The Battle Of Normandy: A Selection From The Diaries, Correspondence And Other Papers Of Field Marshal The Viscount Montgomery Of Alamein, January To August 1944, James V. Koch
Economics Faculty Publications
(First Paragraph) The stated goal of Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy is to "bring together the most important Bernard Montgomery documents for the period 1 January to 20 August 1944, reproduce each of the chosen documents in full and arrange them in a straightforward chronological order" (p. x). It is fair to say this volume achieves this goal, even though a batch of Montgomery documents already reproduced in full in other volumes was not included here.
Review Of Running Alone: Presidential Leadership From Jfk To Bush Ii: Why It Has Failed And How We Can Fix It, James V. Koch
Review Of Running Alone: Presidential Leadership From Jfk To Bush Ii: Why It Has Failed And How We Can Fix It, James V. Koch
Economics Faculty Publications
James MacGregor Burns is a distinguished and well-published student of the American presidency and leadership. The more than twenty books he has authored have been careful, largely non-polemical, and well received. He received both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1971 for his Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1970).
Human Capital, Education, And Entrepreneurs: Evidence From The Yangtze River Delta, Zhining Hu, Jianghuai Zheng, Jialing Wang
Human Capital, Education, And Entrepreneurs: Evidence From The Yangtze River Delta, Zhining Hu, Jianghuai Zheng, Jialing Wang
Economics Faculty Publications
This paper seeks to examine the relationship between education demand and entrepreneurs in the process of enhancing the growth of human capital in China. We develop a theoretical model that incorporates the important roles played by human capital, education and entrepreneurs. Then, we derive an immigration condition under which the demand for education depends on the existence of entrepreneurs. Finally, we test whether this condition holds true in China, using a panel data set from the Yangtze River Delta which is considered a key barometer of Chinese economy. The empirical results reveal a significant positive relationship between entrepreneurs and education …
Moral Markets: The Critical Role Of Values In The Economy By Paul J. Zak (Book Review), Jonathan B. Wight
Moral Markets: The Critical Role Of Values In The Economy By Paul J. Zak (Book Review), Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
This volume contains the fruits of a two-year seminar on ethics and economics funded by the John Templeton Foundation and administered through the Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. Participants came from the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities, and included Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith and other figures such as Frans de Waal, Herbert Gintis, Robert Frank, and Robert Solomon (for whom the book is dedicated in memoriam). The book’s editor, Paul Zak, is a pioneer in the emerging field of neuroeconomics, which uses medical technology to discover the physiological manifestations of cooperative and altruistic behavior. A theme of …
Review Of Willmott, H.P., The Great Crusade: A New Complete History Of The Second World War, James V. Koch
Review Of Willmott, H.P., The Great Crusade: A New Complete History Of The Second World War, James V. Koch
Economics Faculty Publications
(First Paragraph) The first edition of The Great Crusade (1989) was a fine, comprehensive, single-volume history of World War II. The revised edition is even better, though readers should be aware that this is a military history of the war that usually focuses on decision-making and activities at the operational level and above. The author sometimes speaks of individual fighting divisions, but almost never about individual soldiers. This work is thus not the place for the reader to discover the tales and yarns of individual soldiers. Those who hope to grasp what it was like to be a Marine storming …
Review Of Stansky, Peter, The First Day Of The Blitz: September 7, 1940., James V. Koch
Review Of Stansky, Peter, The First Day Of The Blitz: September 7, 1940., James V. Koch
Economics Faculty Publications
(First Paragraph) Was fall 1940 truly Britain's "finest hour," as Winston Churchill memorably suggested? More particularly, are time-honored stories of stiff-lipped Londoners refusing to buckle under the onslaught of the Luftwaffe on the first day of the Blitz (September 7, 1940) myth or reality? These are the questions Peter Stansky addresses in this well-written, occasionally almost sentimental, essay. He concludes ultimately that the popular version of Blitz history substantially reflects reality, but nevertheless contains many elements of heroic, comforting, and somewhat off-target mythology.
Review Of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight To The Last Man, James V. Koch
Review Of Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh, Dunkirk: Fight To The Last Man, James V. Koch
Economics Faculty Publications
(First Paragraph) Hugh Sebag-Montefiore correctly notes that multitudes of books already have been written about the evacuation of the British and French troops from Dunkirk in May and June 1940. He argues, however, that these accounts generally have neglected the crucial role of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in making this escape possible. He agrees that great credit must go to Adm. Bertram Ramsay, the Royal Navy, and almost one thousand small boat owners who actually moved the beleaguered troops from France to England. Nevertheless, he asserts, without the BEF, there would have been no evacuation, or at least a …
Teaching Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Teaching Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Ethical considerations intersect with economics education on a number of planes. Nonetheless, in terms of curricula, only a handful of economics departments offer courses specifically focused on ethics. This chapter addresses the ways in which instructors can incorporate ethical components into teaching principles and field courses in order to broaden economic understanding and to enhance critical thinking. It examines three pedagogical issues: the artificial dichotomy between positive and normative analysis; the limiting scope of efficiency in outcomes analyses; and the incorporation of alternative ethical frameworks into public policy debates.
The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins
The Ethical Lacunae In Friedman's Concept Of The Manager, Jonathan B. Wight, Martin Calkins
Economics Faculty Publications
This article challenges along two lines Milton Friedman's injunction that the sole role of the business manager is to maximize profits for shareholders using all legal and ethical means. First, it shows how Friedman overly narrows the manager's moral duties to consequentialist profit maximization and thereby fails to account for a wide range of values and virtues necessary for good management. Second, it illustrates how more oblique approaches to management as well as Adam Smith's virtue-based model better capture the moral imagination and relational aspects of leadership that are critical to good management today. In the end, this article suggests …
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics: The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics: The Principles Course, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
When we analyze the source of humor, one ingredient is surely incongruity, the juxtaposition of opposites. So when Tom Lehrer, the consummate Harvard mathematician, openly calls for plagiarism, this is funny because it is exactly the opposite of what we expect - it is absurd. And yet, from the viewpoint of modern economics, is plagiarism really so absurd? We teach our students to maximize short-term profits (in a moral vacuum). We drill them that producers minimize private costs of production (without reference to ethical codes of conduct). We expect economic agents to operate with atomistic selfishness, assuring them that this …
Adam Smith And Greed, Jonathan B. Wight
Adam Smith And Greed, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
The virtues of greed have been widely promoted by some economists in the 20th century. Allegedly it is Adam Smith who provides this new dignity to greed (Lerner, 1937, ix). Kenneth Arrow and Frank Hahn in the General Equilibrium Analysis (1971), for example, implicitly assume that Adam Smith's self-interest is the greed that promotes economic efficiency (quoted in Evensky, 1993, 203). Walter Williams (1999), a devoted follower of Smith, writes in his column that, "Free markets, private property rights, voluntary exchange, and greed produce preferable outcomes most times and under most conditions." These pronouncements have become part of the cultural …
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Teaching The Ethical Foundations Of Economics, Jonathan B. Wight
Economics Faculty Publications
Some economists consider their discipline a science, and thereby divorced from messy ethical details, the normative passions of right and wrong. They teach in a moral vacuum, perhaps even advocating economic agents' operating independently and avariciously, asserting that this magically produces the greatest good for society.