Economics Commons^™

Civil Service Reform In Pakistan: Capacity, Competence, Courage, And Compassion, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

My remarks this afternoon will be divided into three parts. First, I will dwell on the question: Why reform the Civil Service? What is the rationale and justification for reform? Second, if it is necessary what should be the end-result of the reform and what needs to be done to achieve this objective. Third, what should be the phasing and sequencing of various reforms if there is an agreement on the need, the objective and the content of the reforms. The overall governance structure is important because it is through this structure that economic policies are intermediated and translated into …

Delineating Roles Within The Sector, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

Dr. Husain went on to speak of the role of the microfinance industry in Pakistan where the distinction between the microfinance banks and microfinance institutions was deliberately designed to maintain a wedge between deposit mobilizers and social mobilizers to safeguard the poor against charlatans. The idea was to ensure that nobody but licensed deposit-takers could take money from the poor. Incidentally, he also mentioned that Pakistan was the first to make regulation for the sector. Bangladesh and India were against regulations at that stage as it was felt that regulation would hamper the growth of the sector. The State Bank …

Models Of Local Democracy Within A Federal System: The Experience Of Pakistan, Ishrat Husain Dr.

Faculty Research - Talks, Speeches, & Discourse

I would like to divide my remarks this morning in three parts. First, I would like to focus on the reasons as to why local government system should be strengthened and made effective. Second, I would share the analysis of the Local Government system in Pakistan introduced in 2001 and finally, how can that system be improved and made more responsive to the needs of the common citizens

The Impact Of Honor Codes And Perceptions Of Cheating On Academic Cheating Behaviors, Especially For Mba Bound Undergraduates, Heather M. O'Neill, Christian A. Pfeiffer

Business and Economics Faculty Publications

Researchers studying academic dishonesty in college often focus on demographic characteristics of cheaters and discuss changes in cheating trends over time. To predict cheating behavior, some researchers examine the costs and benefits of academic cheating, while others view campus culture and the role which honor codes play in affecting behavior. This paper develops a model of academic cheating based on three sets of incentives - moral, social and economic—and how they affect cheating behaviors. An on-line survey comprising 61 questions was administered to students from three liberal arts colleges in the USA in spring 2008, yielding 700 responses, with half …

Mexico Consensus Economic Forecast, Volume 14, Number 3, Thomas M. Fullerton Jr., Adam G. Walke

Departmental Papers (E & F)

No abstract provided.

El Paso Downtown Perceptions: 2011 Survey, Roberto Tinajero, David Ramirez, Elizabeth K. Gibson

IPED Technical Reports

The Institute for Policy and Economic Development (IPED) at the University of Texas at El Paso was contracted by the El Paso Downtown Management District (DMD), Strategic Communication Consulting Group (SCCG), and the City of El Paso Economic Development Department (EPED) to conduct a survey on issues related to downtown El Paso. Accordingly, this report provides a snapshot of the attitudes and perceptions of business owners and employees within the Downtown Management District, as well as El Paso County households, regarding several issues associated with downtown El Paso. The survey and its findings are intended to guide the DMD and …

From Boom To Doom To Boom: Offshore Financial Centres And Development In Small States, Richard Woodward

Articles

During the 1990s tax havens and offshore financial centres (OFCs) were subject to a string of initiatives designed to raise their tax and regulatory regimes to accepted international standards. Many commentators forecast that this would lead to the demise of OFCs, a worry for the many small states whose economic well being depended heavily on the provision of offshore financial services. Despite this regulatory onslaught many small state OFCs have prospered in the new millennium. This paper seeks to explain this apparent paradox by arguing that (1) international initiatives were riddled with loopholes and exceptions that have been gleefully seized …

The Effect Of Tax Increment Financing On Spillovers And School District Revenue, Jennifer A. Bossard

College of Business: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over the years the urban development financing tool known as Tax Increment Finance (TIF) has been a controversial topic as it relates to fiscal impacts on school districts. This study addresses an important question related to this issue. Does TIF affect non-TIF district property value within the school district? The question is explored by developing a theoretical model that describes the relationship between TIF and school finance and estimating an empirical model that tests the hypotheses stemming from the theoretical model. Although the results are mixed, there is some evidence that TIF does affect non-TIF district property value in the …

Two Essays On The Effect Of Macroeconomic News On The Stock Market, Ajay Kongera

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation uses macroeconomic variables. In the first essay I use macroeconomic variables to determine if these variables affect the market's returns and volatilities, and in the second essay I examine whether the 11-month returns can be explained by these variables.

Using macroeconomic variables and forecasts of these variables on a quarterly basis from the Survey of Professional Forecasters, I first develop macroeconomic surprise variables. The macroeconomic surprise variables are then modified by dispersion of forecasts to adjust for surprises from uncertainty. Dispersion adjusted forecast surprises have not been used extensively in the literature. I also use a monetary shock …

The Behavior And Choices Of Serial Bidders In M&A Transactions: A Prospect Theory Approach, Ahmed Essam El-Din El-Bakry

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This paper investigates the impact of previous losses incurred by U.S serial bidders on their M&A strategic choices and premiums paid to acquire targets. The Hubris and Overconfidence theories suggest that managers tend to overpay as a result of exaggerating their ability to extract value and manage post-acquisition integration process between the acquiring firm and its target. Managerial overconfidence, which is signaled by conducting several acquisitions within a short time period or by other manager-specific investment attributes, has been shown to contribute to increasing premiums in M&A transactions and subsequent poor post-acquisition performance.

Experimental findings in the area of psychology …

Is There A Link Between Money Illusion And Homeowners' Expectations Of Housing Prices?, Lucy F. Ackert, Bryan K. Church, Narayanan Jayaraman

Faculty Articles

Money illusion is a behavioral bias in which a person thinks in terms of nominal rather than real values. This article reports homeowners' responses to a survey designed to measure the extent of money illusion as well as homeowners' expectations regarding home valuations. Our survey respondents suffer from money illusion, yet they have reasonable expectations of home prices. Our analysis did not identify any unique individual characteristic that correlates with homeowners' choices and suggests that the relationship between money illusion and mispricing is subtle and multifaceted.

Linking Compensation And Job Losses During A Recession, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

For more than 60 years, no permanent Lincoln Electric employee has been laid off for lack of work. 2010 marked the 10th consecutive year year that the company increased its dividend and stock price gains have fairly consistently outperformed the S&P 500 during the past five years. For most organizations, when costs need to be cut, shedding some workers is part of the solution. Work Sharing Unemployment Insurance tries to mitigate the negative repercussions of layoffs. Under WSUI, workers are eligible for a prorated fraction of unemployment insurance benefits. Proponents of WSUI contend that hiring, firing, and retraining costs are …

Sme Inc: Corporate Success And Social Good, Paul Lim, Brendan Barrett, Nils Steinbrecher, Tomoki Fujii, Ted Tschang, Lieven Demeester

Research Collection School Of Economics

Panel of experts share their views ranging from the definition of sustainable business to how governments should lead by example.

Financial Development And Firms’ Growth In Textile Industry Of Pakistan: A Panel Data Analysis, Ijaz Hussain

Business Review

This discussion uses secondary data from “Balance Sheet Analysis (2000- 2009) of Joint Stock Companies Listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange published by Statistics Department of State Bank Of Pakistan” and covers a panel of 75 textile firms of textile industry in Pakistan . Findings of this study indicate that all explanatory variables included in our model have significant influence on firms’ growth. Lagged profitability and efficiency and financial development have statistically significant and positive impact on firms’ growth while financial leverage, size, risk, real cost of debt, energy crisis and abolishment of textile quota have negative impact. Acute energy …

The 2011 City Of El Paso Citizen Survey, Elizabeth K. Gibson, Lisa Tomaka, David Ramirez, Roberto Tinajero, Mario Caire, Dennis L. Soden

IPED Technical Reports

The Institute for Policy and Economic Development (IPED) at the University of Texas at El Paso was contracted by the City of El Paso’s Office of the City Manager to conduct a household survey exploring citizen attitudes and perceptions about City services and general quality of life issues. The present survey is the fourth in a series of similar surveys conducted in 2004, 2006, and 2008. These surveys, together, explore how El Paso citizens’ attitudes and perceptions have changed over time regarding their City and the services its government provides.

Stock Market Reaction To Selected Macroeconomic Variables In The Nigerian Economy, Abraham Williams Terfa

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This study examines the relationship between the stock market and selected macroeconomic variables in Nigeria. The all share index was used as a proxy for the stock market while inflation, interest and exchange rates were the macroeconomic variables selected. Employing error correction model, it was found that a significant negative short run relationship exists between the stock market and the minimum rediscounting rate (MRR) implying that, a decrease in the MRR, would improve the performance of the Nigerian stock market. It was also found that exchange rate stability in the long run, improves the performance of the stock market. Though …

Effects Of Global Climate Change On Nigerian Agriculture: An Empirical Analysis, Apata T. .G

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of global warming on Nigerian agriculture and estimation of the determinants of adaptation to climate change. Data used for this study are from both secondary and primary sources. The set of secondary sources of data helped to examine the coverage of the three scenarios (1971-1980; 1981-1990 and 1991-2000). The primary data set consists of 900 respondents’ but only 850 cases were useful. This study analyzed determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures using a Multinomial choice and stochastic-simulation model to investigate the effects of rapid climatic change on grain production and the …

A Kalman Filter Approach To Fisher Effect: Evidence From Nigeria, Omorogbe J. Asemota, Dahiru A. Bala

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper investigates evidence of a Fisher effect in Nigeria by employing quarterly CPI inflation and Nominal interest rates data. For a more robust result we conducted integration and cointegration tests in order to examine time-series properties of the variables. Using Co-integration and Kalman filter methodologies, the study did not find evidence of a full Fisher effect from 1961:1-2009:4. This result indicates that nominal interest rates do not respond one-for-one to changes in inflation rates in the long run despite the presence of positive relationship among the variables. Our study recommends the adoption of potent policies aimed at checking inflation …

User Patterns Of Key Performance Indicators Among Non-Profits In New York City And Westchester County, Gregory Holtz Phd

Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship

After a brief description of the study participants, the four major questions which guide the research are explored:

• What percent of the non-profits in the study use KPI’s and what are the different purposes served by the non-profit’s sector adoption of KPI’s?
• What are the various uses of KPI’S by non-profits?
• What are the pressures that come from funders to use KPI’s?
• Why do some non-profits not use Key Performance Indicators?

The context inside of which these questions were posed is one that has changed rapidly over the last several years. For many years non-profit organizations concentrated their considerable energies …

Dr Pepper Snapple Group: Fighting To Prosper In A Highly Competitive Market, Joseph S. Harrison

Robins Case Network

Since its separation from the food giant Cadbury Schweppes, Dr Pepper Snapple Group has experienced successes such as the turnaround of the Snapple brand and growth in demand for some of its popular brands. However, the company is still a distant third in an incredibly competitive industry. How can the company achieve continued success in the shadows of Coca Cola and PepsiCo?

On Fractionally Integrated Logistic Smooth Transitions In Time Series, Olanrewaju I. Shittu, Yaya S. Olaolua

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

Long memory and nonlinearity are two key features of some macroeconomic time series which are characterized by persistent shocks that seem to rise faster during recession than it falls during expansion. A variant of nonlinear time series model together with long memory are used to examine these features in inflation series for three economies. The results which compares favourably with that of van Dijk et al. (2002) elicit some interesting attributes of inflation in the developed and developing economies.

Best Linear Unbiased Estimate Using Buys-Ballot Procedure When Trend-Cycle Component Is Linear, Ifeanyi S. Wueze, Nwogu C. Eleazar, Jude C. Ajaraogu

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The Best linear unbiased estimate (BLUE) of Buys-Ballot estimates when trend-cycle component is linear are discussed in this paper. The estimates are those proposed by Iwueze and Nwogu (2004). Discussed are the Chain Based Estimation (CBE) method and the Fixed Based Estimation (FBE) method. The variates for the CBE method were found to have constant mean and variance but are correlated with only one significant autocorrelation coefficient at lag one. The variates for the FBE method were found to have constant mean, non-constant variance but with constant autocorrelation coefficient at all lags . Because the CBE variates exhibit stationarity, Best …

Robust Linear Classifier For Unequal Cost Ratios Of Misclassification, Oludare S. Ariyo, A O. Adebanji

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper focuses on the robust classification procedures when the assumption of equal cost of misclassification is violated. A normal distribution based data set is generated using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) version 9.1. Using Barlett’s approximation to chi-square, the data set was found to be homogenous and was subjected to three linear classifiers namely: Maximum Likelihood Discriminant Function (MLDF), Fisher’s linear Discriminant Function and Distance Based Discriminant Function. To Judge the performances of these procedures, the Apparent Error Rates for each procedure is obtained for different cost ratios 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 and 1:5 and sample sizes 5:5, 10:10, …

Global Financial Meltdown And The Reforms In The Nigerian Banking Sector, Sanusi L. Sanusi

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

The paper examined the global financial meltdown and the reforms in the Nigerian banking sector. It was a public speech by the formal Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria that observed the extent and severity of the crisis that began with the bursting of the housing bubble in the United States in August 2007 reflects the confluence of myriad of factors some of which are familiar from previous crises, while others are new. As in previous times of financial turmoil, the pre-crisis period was characterized by (i) surging asset prices that proved unsustainable; (ii) a prolonged credit expansion leading …

Does That Pay Practice Really Have Any Impact?, Kevin F. Hallock

Economics Faculty Publications

Few organizations take the time to credibly study whether some pay, benefits, work-life balance or other total rewards practices have any impact on the organizations' bottom line or employee outcomes like productivity or turnover. It's too difficult to do well, organizations don't actually want to know the answer, and/or organizations don't have the know-how or time. One successfully executed, evidence-based study of a new compensation practice is Safelite AutoGlass. Edward Lazear compared the productivity change worker by worker, for only those employees present under both pay arrangements. Lazear found that not only did productivity increase after the change from hourly …

Using Monte Carlo Simulations To Establish A New House Price Stress Test, James R. Follain, Seth H. Giertz

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

The focus of this paper is on the house price stress test (termed ALMO) that was designed to assess the fiscal strength of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and, if necessary, to trigger remedial action in order to avert a crisis. We assess whether the ALMO stress test was an adequate representation of an extremely weak housing market, given the best available information leading up to the Great Recession. A Monte Carlo simulation model is developed to estimate the severity of low probability events (i.e., severe house price declines). We illustrate the complexity and subjective nature of the process used …

A Martingale Approach For Testing Diffusion Models Based On Infinitesimal Operator, Zhaogang Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

I develop an omnibus specification test for diffusion models based on the infinitesimal operator. The infinitesimal operator based identification of the diffusion process is equivalent to a “martingale hypothesis” for the processes obtained by a transformation of the original diffusion model. My test procedure is then constructed by checking the “martingale hypothesis” via a multivariate generalized spectral derivative based approach that delivers a  asymptotical null distribution for the test statistic. The infinitesimal operator of the diffusion process is a closed-form function of drift and diffusion terms. Consequently, my test procedure covers both univariate and multivariate diffusion models in a unified …

The Family And Medical Leave Act: Effects On Women's Wages And Employment, Andrea E. Miller

Honors Theses

For many years, women's labor force participation and issues of parental leave have been of great importance not only to families and individuals, but also to policy makers, researchers, and employers alike. The Family and Medical Leave Act was the first federal policy enacted in an effort to accommodate medical leave for employees. The Family and Medical Leave Act allowed both men and women to take extended, unpaid leaves due to personal or family medical and health issues. The FMLA establishes a federal, minimum leave threshold in order for employees to take such an extended leave to include the following …

The Implications Of Sovereign Wealth Fund Investment On Capital Markets: A Bottom-Up View, David Fernandez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The buzz around sovereign wealth funds has been turned down a notch, but they remain a hot topic. The accusations of sovereign wealth funds having hidden agendas remain, but with the very public losses suffered by some during the recent financial turmoil, such talk has even less credibility. And given that most of those losses were from investments in US, UK, and European financial institutions, hope that sovereign wealth funds would be the saviors of Wall Street has also faded. At its base, four trends continue to keep sovereign wealth funds in focus. First, there is the phenomenal rise of …

The Use Of Role-Player Prompts In Assessment Center Exercises, Eveline Schollaert, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

So far, a substantial amount of assessment center (AC) studies have aimed to improve the quality of the AC method by focusing on the assessors. However, systematic studies about the role-player in AC exercises are nonexistent. This is surprising as the role-player might serve as a key figure for consistently evoking job-relevant behavior across candidates. Therefore, this study focused on the 'role' of role-players in ACs. We examined the effects of instructing role-players to use prompts among 233 candidates. Results suggest that role-players are able to use prompts and that their negative impact on candidates' reactions is negligible. In addition, …