Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Intrahousehold Bargaining, Domestic Violence Laws And Child Health Development In Ghana, Ahmed Salim Nuhu

2016 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

I explore a unique exogenous instrument to examine how the intra-familial position of women influence health outcomes of their children using micro data from Ghana. Using the 2SLS-IV estimation technique, I build a model of household bargaining and child health development with perceptions of women regarding wife-beating and marital rape in the existence of domestic violence laws in Ghana. Even though the initial OLS estimates suggest that women’s participation in decisions regarding purchases of household consumption goods help to improve child health outcomes, the IV estimates reveal that the presence of endogeneity underestimates the impact of women’s bargaining power on …

Does Governance Matter To Economic Growth? Evidence From Mena Countries, Hamid Lahouij

2016 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

This research paper uses panel data for the time period 2002-2013 to investigate the impacts of governance and other economic growth determinants on economic growth of some selected oil-importing MENA countries. This paper contributes to the literature on governance, economic development indicators, and economic development in novel ways. The research finds that governance is strongly associated with the economic development. However, the results of this research might conflict with others’ results if their research combines oil-exporting and oilimporting countries in their sample or use different methodologies. Therefore, the policy recommendations should be used cautiously.

Wage Distribution Impacts Of Higher Education Faculty Unionization, Charles S. Wassell Jr, David W. Hedrick, Steven E. Henson, John M. Krieg

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

The literature on the effects of unions on the distribution of wages at the macroeconomic and inter-industry levels has given little attention to the effects at the firm level. At the same time, research on collective bargaining impacts in higher education has focused on the overall wage level rather than on the distribution of salaries. Using panel data on individual faculty members, we find faculty unionization to be associated with a significant flattening of the wage distribution across academic disciplines. This has implications for why faculty might choose to unionize, even in the absence of an overall wage premium.

Resilience Of Developing Countries To Shocks: Case Study Of Waemu Countries With Sur And Var Approaches, Assande Adom

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This article investigates the economic resilience of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) member states to shocks. Towards that end, an indepth study is conducted with, first, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) and structural vector auto-regression (SVAR) models. Second, two indexes - namely, a resistance index and a recovery index — capturing two major aspects of economic resilience in a given country, or group of countries, are constructed. Following a comprehensive analysis of results, five key elements stand out: (i) the WAEMU as a whole takes longer than the individual member countries to accommodate both domestic and external shocks; (ii) …

Financial Development, Human Capital, And Economic Growth: A Cross Country Analysis, Keshob Sharma

Masters Theses

Taking a panel of 66 countries and employing panel data methodology, this study examines the impact of financial development, human capital and their interaction on economic growth. This study covers a period of 40 years from 1971 to 2010. To smooth out the short-run fluctuations in the data for my growth study, I take 5-year non-overlapping averages of variables. As a proxy for financial development, I use private credit by deposit money banks or liquid liabilities, as a percent of GDP. In turn, human capital is represented by the percentage of population above 25 years of age with the secondary …

Economic Growth Paradox In Nigeria: A Perspective From Natural Resource Wealth Time Series Analysis For The Period 1980 - 2013, Jamiu Amusa

Masters Theses

This thesis empirically examines the paradox of economic growth in Nigeria with a viewpoint from natural resource wealth. The question involved in this study is that whether natural resource wealth has a positive impact on economic growth in Nigeria or not. The economy of Nigeria is observed to be growing on paper but deplorably, poverty and unemployment is on a progressive increase in reality. The study uses the endogenous growth theory (AK Model) in terms of how resource wealth can influence economic growth. It exploits time series analysis (Unit Root and Co-integration) techniques to test for the existence of a …

An Investigation Of The Nexus Between Poverty And The Informal Sector In Developing Economies: A Case Study Of Nigeria, Omotara Adeeko

Masters Theses

This paper examines the relationship between poverty and the informal sector in Nigeria. In order to achieve this objective both primary and secondary sources of data mostly spanning from 1980 to 2014 are utilized. The methodology follows three stages. First, the Granger causality test is performed to determine the direction of causality. Using that information, a baseline model, along with several variants, is built on the next stage. Lastly, a robustness check is completed to ensure that the results do not exhibit severe spuriousness problems.

Granger causality tests indicate that the informal sector causes poverty. Overall, nine models including some …

Is The Demand For Health Care Income Elastic? The Case Of 40 Sub-Saharan African Countries, Meron Masresha Nadew

Masters Theses

This paper uses panel data (1995 to 2011) from 40 Sub-Sahara African countries to analyze the income elasticity of health care expenditure along with some of the other theoretical determinants. The empirical results of the instrumental variable approach indicate that per capita income is a core and statistically significant determining factor of health expenditure. The value of the elasticity is about 0.48, suggesting that health expenditure as a commodity is a necessity for this region. In simple words, the goal of the system in this region is curative rather than caring. The percentage of population age 65 or older and …

Does Foreign Aid Promote Growth? Evidence From Africa, Mai Abdulaziz Alghamdi

Masters Theses

Taking a panel of 54 African countries and employing pooled, GLS, and panel regression, this study investigates the impact of foreign aid, policies, and their interaction on economic growth. This study covers a period of 35 years from 1980 to 2015. The key variables of this study are aid, measured by the official amount of foreign aid as a percentage of GDP by the recipient countries and policy, measured by an index created using linear estimation of various policy variables associated with political, economic and fiscal freedom; the Sachs-Warner measure of openness and World bank's Country Policy and Institution Assessment …

Evaluating Growth Slowdowns: Does Middle-Income Trap Exist?, Nusrat Farah

Masters Theses

Growth theories suggest that the factors affecting growth at low-income and high-income countries can be different. If countries struggle to graduate to high-income growth strategies, they may find themselves "stuck" at some middle-income level. This phenomenon can be termed as "middle-income trap". Using a panel of 145 countries over a period of 55 years, this study attempts to identify the existence of "middle-income trap" and its determinants. The aim of this study is to inspect whether the countries really get "stuck" at middle-income levels and if so, then pinpoint the factors associated with growth slowdowns. By employing panel probit estimations, …

Dairy, Democracy, & Pr: A Political Economic Analysis Of Associated Milk Producers, Inc. 1988-1989, Anna L. Percival

Masters Theses

This paper, using a political economic approach, explores the communication techniques used during a second-wave of consolidation in the dairy industry in the 1980s. After providing a historical context of the dairy industry and its connections with federal policy, this paper follows the story of a large dairy cooperative: Association Milk Producers, Inc. (AMPI) and how it influenced public policy and consumption through interconnected dairy organizations like the National Milk Producers Federation and by using a political action committee. This paper provides an example of Carey's (1997) treetops propaganda by way of the powerful political action committee C-TAPE and the …

Jet: A New Journal Takes Off!, Linda Ghent, G. Mateer

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This journal is entirely electronic and open-access; that is because we are here to “transmit” better ways to teach economics to educators. We want instructors to be able to easily share the content they discover in JET with others. Equally important is the content inside the journal. The next word in the mission statement is “innovative.” We are about new ideas and approaches on the frontier of economic education. What does that look like? We will keep you up-to-date on the latest technology in the classroom, social media trends, economics in popular culture, classroom activities, and much more. If you …

Belarusian Export Potential: A Gravity Model Approach, Alena Kalodzitsa, Teshome Abebe

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

This research examines Belarusian export potential with Euro-centric and Russia-centric trade blocks, and analyzes key trade patterns of Belarusian exports during the period of 1998-2013. The empirical study applies the generalized gravity model of international trade, and uses the panel data technique for data analysis. The panel dataset includes Belarusian exports to 43key trade partners and 9 explanatory variables. The results show that the importer's GDP and population, distance and a dummy variable for former soviet republics, are statistically significant for Belarusian exports. However, the real exchange rate, the Slavic language, and common borders were insignificant in the model. Consistent …