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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

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Economics

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Utah State University

2010

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Black-White Differences In Wealth Accumulation Among Americans Nearing Retirement, Eun Hyei Shin Dec 2010

Black-White Differences In Wealth Accumulation Among Americans Nearing Retirement, Eun Hyei Shin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Using data from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study (HRS), this study examines what types of assets and levels of savings are held by Black near-retirees, while comparing how types of assets and levels of savings of Black near-retirees differ from those of White near-retirees. Through the use of multivariate analyses, this study further investigates the effects of being Black on the levels of savings, the likelihood of holding IRAs, and the likelihood of being financially prepared for retirement. The study sample includes 4,077 individuals between the ages of 51 and 64, and the subsamples consist of 680 Black and …

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Three Essays In Forward Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis, Devalina Chatterjee May 2010

Three Essays In Forward Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis, Devalina Chatterjee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The objective of this dissertation is to verify and explain the forward exchange rate unbiasedness hypothesis in the foreign exchange market. Since in most of the cases the unbiasedness hypothesis fails to hold, we try to provide three different explanations of this puzzling behavior in the three essays. The first essay tries to resolve the forward premium puzzle by addressing the model misspecification issue and thereby adding a time-varying risk premium term in the percentage change specification. The risk premium term is modeled using the GARCH-M representation and the model is estimated by applying a GARCH (1, 1) specification. The …

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Three Essays On Environmental- And Spatial-Based Valuation Of Urban Land And Housing, Lu Liu May 2010

Three Essays On Environmental- And Spatial-Based Valuation Of Urban Land And Housing, Lu Liu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation attempts to provide a comprehensive examination on the non-market valuation of the effect of open space amenities and local public infrastructure on the value of urban land and housing with both spatial heterogeneity and project heterogeneity. The demand for raw land is a derived demand for housing built on it. Therefore, we need to examine the land market and the housing market together. On the one hand, we estimate the value of urban land in a market that does not satisfy the usual assumptions of a competitive market structure as well as incentive incompatibility issues for transaction participants, …

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Can Fighting Grade Inflation Help The Bottom Line?, Arthur J. Caplan, John Gilbert Jan 2010

Can Fighting Grade Inflation Help The Bottom Line?, Arthur J. Caplan, John Gilbert

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

This article uses a rich set of student transcript data to estimate the economic cost incurred by a university when it does not adopt a ‘mean-shift grading policy’ to fight grade inflation. We show that even in the face of moral hazard constraints a university can enhance its profitability by fighting grade inflation with a distribution-shifting policy.

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Does "Free Sampling" Enhance The Value Of Public Goods?, Arthur J. Caplan, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Sandra Marquart-Pyatt Jan 2010

Does "Free Sampling" Enhance The Value Of Public Goods?, Arthur J. Caplan, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Sandra Marquart-Pyatt

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

This study investigates whether a ‘free sampling’ marketing strategy induces an enduring WTP premium effect for public goods. Using data from a unique field experiment involving curbside recycling, we find that the premium effect associated with providing non-participating households a brief opportunity to participate in a curbside recycling program for free is relatively small and not enduring. It may therefore not be cost effective to offer a free-sampling participation incentive for this type (or similar types) of local public good(s).

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Estimating Hypothetical Bias In Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment, Arthur J. Caplan, David Aadland, Anthony Macharia Jan 2010

Estimating Hypothetical Bias In Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment, Arthur J. Caplan, David Aadland, Anthony Macharia

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

This paper reports results from a contingent valuation based public good experiment conducted in the African nation of Botswana. In a sample of university students, we find evidence that stated willingness to contribute to a public good in a hypothetical setting is higher than actual contribution levels. However, results from regression analysis suggest that this is true only in the second round of the experiment, when participants making actual contributions have learned to significantly lower their contribution levels. As globalization expands markets, and economies such as Botswana's continue to modernize, there is a growing need to understand how hypothetical bias …

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Gis-Based Estimation Of Marginal Implicit Prices Of Housing Amenities: The Case Of High Ground And Stagnant Streams, Arthur J. Caplan Jan 2010

Gis-Based Estimation Of Marginal Implicit Prices Of Housing Amenities: The Case Of High Ground And Stagnant Streams, Arthur J. Caplan

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

We use GIS and econometric methods to estimate the marginal implicit values of environmental amenities associated with residential land parcels in the mountain town of Logan, Utah. Amenities include proximity to open spaces (such as parks, golf courses and lakes), commercial zones, major roads, streams, and general visibility of surrounding topography in the valley as determined by the elevation of the land parcel. The amenity value estimates are corrected for spatial autocorrelation. We find spatially dependent relationships between (1) a parcel’s value and its elevation, and (2) a parcel’s value and its adjacency to a stagnant stream. To our knowledge, …

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