Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Religious Identity Formation: Constraints Imposed On Religious Institutions And Implications For The Meaning Of Religious Affiliation, Marc Von Der Ruhr, Paul Ngo, Joseph Daniels

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Religiosity in the United States remains a strong social force. The United States persistently demonstrates higher religious participation than Europe. Some recent trends documented by the Pew Research Center in its 2008 and 2015 publications on the U.S. religious landscape, however, cite evidence that different religious groups are experiencing very different trends in participation. These trends show a recent and significant decline among many moderate Protestant denominations but a modest increase in participation at fundamentalist churches. The Pew Research Center similarly documents significant inconsistencies between what a religious hierarchy teaches versus what individuals personally choose to believe. For example, and …

Revenue Sharing And Player Salaries In Major League Baseball, James Richard Hill, Nicholas A. Jolly

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This article analyzes how changes made to the revenue sharing agreement in the 2007 Major League Baseball collective bargaining agreement influenced the salaries of position players and pitchers. The tax rates associated with revenue sharing decreased following ratification of the 2007 agreement. Theoretically, these changes should increase players’ marginal revenue product and, therefore, salaries. Results indicate that position players experienced an increase in salary following the 2007 agreement. Pitchers’ salaries also increased, but by a smaller amount. The effect of the 2007 agreement was different throughout the salary distribution for position players, but uniform throughout the distribution for pitchers.

Perceptions Of Institutional Quality: Evidence Of Limited Attention To Higher Education Rankings, Andrew G. Meyer, Andrew R. Hanson, Daniel C. Hickman

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Rankings of colleges and universities provide information about quality and potentially affect where prospective students send applications for admission. We find evidence of limited attention to the popular U.S. News and World Report rankings of America’s Best Colleges. We estimate that applications discontinuously drop by 2%–6% when the rank moves from inside the top 50 to outside the top 50 whereas there is no evidence of a corresponding discontinuous drop in institutional quality. Notably, the ranking of 50 corresponds to the first page cutoff of the printed U.S. News guides. The choice of college is typically a one-time decision with …

Does Athletic Success Influence Persistence At Higher Education Institutions? New Evidence Using Panel Data, Daniel C. Hickman, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This study examines the relationship between athletic success and student persistence toward a degree. We build an updated panel of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I institutions and utilize within-institution variation to identify the effects of athletic success. Using a ranking of all institutions, we find that having more successful men's basketball and football teams has a significant positive effect on first-year retention rates. We also find some evidence that improved basketball rankings increase graduation rates, and that success in the NCAA tournament may have a sizable impact on retention. Although the estimated effects are generally modest in scale, …

Do College Admissions Counselors Discriminate? Evidence From A Correspondence-Based Field Experiment, Andrew Hanson

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

I design and implement a correspondence based field experiment to test for race and gender discrimination among college admissions counselors in the student information gathering stage. The experiment uses names to identify student race and gender, and student grade, SAT score, and writing differences to reflect varying levels of applicant quality. I find that counselors do not respond differently by race in most cases, but there are measurable differences in response/non-response and in the type of correspondence sent that favor female students. I also find that the quality of the student induces large differences in the type of response.

Corporate Income Taxes And Labor: An Investigation Of Empirical Evidence, Andrew R. Hanson, Ike Brannon

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

With the highest top marginal corporate tax rate among OECD nations and the third-highest in the world at 35 percent, it is not surprising that policymakers have long evinced a desire to lower the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate. Reducing the corporate income tax rate has implications for a wide-range of outcomes – from federal revenues to foreign direct investment, but the effects of such a change on workers is less understood. This paper examines the empirical literature on the effect of corporate income taxes on labor, specifically on employment and worker incomes. In general, empirical work with the …

“No Shut-Off” Policies And Natural Gas Consumption, David E. Clark, Catherine Dybicz, Andrew Hanson, Farrokh Nourzad

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Many U.S. states have regulations that prevent natural gas utility companies from turning off service to non-paying consumers. The goal of these policies, termed “no shut-off” (NSO) regulations, is to provide a guaranteed minimum level of residential comfort by reducing the marginal cost of consumption to zero for a period of time. This paper employs a difference-in-difference approach applied to residential U.S. Energy Information Administration data to evaluate whether NSO policies generate higher levels of gas usage. Our preferred specifications suggest that activation of a NSO policy increases natural gas consumption by between 4.7–4.8%, resulting in a total increase of …

Safety Regulation In Professional Football: Empirical Evidence Of Intended And Unintended Consequences, Andrew Hanson, Nicholas A. Jolly, Jeremy Peterson

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

In response to increasing public awareness and negative long-term health effects of concussions, the National Football League implemented the “Crown-of-the-Helmet Rule” (CHR). The CHR imposes penalties on players who initiate contact using the top of the helmet. This paper examines the intended effect of this policy and its potential for unintended consequences. We find evidence supporting the intended effect of the policy- a reduction in weekly concussion reports among defensive players by as much as 32% (34% for all head and neck injuries), but also evidence of an increase in weekly lower extremity injury reports for offensive players by as …

Analyzing The Characteristics Of Plants Choosing To Opt-Out Of The Large Combustion Plant Directive, Andrew G. Meyer, Grzegorz Pac

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

The EU Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) is a major but largely unstudied environmental regulation. Most of the 1585 large combustion plants in this analysis are electricity supply plants or combined heat and power plants. We find that, controlling for country characteristics and plant size, plants in the electricity supply, combined heat and power, district heating, and paper industries have a higher probability of being opted-out of the emission limit values (ELVs), which necessitates eventual plant closure. Controlling for plant size and industry, increasing the amount of solid fuel or natural gas utilized at a plant is associated with a …

The Impact Of Education On Political Ideology: Evidence From European Compulsory Education Reforms, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Previous research documents a correlation between education and political ideology, usually indicating a positive relationship between education and left-wing political views. In this paper, I examine to what extent this association is causal. I merge political ideology data from 25 waves of Eurobarometer surveys with information on 18 educational reforms in 11 European countries. I then instrument for educational attainment with a regression discontinuity design that estimates the increase in education due to compulsory educational reforms. Notably, it appears that omitted variables bias is important here. I find a significant causal effect of education moving individuals to the right when …

Job-Destroying Effects Of $15 Minimum Wage By Metro, Industry And Occupation, Andrew Hanson, Zackary Hawley

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Does Eco-Labeling Of Services Matter? Evidence From Higher Education, Daniel C. Hickman, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Eco-labeling of services has become increasingly common, yet little empirical evidence exists concerning its effectiveness. We address this gap in the literature by analyzing a highly visible eco-label, the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), in the sector of higher education. We match information about the ACUPCC to the US Department of Education IPEDS database to examine the impact of signing on student applications, admissions, and enrollment. We mainly utilize a difference-in-difference approach to identify the effects of interest but confirm results with an interrupted time series model. We find that signing the ACUPCC increases applications and admitted …

Effects Of Foreign Direct Investment On Firm-Level Technical Efficiency: Stochastic Frontier Model Evidence From Chinese Manufacturing Firms, Miao Grace Wang, Sunny Wong

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

It has been recognized that multinational corporations can spill over to non-affiliated firms in host economies. Existing studies of foreign direct investment (FDI) and productivity growth often assume firms are perfectly efficient. Our paper relaxes this assumption and explores how FDI affects a firm’s technical efficiency improvement as well as its technical progress in a stochastic frontier model. The stochastic frontier model estimates a firm’s production frontier given a set of production inputs. The deviation of a firm’s actual output level from its maximum level of output is defined as technical inefficiency. Using data from more than 12,000 Chinese manufacturing …

Shock, But No Shift: Hospitals' Responses To Changes In Patient Insurance Mix, Kathryn L. Wagner

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Medicaid reimburses healthcare providers for services at a lower rate than any other type of insurance coverage. To account for the burden of treating Medicaid patients, providers claim that they must cost-shift by raising the rates of individuals covered by private insurance. Previous investigations of cost-shifting has produced mixed results. In this paper, I exploit a disabled Medicaid expansion where crowd-out was complete to investigate cost-shifting. I find that hospitals reduce the charge rates of the privately insured. Given that Medicaid is expanding in several states under the Affordable Care Act, these results may alleviate cost-shifting concerns of the reform.

Is Unemployment Good For The Environment?, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Environmental quality is a public good, potentially impacted by everybody. Individual level pro-environmental behavior affects environmental quality in the aggregate. Therefore, it is important to understand what causes individual’s pro-environmental behaviors to change. We quantify the causal effect of one determinant, unemployment, using an EU-27 population representative Eurobarometer survey. Drawing on results from the theory of the private provision of public goods, and recognizing that unemployment decreases income and the opportunity cost of time, we formulate testable predictions that unemployment will decrease the extent of pro-environmental behaviors that require monetary contributions and increase the extent of pro-environmental behaviors that mainly …

Metropolitan Area Home Prices And The Mortgage Interest Deduction: Estimates And Simulations From Policy Change, Hal Martin, Andrew Hanson

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

We simulate changes to metropolitan area home prices from reforming the Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID). Price simulations are based on an extended user cost model that incorporates two dimensions of behavioral change in home buyers: sensitivity of borrowing and the propensity to use tax deductions. We simulate prices with both inelastic and elastic supply. Our results show a wide range of price effects across metropolitan areas and prospective policies. Considering behavioral change and no supply elasticity, eliminating the MID results in average home price declines as steep as 13.5% in Washington, D.C., and as small as 3.5% in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, …

Competition, Cost Innovation, And X-Inefficiency In Experimental Markets, Andrew Smyth

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper examines the relationship between competition, cost innovation, and x-inefficiency in experimental markets. In the lab, oligopolists make closer-to-optimal cost innovation expenditures than do monopolists, which result in lower x-inefficiency in oligopoly than in monopoly. Oligopolies also increase total surplus relative to monopoly, and consumer surplus makes up a larger portion of total surplus in oligopoly than monopoly. The data illustrate how x-inefficiency affects surplus dynamically and suggest price as a mechanism by which competitive pressure increases cost efficiency.

Explaining The Fixed Cost Component Of Discounting: The Importance Of Students' Liquidity Constraints, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Utilizing experimental data on choices over real monetary rewards made by university students, we provide evidence that two measures of liquidity, income and employment status, significantly explain differences in patterns of discounting. We find an average fixed cost component of discounting in the range of $5 for unemployed students and near $0 for employed students. An increase in annual disposable income of $1000 decreases the fixed cost component of discounting by approximately $0.20 to $0.25. These findings can help resolve the puzzle that some studies in the literature find evidence of present-bias and magnitude effects and some do not.

Discrimination In Mortgage Lending: Evidence From A Correspondence Experiment, Andrew Hanson, Zackary Hawley, Hal Martin, Bo Liu

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

We design and implement an experimental test for differential response by mortgage loan originators (MLOs) to requests for information about loans. Our e-mail correspondence experiment is designed to analyze differential treatment by client race and credit score. Our results show net discrimination by 1.8% of MLOs through non-response. We also find that MLOs offer more details about loans and are more likely to send follow up correspondence to whites. The effect of being African American on MLO response is equivalent to the effect of having a credit score that is 71 points lower.

Local Labor Markets And The Federal Earned Income Tax Credit, Andrew Hanson, Zackary Hawley

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which offers relief from federal income-tax payments for a targeted group of taxpayers, is based on national income limits and the presence of dependent children. Benefits determinations are made with a flat national maximum level of assistance. The EITC is extended to nearly 29 million families and costs the U.S. Treasury about $64 billion annually.

While the EITC uses national parameters to determine eligibility and benefits, the U.S. labor force is dispersed among a series of disparate labor markets in metropolitan areas. Each market within each geography has unique characteristics, with vastly different wage …

Heterogeneity In The Preferences And Pro-Environmental Behavior Of College Students: The Effects Of Years On Campus, Demographics, And External Factors, Andrew G. Meyer

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Models from several social science fields have identified factors that lead to pro-environmental behavior. This research builds on those models by analyzing a survey completed by over 500 undergraduates at a US liberal arts university to examine the characteristics of students that are associated with more environmentally friendly behavior and quantify the desirability of different environmental initiatives. There is evidence that the probability of pro-environmental behavior substantially increases with each additional year that a student spends on campus. The magnitude of the effect is between 4 and 10 percentage points per year, depending on the specific behavior and empirical model. …

Review Of Economics Imperialism Versus Multidisciplinarity, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper examines the implications of Chicago School economist Edward Lazear’s 2000 defense of economics imperialism using standard trade theory. It associates that defense with interdisciplinarity or the idea that the sciences are relatively autonomous, but treats this defense as a mask for a more conventional imperialist strategy of promoting Chicago School neoclassicism. Lazear’s argument actually created a dilemma for Chicago regarding how it could espouse interdisciplinarity while operating in a contrary way. I argue that the solution to this dilemma was for neoclassicism to rebuild economics imperialism around neoclassicism as a theory that sees the world in its own …

Individual Attitudes Toward The Impact Of Multinational Corporations On Domestic Businesses: How Important Are Individual Characteristics And Country-Level Traits?, Joseph P. Daniels, Miao Grace Wang, M.C. Sunny Wong

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

We study the importance of individual characteristics and national factors influencing individual attitudes towards the impact of multinational corporations on local businesses. Our sample includes more than 40 000 respondents in 29 countries from the 2003 National Identity Survey conducted by the International Social Survey Programme. We find that individual demographic factors and socioeconomic status, such as gender, age, income and education, are strong predictors of their attitudes. For example, income and education are positively associated with favourable attitudes towards the impact of multinational corporations (MNCs) on local businesses while age is negatively associated with individual attitudes towards MNCs. In …

Exchange Rate Volatility And Its Effect On Stock Market Volatility, K. Kennedy, Farrokh Nourzad

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper investigates empirically the effect of volatility of the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar vis-à-vis the euro on U.S. stock market volatility while controlling for a number of drivers of stock return volatility. Using a GARCH(1, 1) model and using weekly data covering the period from the week of January 1, 1999 through the week of January 25, 2010, it is found that the 9/11 terrorist attack, bear markets, fluctuations in jobless claims, and negative equity market returns increase financial volatility. On the other hand, no conclusive results are found regarding the effect of fluctuations in M2, or …

How Much Versus Who: Which Social Norms Information Is More Effective?, Andrew G. Meyer, Guanyi Yang

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

We conduct an experiment to investigate how different types of information about social norms affect individuals’ stated contributions to a specific pro-environment program, a student ‘green fee’, in the context of a referendum. Compared to students that receive no information about peer contributions, on average, students that receive information about the dollar value range of contributions at peer institutions contribute less while students that learn about the high percentage of students voting ‘yes’ on green fee programs at peer institutions contribute more. The results are economically significant as the absolute values of both effects represent approximately 25% of average contributions. …

Economics As Science, John B. Davis, Nancy Cartwright

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Situating Care In Mainstream Health Economics: An Ethical Dilemma?, John B. Davis, Robert Mcmaster

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Standard health economics concentrates on the provision of care by medical professionals. Yet ‘care’ receives scant analysis; it is portrayed as a spillover effect or externality in the form of interdependent utility functions. In this context care can only be conceived as either acts of altruism or as social capital. Both conceptions are subject to considerable problems stemming from mainstream health economics’ reliance on a reductionist social model built around instrumental rationality and consequentialism. Subsequently, this implies a disregard for moral rules and duties and the compassionate aspects of behaviour. Care as an externality is a second-order concern relative to …

Bilateral Tax Treaties And Us Foreign Direct Investment Financing Modes, Joseph P. Daniels, Patrick O'Brien, Marc Von Der Ruhr

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Though it is often claimed that bilateral tax treaties promote foreign direct investment (FDI), previous empirical studies do not support this view. Indeed, the literature provides mixed results where bilateral tax treaties have a positive impact on FDI flows in some studies and a negative impact in other studies. Using US FDI outflows disaggregated into financing modes, equity capital, reinvested earnings, and inter-company debt, we estimate fixed-effects quantile regression models that include controls for new tax treaties, existing treaties (in place prior to the start of the sample period), and the total number of tax treaties a host country has …

Lawson On Veblen On Social Ontology, John B. Davis

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

This paper discusses Lawson’s use of Veblen’s concept of ‘neoclassical economics’ and argument that the category of neoclassical economics should be jettisoned on the grounds that it obfuscates effective critique of mainstream economics. The paper links Lawson’s critique of closed systems and Veblen’s cumulative causation view by offering a reflexivity, feedback loop formulation of the latter aimed at overcoming the pre-Socratic dichotomy between Heraclitian and Parmenidean ontological thinking. The paper then reviews what this implies for three key social ontology doctrines: social reality as processual and highly transient; emergence and the appearance of novelty; the internal relatedness of social reality. …

Terms Of Trade Shocks And Private Savings In The Developing Countries, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Faculty Research and Publications

Economic agents in the developing countries are subject to tight credit constraints, which are more pronounced during bad state of nature. Thus, adverse shocks to commodity prices in the world market can force them to reduce savings by a larger amount than they would otherwise have. Empirical analysis using a dynamic GMM model and data from 45 developing countries confirm that most of the determinants of savings identified in the literature also apply to the developing countries. The transitory component in the terms of trade have a larger positive impact than the permanent component. This reflects the lack of access …