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Economics

2010

Economics Working Papers

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

(Wp 2010-04) Mäki On Economics Imperialism, John B. Davis Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-04) Mäki On Economics Imperialism, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

This paper reviews Uskali Mäki’s epistemic analysis of economics imperialism formulated in terms of the science unification ideal and the three constraints on imperialism he develops. It then examines the phenomenon of 'reverse imperialism' associated with the influence of other fields on economics especially since 1980, and advances a core-periphery model of the identity of economics as a field made up of a collection of different research programs. The discussion returns to Mäki’s constraints framework to re-evaluate the 'economics' imperialism of individual research programs, and evaluates what we learn from Mäki’s three constraints. The paper concludes with a brief comment …

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(Wp 2010-09) Does Money Matter? An Empirical Investigation, Barry Huston, James M. Mcgibany, Farrokh Nourzad Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-09) Does Money Matter? An Empirical Investigation, Barry Huston, James M. Mcgibany, Farrokh Nourzad

Economics Working Papers

This paper uses a simultaneous-equations model of the new consensus macroeconomic model to examine whether the inclusion of the money stock in the aggregate demand function improves the statistical fit of the model. The results indicate that the consensus model is accurate for the U.S. in that the inclusion of money does not increase the predictive power of the model. However, the results reveal that the estimated coefficients are more robust when money is included as an instrumental variable in the simultaneous equations consensus model.

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(Wp 2010-08) Neuroeconomics: Constructing Identity, John B. Davis Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-08) Neuroeconomics: Constructing Identity, John B. Davis

Economics Working Papers

This paper asks whether neuroeconomics will make instrumental use of neuroscience to adjudicate existing disputes in economics or be more seriously informed by neuroscience in ways that might transform economics. The paper pursues the question by asking how neuroscience constructs an understanding of individuals as whole persons. The body of the paper is devoted to examining two approaches: Don Ross’s neurocellular approach to neuroeconomics and Joseph Dumit’s cultural anthropological science organization approach. The accounts are used to identify boundaries on single individual explanations. With that space Andy Clark’s external scaffolding view and Nathaniel Wilcox’s socially distributed cognition view are employed.

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(Wp 2010-01) The Role Of Primary Commodities In Economic Development: Sub-Saharan Africa Versus Rest Of The World, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-01) The Role Of Primary Commodities In Economic Development: Sub-Saharan Africa Versus Rest Of The World, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Working Papers

We study the nexus between natural resources and growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and find that SSA is indeed special: resources dependence retards growth in SSA, but not elsewhere. The natural resources curse is thus specific to SSA. We then show that this specificity does not depend on the type of primary commodities on which SSA specializes. Instead, the SSA specificity appears to arise from the interaction between institutions and natural resources.

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(Wp 2010-02) The Demand For Historic Preservation, John I. Carruthers, David E. Clark, Michael Tealdi Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-02) The Demand For Historic Preservation, John I. Carruthers, David E. Clark, Michael Tealdi

Economics Working Papers

Historic preservation is commonly used to protect old buildings and neighborhoods from deterioration. In 1981, the City of Milwaukee established a historic preservation commission to develop and maintain a local register of places with historical importance to the area. The commission also reviews all applications for historic status as well as any requests for exterior alterations. As such, there are numerous rules and restrictions that are imposed on property owners once it has been declared a historic site. Thus, while historic designation can serve to internalize the externalities in neighborhoods with historic buildings, it also imposes costs on homeowners who …

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(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-06) How Do Structural And Policy Factors Affect A Country’S Probability To Achieve The Most (Or The Least) Favorable Growth Path?, Fabrizio Carmignani, Abdur Chowdhury

Economics Working Papers

We ask which economic policies can help a country create the most favourable conditions for development. We observe that the dynamics of several development indicators can be grouped into four clusters, each cluster corresponding to a different combination of growth and changes in inequality. Based on this observation, we define four different development scenarios and use limited dependent variable regressions to study how structural and policy factors affect a country’s probability to achieve the most (or the least) favourable of these scenarios. Our results point to a comforting picture: through the choice of appropriate policies countries can effectively increase their …

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(Wp 2010-10) Assessing The Predictive Power Of Labor-Market Indicators Of Inflation, Farrokh Nourzad Sep 2010

(Wp 2010-10) Assessing The Predictive Power Of Labor-Market Indicators Of Inflation, Farrokh Nourzad

Economics Working Papers

This paper examines two different measures of wages as predicators of prices in a vector error-correction framework using quarterly data for the U.S. for the period from 1947.Q1 through 2008.Q1. Based on cointegration and a series of exogeneity tests, it is found that: 1) there is a stable, long-run relationship between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Personal Consumption Expenditure Deflator (PCED) on the one hand and unit labor costs (ULC) and average earnings per unit of output (AHE) on the other; 2) ULC is weakly exogenous for both price indices while the two price indices are weakly exogenous …

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(Wp 2010-05) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, And The Sacrifice Ratio, Joseph P. Daniels, David D. Vanhoose Aug 2010

(Wp 2010-05) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, And The Sacrifice Ratio, Joseph P. Daniels, David D. Vanhoose

Economics Working Papers

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation-output trade-off and suggests that the ultimate effect of openness on the output-inflation relationship is influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we consider the impact of exchange-rate pass through and how pass through conditions the effect of openness on the sacrifice ratio. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how both the extent of pass through and openness can interact to influence the output-inflation relationship. Next we empirically explore the nature of these two variables and their interaction. Results indicate that greater pass …

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(Wp 2010-07) Examining Megachurch Growth: Free Riding, Fit, And Faith, Marc Von Der Ruhr, Joseph P. Daniels Aug 2010

(Wp 2010-07) Examining Megachurch Growth: Free Riding, Fit, And Faith, Marc Von Der Ruhr, Joseph P. Daniels

Economics Working Papers

Megachurches are thriving in religious markets at a time when Americans are asserting their ability as consumers of religious products to engage in religious switching. The apparent success of megachurches, which often provide a low cost and low commitment path by which religious refugees may join the church, seems to challenge Iannocconne’s theory that high commitment churches will thrive while low commitment churches will atrophy. This paper employs a signaling model to illustrate the strategy and organizational forms megachurches employ to indicate a match between what the church produces and the religious refugee wishes to consume in an effort to …

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(Wp 2010-03) Subsidizing Religious Participation Through Groups: A Model Of The "Megachurch" Strategy For Growth, Marc Von Der Ruhr, Joseph P. Daniels Jul 2010

(Wp 2010-03) Subsidizing Religious Participation Through Groups: A Model Of The "Megachurch" Strategy For Growth, Marc Von Der Ruhr, Joseph P. Daniels

Economics Working Papers

Either despite or because of their non-traditional approach, megachurches have grown significantly in the United States since 1980. This paper models religious participation as an imperfect public good which, absent intervention, yields suboptimal participation by members from the church’s perspective. Megachurches address this problem by employing secular based group activities to subsidize religious participation in an effort to increase attendees’ religious investment. This strategy not only allows megachurches to attract and retain new members when many traditional churches are losing members, but also results in higher levels of individual satisfaction thereby allowing the megachurch to raise levels of commitment and …

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(Wp 2010-11) The Benefits Of Environmental Improvement: Estimates From Space-Time Analysis, John I. Carruthers, David Clark, Robert N. Renner May 2010

(Wp 2010-11) The Benefits Of Environmental Improvement: Estimates From Space-Time Analysis, John I. Carruthers, David Clark, Robert N. Renner

Economics Working Papers

This paper develops estimates of environmental improvement based on a two-stage hedonic price analysis of the single family housing market in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. The analysis — which focuses specifically on several EPA-designated environmental hazards and involves 226,918 transactions for 177,303 unique properties that took place between January 2001 and September 2009 — involves four steps: (i) ten hedonic price functions are estimated year-by-year, one for each year of the 2000s; (ii) the hedonic estimates are used to compute the marginal implicit price of distance from air release, superfund, and toxic release sites; (iii) the marginal …

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(Wp 2009-02) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, And The Sacrifice Ratio, Joseph P. Daniels, David D. Vanhoose Jan 2010

(Wp 2009-02) Exchange-Rate Pass Through, Openness, And The Sacrifice Ratio, Joseph P. Daniels, David D. Vanhoose

Economics Working Papers

Considerable recent work has reached mixed conclusions about whether and how globalization affects the inflation‐output trade‐off and suggests that the ultimate effect of openness on the output‐inflation relationship is influenced by a variety of factors. In this paper, we consider the impact of exchange‐rate pass through and how pass through conditions the effect of openness on the sacrifice ratio. We develop a simple theoretical model showing how both the extent of pass through and openness can interact to influence the output‐inflation relationship. Next we empirically explore the nature of these two variables and their interaction. Results indicate that greater pass …

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