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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Geographical Scale, Industrial Diversity And Regional Economic Stability, Jing Chen Dec 2017

Geographical Scale, Industrial Diversity And Regional Economic Stability, Jing Chen

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

The empirical relationship between economic diversity and economic stability varies when it is measured at dfferent geographical scales. This paper evaluates the role of geographical scales in assessing this diversity-stability relationship among counties, states, Economic Areas (EAs), metropolitan counties and metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the contiguous U.S. When choosing geographical units to analyze regional economic structure, it is necessary that the geographical units be large enough in population and employment to quantify effectively the regional economic structure. In addition, this paper proposes that geographical units also should be functionally aggregated regions as they better represent spatial interactions than formal …


The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall Dec 2017

The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard …


Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Of Public Health Services In West Virginia, Eric Bowen Oct 2017

Cross-Jurisdictional Sharing Of Public Health Services In West Virginia, Eric Bowen

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.


Fossil Fuel Opportunities For West Virginia: 2017 Update, Eric Bowen, Christiadi Oct 2017

Fossil Fuel Opportunities For West Virginia: 2017 Update, Eric Bowen, Christiadi

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.


A Technical Note On Spatial Aggregation For Independent Cities And Counties In Virginia, Jing Chen Aug 2017

A Technical Note On Spatial Aggregation For Independent Cities And Counties In Virginia, Jing Chen

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document provides an overview of two approaches to treat Virginia’s independent cities in county-level data sets. Then, issues of spatial aggregation and geographical division change are introduced respectively. A Python function for spatial aggregation is also provided. Although this document focuses on independent cities and counties in Virginia, it can be extended into other regions for spatial aggregation.


Charges For Water And Access: What Explains The Differences In West Virginia Municipalities?, Elham Erfanian, Alan R. Collins Jul 2017

Charges For Water And Access: What Explains The Differences In West Virginia Municipalities?, Elham Erfanian, Alan R. Collins

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Applying linear and log-log functional forms plus spatial econometric analyses to a dataset of 125 municipal water utilities, we investigate the determinants of charges for water use and minimum monthly access to water across West Virginia municipalities in 2014. Water charges models are consistent with the theory of water cost determination as water source, debt, and economies of size plus scale influence what household consumers pay for water. Based on model results, groundwater use by utilities lowers water charges and is estimated to save household customers in West Virginia over $3.6 million annually. West Virginia households typically pay far below …


The Economic Impact Of Proposed New Facilities At Stonewall Resort, Eric Bowen, Christiadi, John Deskins Jul 2017

The Economic Impact Of Proposed New Facilities At Stonewall Resort, Eric Bowen, Christiadi, John Deskins

Bureau of Business & Economic Research

No abstract provided.


Location Quotient, Coefficient Of Specialization And Shift-Share, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez, Caleb Stair May 2017

Location Quotient, Coefficient Of Specialization And Shift-Share, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez, Caleb Stair

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This technical document describes the foundations for three different regional economic functions implemented in MATLAB and R. These functions are Location Quotients, Coefficients of Localization, and Shift-Share Analysis.


Using R And Google-Api Tools To Estimate Geographic Features, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez Apr 2017

Using R And Google-Api Tools To Estimate Geographic Features, Juan Tomas Sayago Gomez

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This technical document is a guide for using Google APIs to find information for research purposes. First, I apply the code to find the elevation at a given set of coordinates for specific locations. Second, I apply the code to find the street distances between two or more sets of coordinates. All the codes and sample files are available in the zip file attached to this guide.


Woody Biomass Processing And Rural Regional Development, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Elham Erfanian Apr 2017

Woody Biomass Processing And Rural Regional Development, Randall Jackson, Péter Járosi, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Elham Erfanian

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

This paper reports on economic and environmental impacts of introducing woody biomass processing in an economically distressed area in central Appalachia, one of the more heavily forested areas in the U.S. Woody biomass is a readily available unconventional energy source that has the potential to boost the rural region’s economy. We use a static regional computable general equilibrium model to assess regional economic impacts of two different WBP production pathways, biomass to ethanol and biomass to biofuel via fast pyrolysis. In an economy with a workforce approaching 160,000, we find that introducing woody biomass ethanol or fast pyrolysis processing would …


Technical Document For Computing Coal Dependent Employment Estimates, Randall Jackson Apr 2017

Technical Document For Computing Coal Dependent Employment Estimates, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Technical Documents

This document presents the basis for estimating coal-dependent employment in a reference region, then establishing a weighting factor for each industry that can be used to provide a quantitative estimate of the existing employment or employment change in a county that can be attributed to existing or change in coal employment. The Matlab function is provided. Although coal is the industry of interest in this document, any other industry could be targeted for similar study.


Mseel Project Context: State Of The Region (2001-2014), Caleb Stair, Sriparna Ghosh, Randall Jackson Jan 2017

Mseel Project Context: State Of The Region (2001-2014), Caleb Stair, Sriparna Ghosh, Randall Jackson

Regional Research Institute Resource Documents

The Marcellus Shale Energy and Environmental Laboratory, or MSEEL is the nation’s first integrated research initiative on shale gas drilling. An experimental hydraulic fracturing gas well is the centerpiece of the MSEEL project, "which West Virginia University launched in fall 2014 in partnership with Northeast Natural Energy, the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy and Ohio State University. The five-year, $11 million project is the first-ever long-term, comprehensive field study of shale gas resources in which scientists will study the process from beginning-to-end.1 ” Because one dimension of the MSEEL analysis is the economic impacts and …


Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, And Sports Television Viewing Audience Size, Brad Humphreys, Levi Pérez Jan 2017

Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, And Sports Television Viewing Audience Size, Brad Humphreys, Levi Pérez

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A growing body of research examines the effect of loss aversion (LA) on consumers’ decisions to watch or attend sporting events. Much of this research focuses on live game attendance. In contrast to the predictions of uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), loss-averse consumers prefer watching either potential upsets, or dominant performances by strong favorites, to events with uncertain outcomes. We test for LA vs. UOH effects in television viewing audience data for free over-the-air broadcasts of 304 Spanish football matches from 2008/09 to 2015/16. This setting generates substantial variation home team win probabilities because of the presence of Real Madrid …


The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2017

The Effect Of Health Care Entrepreneurship On Local Health: The Case Of Medexpress In Appalachia, Amir B. Neto, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We test the hypothesis that the opening of an Urgent Care Center (UCC) has positive impacts on the local community. There are several mechanisms through which a UCC can have an impact: lower health care costs, emergency room decongestion, and improved access to medical information. We examine the entry of MedExpress into Appalachian counties between 2001 and 2013. Employing data from Health Resources Files, which provides information for all counties for specific years, we use Propensity Score Matching to create a year 2000 control group for the counties “treated” by MedExpress entry beginning in 2001. We then employ a standard …


The Dwight Lee Reader: Collected Columns From The Freeman, Dwight Lee, Joshua Hall, Zachary Rodriguez Jan 2017

The Dwight Lee Reader: Collected Columns From The Freeman, Dwight Lee, Joshua Hall, Zachary Rodriguez

Center for Free Enterprise

A collection of articles written by economist Dwight Lee for The Freeman from 1976-2013. The articles are organized into sections on Basic Economics, Markets and Morality, The Market as a Process, Constitutional Economics, Government and Markets, International Trade, Social Welfare, and Environmental Policy.


Professional Sports Events, Concerts, And Urban Place Based Policy: Evidence From The Staples Center, Yulia Chikish, Brad Humphreys, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak Jan 2017

Professional Sports Events, Concerts, And Urban Place Based Policy: Evidence From The Staples Center, Yulia Chikish, Brad Humphreys, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Abstract We analyze the relationship between sports events and concerts, important hospitality demand drivers and key components of many urban renewal projects, in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, an arena home to three pro teams, and nearby hotel performance, exploiting exogenous daily variation in the timing of games and concerts from 2002 to 2017. Results show a small positive impact on revenue per available room at hotels within one mile of the arena and an offsetting decrease at hotels located one to four miles away. Granting nearby hotels exemptions from Los Angeles hotel taxes reduces potential tourism-generated hotel tax …


Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou Jan 2017

Are Fair Weather Fans Affected By Weather? Rainfall, Habit Formation And Live Game Attendance, Qi Ge, Brad Humphreys, Kun Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We analyze habit formation in sports attendance utilizing rainfall as an unexpected, transitory shock to attendance costs. Using attendance data from Major League Baseball (MLB) and NOAA weather data, we analyze the impact of variation in game day weather conditions on current and future MLB attendance. The empirical strategy permits identification of both the formation and persistence of habit from exogenous weather shocks. Past adverse weather shocks increase future attendance by about 200 fans per game. Our study contributes to the literature developing empirical evidence of habit formation in the field and provides policy implications for optimal ticket pricing strategies.


The Effect Of An Increase In Lead In The Water System On Fertility And Birth Outcomes: The Case Of Flint, Michigan, Daniel Grossman, David J.G. Slutsky Jan 2017

The Effect Of An Increase In Lead In The Water System On Fertility And Birth Outcomes: The Case Of Flint, Michigan, Daniel Grossman, David J.G. Slutsky

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Flint changed its public water source in April 2014, increasing lead exposure. The effects of lead in water on fertility and birth outcomes are not well established. Exploiting variation in the timing of births we find fertility rates decreased by 12%, fetal death rates increased by 58% (a selection effect from a culling of the least healthy fetuses), and overall health at birth decreased (from scarring), compared to other cities in Michigan. Given recent efforts to establish a registry of residents exposed, these results suggests women who miscarried, had a stillbirth or had a newborn with health complications should register.


The Relative Value Of Aer P&P Economic Education Papers, J.R. Clark, Joshua C. Hall, Ashley Harrison Jan 2017

The Relative Value Of Aer P&P Economic Education Papers, J.R. Clark, Joshua C. Hall, Ashley Harrison

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The CEE had been allocated one session in the AER Papers and Proceedings (P&P) since 1964. In 2008, the American Economic Association evaluated the allocation of AER Papers and Proceedings sessions to various AEA Committees. In response, the CEE was asked to prepare a one-page rationale for keeping that session. Their response (Committee on Economic Education, 2008) made several important defenses of the session, including that the quality of the papers published in these sessions must speak for itself. In this paper, we propose to evaluate the relative quality of AER P&P papers through citation analysis. Using the Social Science …


The Impact Of Marketization On Entrepreneurship In China: Recent Evidence, Yang Zhou, Joshua C. Hall Jan 2017

The Impact Of Marketization On Entrepreneurship In China: Recent Evidence, Yang Zhou, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

While marketization has been linked to provincial-level economic growth in China, how marketization leads to growth has not been explored. We hypothesize that marketization creates an environment that encourages entrepreneurship, which manifests itself in economic growth. While this argument is not new, it has not been explored in the Chinese context. We fill this gap by empirically testing the relationship between marketization and measures of entrepreneurship across Chinese provinces. Our primary measures of entrepreneurship are level changes in the number of “private enterprises” and “self-employed individuals”. We find that higher levels of marketization are positively related to higher levels of …


Does Economic Freedom Affect The Production Frontier? A Semiparametric Approach With Panel Data, Fan Zhang, Joshua C. Hall, Feng Yao Jan 2017

Does Economic Freedom Affect The Production Frontier? A Semiparametric Approach With Panel Data, Fan Zhang, Joshua C. Hall, Feng Yao

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper applies a multi-step semiparametric stochastic production frontier estimator proposed by Yao et al. (2017) to investigate the effects of economic freedom on the production frontier and technical efficiency. We allow output elasticities and technical efficiency to depend on the economic freedom variable, estimate a smooth coefficient stochastic production frontier, and compare with parametric alternatives, the Cobb-Douglas and translog estimates. Our results add to the literature on economic freedom and growth in three ways. First, our results highlight the flexibility of semiparametric approaches as we find the commonly used parametric approaches to be too restrictive in estimating the marginal …


The Effect Of Superstar Players On Game Attendance: Evidence From The Nba, Brad Humphreys, Candon Johnson Jan 2017

The Effect Of Superstar Players On Game Attendance: Evidence From The Nba, Brad Humphreys, Candon Johnson

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Economic models predict that “superstar” players generate externalities that increase attendance and other revenue sources beyond their individual contributions to team success. We investigate the effect of superstar players on individual game attendance at National Basketball Association games from 1981/82 through 2013/14. Regression models control for censoring due to sellouts, quality of teams, unobservable team/season heterogeneity, and expected game out-comes. The results show higher home and away attendance associated with superstar players. Michael Jordan generated the largest superstar attendance externality, generating an additional 5,021/5,631 fans at home/away games.


Economic Freedom And Government Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou Jan 2017

Economic Freedom And Government Efficiency: Recent Evidence From China, Shaoment Jia, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We investigate the effects of economic freedom (marketization) on governance efficiency defined with the newest provincial level economic indicator data (NBSC, 2017) and economic freedom data (Fan et al., 2017) from 2008 to 2014 in China. With two different measures, the results suggest that economic freedom is positively correlated with governance efficiency. Moreover, the liberalization and marketization progress in the “factors market” is the single most significant area for both governance efficiency measures, while other areas like “market intermediary & legal system” have no significant effects.


Agent Intermediation And Racial Price Differences, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith Jan 2017

Agent Intermediation And Racial Price Differences, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Most housing transactions are brokered wherein the buyer and seller do not meet in person. In which case the buyer’s race is not revealed to the seller, so the seller cannot discriminate based on race. Despite this observation, previous studies find racial price differentials based on the race of the buyer. We provide evidence that these estimates suffer from an omitted variable bias attributable to the time-varying attributes of the house. After controlling for the time-varying attributes of the house, we find that minority (black and Hispanic) and non-minority (white) buyers pay a similar price for comparable housing. We also …


An Overview Of Sports Betting Regulation In The United States, Brad Humphreys Jan 2017

An Overview Of Sports Betting Regulation In The United States, Brad Humphreys

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The United States employs an ad hoc, unconventional method of regulating sports betting, banning it almost everywhere while granting a monopoly to firms in a single state, Nevada. This approach encourages illegal sports betting markets, ignores negative externalities, and generates welfare losses among the large population of responsible recreational gamblers. I review the current state of sports betting regulation in the U.S. and assess its economic viability in advance of the Supreme Court of the United States decision on the landmark Christie v. National Collegiate Athletic Association case.


Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence From Voting On Louisiana's Amendment 2, Joshua C. Hall, Serkan Karadas Jan 2017

Tuition Increases Geaux Away? Evidence From Voting On Louisiana's Amendment 2, Joshua C. Hall, Serkan Karadas

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In many states, public institutions of higher education have the autonomy to raise tuition. This has not been the case in Louisiana since a 1995 constitutional amend-ment required a two-thirds majority of the state legislature for any tuition increase. In November of 2016, voters in Louisiana rejected Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given state institutions of higher education autonomy in setting tuition. We examine parish-level voting on Amendment 2 using an empirical political economy model and find that parishes with a greater percentage of African-Americans and university employees were more likely to vote yes. Student enrollment at …


Some Remarks On Real Estate Pricing, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith Jan 2017

Some Remarks On Real Estate Pricing, Crocker H. Liu, Adam Nowak, Patrick S. Smith

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

This paper develops a framework for addressing the omitted variable bias that plagues most real estate research. We incorporate qualitative information from text to control for property attributes that are generally unobserved. The textual information is entered by real estate agents for every property sold on a Multiple Listing Service (MLS). The agents, who arguably have the most local market and property specific knowledge, use the unstructured text to highlight important information that is not clearly conveyed in other areas of the listing. Although the framework can be applied universally in real estate research, we demonstrate its effectiveness in the …


Learning The Ropes: General Experience, Task-Specific Experience, And The Output Of Police Officers, Gregory Deangelo, Emily Owens Jan 2017

Learning The Ropes: General Experience, Task-Specific Experience, And The Output Of Police Officers, Gregory Deangelo, Emily Owens

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We estimate the role that law enforcement officer experience has on the probability of punishment, using a unique data set of tickets issued by the Idaho State Police linked to human resource records. All else equal, officers issue fewer tickets earlier in their career than later in their career. Quasi-exogenous shocks to an officer’s task-specific experience, generated by law changes, cause a temporary reduction in the frequency with which a subset of troopers “use” those laws, creating disparities in the likelihood that individual citizens are cited for law violations. The reduction in ticketing in response to a law change is …


Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam Nowak, Juan Sayago-Gomez Jan 2017

Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam Nowak, Juan Sayago-Gomez

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The existence of homeowner preferences - specifically homeowner preferences for neighbors -is fundamental to economic models of sorting. This paper investigates whether or not the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) impacted local preferences for Arab neighbors. We test for changes in preferences using a differences-in-differences approach in a hedonic pricing model. Relative to sales before 9/11, we find properties within 0.1 miles of an Arab homeowner sold at a 1.4% discount in the 180 days after 9/11. The results are robust to a number of specifications including time horizon, event date, distance, time, alternative ethnic groups, and the …


Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad Humphreys, Adam Nowak, Yang Zhou Jan 2017

Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad Humphreys, Adam Nowak, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We investigate the impact of Chinese superstition on prices paid by Chinese home buyers in Seattle, Washington. Chinese consider 8 lucky and 4 unlucky. Empirical results indicate Chinese buyers pay a 1-2% premium for addresses including an 8 and a 1% discount for addresses including a 4. These results are unrelated to unobserved property quality: no premium exists when Chinese sell to non-Chinese. Absent explicit identfiers for Chinese individuals, we develop a binomial name classifier using methods from the biomedical and document classification literature, allowing for falsification tests using other ethnic groups and mitigating ambiguity attributable to transliteration of Chinese …