Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Economics Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

West Virginia University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 271 - 300 of 686

Full-Text Articles in Economics

Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, And Sports Television Viewing Audience Size, Brad R. Humphreys, Leví Pérez Nov 2017

Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, And Sports Television Viewing Audience Size, Brad R. Humphreys, Leví 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 …

Go to article

An Overview Of Sports Betting Regulation In The United States, Brad R. Humphreys Nov 2017

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

Go to article

Efficiency, But At What Cost? Evidence From A Dea Analysis Of Wv School Districts, Eduardo Guimaraes Minuci, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall Oct 2017

Efficiency, But At What Cost? Evidence From A Dea Analysis Of Wv School Districts, Eduardo Guimaraes Minuci, Amir Borges Ferreira Neto, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

West Virginia schools are consistently below the national average on the NAEP. Using Data Envelopment Analysis, we estimate the technical efficiency of West Virginia school districts. We find less variation in technical efficiency in West Virginia than in similar studies conducted in other states. This appears to be because of state policy imposing homogeneity of input usage. Due to the limited variation in technical efficiency across districts, we cannot analyze how non-school inputs such as socioeconomic factors affect technical efficiency across districts. Summary statistics organized by county economic status, however, suggest that socioeconomic status plays a role. Our results highlight …

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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

Go to article

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. Slusky Aug 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. Slusky

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.

Go to article

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

Go to article

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

The Effect Of Superstar Players On Game Attendance: Evidence From The Nba, Brad R. 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 outcomes. 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.

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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

The Relative Value Of Aer P&P Economic Education Papers, J. R. Clark, Joshua C. Hall, Ashley S. 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 Commit- tees. 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 …

Go to article

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

Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata Approach, Adam D. 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 …

Go to article

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

Some Remarks On Real Estate Pricing, Crocker H. Liu, Adam D. 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 …

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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

Go to article

Agent Intermediation And Racial Price Differentials, Adam D. Nowak, Patrick S. Smith Jun 2017

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

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

In most housing transactions the home buyer and seller do not meet, in which case the buyer's race is not revealed and the seller cannot discriminate against them. Despite this fact, previous studies estimate racial price differentials based on the race of the home buyer. In this study we identify the dimensions along which differential treatment occurs in housing markets. We show that home buyers disproportionately hire real estate agents of the same race and that the race of the agent, not the home buyer, is the primary mechanism of discrimination. The results of this study have important implications for …

Go to article

Economies Of Scale And Governance Of Library Systems: Evidence From West Virginia, Amir B. Ferreira Neto, Joshua Hall Jun 2017

Economies Of Scale And Governance Of Library Systems: Evidence From West Virginia, Amir B. Ferreira Neto, Joshua Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Public libraries are a billion dollar industry in the United States. We explore the institutional determinants of public library technical efficiency using data from West Virginia. We first document considerable cross-district variation in library efficiency. While the average library district in our sample is between 81% and 90% efficient depending upon the year and measure, there are many district years that are under 50%. We then explain our technical efficiency measures as a function of institutional variables reflecting the type of district and sources of funding. We find consistent evidence that urban libraries are more inefficient, perhaps because they are …

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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

Chinese Superstition And Real Estate Prices: Transaction-Level Evidence From The Us Housing Market, Brad R. Humphreys, Adam D. 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 identifiers 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 …

Go to article

Out Of The Outhouse: The Impact Of Place-Based Policies On Dwelling Characteristics In Appalachia, Daniel S. Grossman, Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseski Apr 2017

Out Of The Outhouse: The Impact Of Place-Based Policies On Dwelling Characteristics In Appalachia, Daniel S. Grossman, Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. Ruseski

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) administers and partially funds investment projects designed to improve economic conditions in the Appalachian Region, an area of persistent poverty and reduced economic opportunity in the eastern US in and around the Appalachian mountains. Previous research on the effectiveness of ARC programs is mixed. We analyze the impact of ARC investment projects related to expanding sewerage and waste water treatment on dwelling characteristics. Results from a difference-in-differences model using a quasi experimental approach show that ARC investment projects improved access to running water, and increased sewer hook-ups and indoor bathrooms in dwellings.

Go to article

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.

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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.

Go to article

Professional Sporting Events And Traffic: Evidence From Us Cities, Brad R. Humphreys, Hyunwoong Pyun Mar 2017

Professional Sporting Events And Traffic: Evidence From Us Cities, Brad R. Humphreys, Hyunwoong Pyun

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Sporting events concentrate people at specific locations on game day. No empirical evidence currently exists linking sporting events to local traffic conditions. We analyze urban mobility data from 25 US metropolitan areas with MLB teams over the period 1990 to 2014 to assess the relationship between local traffic and Major League Baseball (MLB) games. Instrumental variable regression results indicate MLB attendance causes increases in local vehicle-miles traveled. At the sample average attendance of 2.8 million, average daily vehicle-miles traveled increases by about 6.9% in cities with MLB teams. Traffic congestion increases by 2%, suggesting that MLB games generate congestion externalities.

Go to article

Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata, Adam Nowak Mar 2017

Homeowner Preferences After September 11th, A Microdata, Adam Nowak

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The existence of homeowner preferences - specifically homeowners' 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 on local preferences for Arab neighbors. We test for changes in preferences using a differences-in-differences framework 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 1.5% discount in the 180 days after 9/11. The results are robust to a number of specifications including time horizon, event date, distance, alternative ethnic groups, and …

Go to article

The Efficient Corruption Hypothesis And The Dynamics Between Economic Freedom, Corruption, And National Income, Joshua C. Hall, John Levendis Mar 2017

The Efficient Corruption Hypothesis And The Dynamics Between Economic Freedom, Corruption, And National Income, Joshua C. Hall, John Levendis

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Income, economic freedom, and corruption interact in complex ways as all three variables are arguably endogenous. We explicitly model this endogeneity using a panel VAR framework. The pVAR models we estimate are able to explicitly model this endogeneity better than the single-equation panel data models previously used in the literature. Using data on corruption and income from the World Bank and economic freedom from the Fraser Institute, we provide evidence that corruption and the absence of economic freedom have a negative effect on national income.

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

Do Tourists Tip More Than Consumer? Evidence Of Taxi Rides In New York City, Amir B. Neto, Adam Nowak, Amanda Ross Jan 2017

Do Tourists Tip More Than Consumer? Evidence Of Taxi Rides In New York City, Amir B. Neto, Adam Nowak, Amanda Ross

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

We revisit the mechanisms that drive tipping behavior by comparing tourists and locals in New York City. It is unlikely a tourist will tip as a way of enforcing repeated interactions since they are not from the area, while a local may tip as an enforcement mechanism. However, if people tip because of social norms, we should see both tourists and locals tipping similar amounts. We compare locals and tourists who are theatergoers to control for education and income, as these factors are likely to affect tipping behavior. Using data from the New York City and Limousine Commission on yellow …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last