Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Working Paper No. 32, Canada And The United States: A Comparison Of Their Philosophical Bases, Lorraine M. Hutton

Working Papers in Economics

Americans and Canadians seem similar in many ways; however, their dissimilar historical experiences have shaped very different attitudes and philosophies that underpin their institutions. Canadians promote equality and collective responsibility under a restrained, parliamentary state, whilst the Americans stress self-reliance, individualism and freedom. Canadians embraced the hierarchical structure of the British and French Empires and Americans revolted against all ties to it. What appear to be minor distinctions between the two countries and cultures are actually fundamental philosophies rooted in the past.

Common Pool Resource Issues In Managing Herbicide Resistant Weeds, David E. Ervin

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Controlling herbicide resistance (HR) will require the integration of economics and social science with the biophysical and technological aspects of this growing problem. The existence of mobile herbicide resistance and/or herbicide tolerance traits adds complexity as genetic susceptibility to the herbicide is a resource open to all farmers impacting the weed population. Weed scientists have recognized that the “tragedy of the commons” may appear when herbicide resistance is mobile across farms. However, the private and public institutions that can influence individual and group decisions about HR have received sparse analysis. When such conditions prevail, reliance on voluntary education, technical assistance …

Economics Of Redd+ And Community Forestry, Randall Bluffstone

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is a payment for ecosystem services (PES) system created under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) that tries to reduce deforestation and degradation in countries not subject to requirements under the convention (non-Annex 1 countries) and, therefore, release less and sequester more carbon. Other cobenefits have been added, such as biodiversity protection, poverty reduction and afforestation, which make up the '+' in REDD+. The '+', therefore, attempts to address potentially negative, unintended effects on non-carbon ecosystem services and take account of effects on those who currently have claims to forests. Many …

The Readability Of Principles Of Macroeconomics Textbooks, Sarah Tinkler, James Woods

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The authors evaluated principles of macroeconomics textbooks for readability using Coh-Metrix, a computational linguistics tool. Additionally, they conducted an experiment on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Web site in which participants ranked the readability of text samples. There was a wide range of scores on readability indexes both between textbooks and within textbooks. Results from the Mechanical Turk experiment revealed that the Flesch Reading Ease Index does not predict which samples readers will prefer, but readers do prefer samples that are thematically similar, as identified by Latent Semantic Analysis. There were differences in the responses of native and non-native-but-proficient English speakers to …

Working Paper No. 09, Martin Heidegger: A Compromised Man, Mark Miller

Working Papers in Economics

This inquiry seeks to establish that Martin Heidegger registered as a compromised man in his ethics and philosophy. First, through analyzing Heidegger’s roots in Aristotle and the Pre-­Socratics, this inquiry will introduce Heidegger’s philosophical compatibility with the Nazi Party. After deciphering his rectorial address in 1933 and subsequent actions during his rectorship of the University of Freiburg, this inquiry considers the level of Nazi indoctrination in Heidegger’s work. Finally, this inquiry carefully considers Heidegger’s compromised character through his actions in the post-­‐rectorate phase.

China And Global Imbalances From A View Of Sectorial Reforms, Hiro Ito, Ulrich Volz

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines the impact of sectorial reforms on current account imbalances, with a special focus on China. In particular, we investigate to what extent reforms pertaining to the financial sector, social protection, and healthcare may contribute to a rebalancing of China’s persistent current account imbalances. Our forecasting results suggest that reforming the financial sector would be a significant contributor to the country’s rebalancing with an effect much larger than that of capital account liberalization. Strengthened provisions of social protection and publicly-funded healthcare are also found to contribute to a rebalancing of the Chinese economy.

Eastern Migrations Vs Western Welfare States - (Un)Biased Fears, Kosta Josifidis, John B. Hall, Valérie Berenger

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This inquiry considers some effects of migration on the labour markets and the welfare systems found in the EU-15, and from the perspectives of sustainability of the current welfare state regimes. Our inquiry aims to determine whether and to what extent different approaches in regulation of migration flows between the new and old member states are compatible with related economic and demographic findings. Within this context, our research considers regulations affecting migration flows. Our findings suggest that some effects of migration from the EU8+2 on the labour markets and social protection systems found in the EU-15, both with respect to …

The Effectiveness Of Public Development Banks: Designing Good Impact Evaluations, Alessandro Maffioli, Cesar M. Rodriguez

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

PDB programs have become a fundamental ingredient of productive development policy strategies in most emerging economies. Although the overall need for these interventions is rarely questioned, academics and policymakers often debate their effectiveness, as well as the optimal approaches and instruments necessary to implement them. Therefore, the need to produce rigorous evaluations of PDBs has become increasingly relevant for both government and civil society (see Chapter 2).

This chapter presents the main concepts and operational arguments regarding the execution of indepth impact evaluations of PDB initiatives and instruments. For a more practical approach, these arguments are presented with examples of …

Access Versus Choice: Testing The “Food Desert” Construct In Champaign, Il, Rhiannon L. Jerch, Kathy Baylis, Sahan T.M. Dissanayake

Economics Faculty Publications and Presentations

How does one’s food environment affect food purchase decisions? Food access has received significant political and academic attention, particularly under the Obama administration. Existing literature on food access and “food deserts” mainly focuses on geographic distance or the retail of fresh fruits & vegetables versus fast food within a neighborhood to determine and identify inequitable access. In this paper I attempt to develop an endogenous measure of food access by asking how geographic placement of food retail affects food expenditure, particularly of fruits & vegetables. I use novel data on 886 households matched to food prices from a census of …

Economic Development And Gender Equality: Is There A Gender Kuznets Curve?, Joshua Eastin, Aseem Prakash

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research note examines the relationship between economic development and gender equality. Drawing on the concept of the Kuznets curve, the authors hypothesize that the relationship between economic development and gender inequality is curvilinear (S shaped), with three distinct stages. In the first stage, economic development improves gender equality because it enables greater female labor-force participation. An independent income stream increases women's intrahousehold bargaining power. The opportunity to develop human capital confers greater political and social recognition. In the second stage, labor-force stratification and gender discrimination encourage divergent male/female income trajectories, which decrease the opportunity costs of female labor-force withdrawal …